"When the brave grow angry, they draw their blade against the strong; when the cowardly grow angry, they draw their blade against the weak."
Caelan dipped his finger into ointment and carefully spread it over Angron's wounds. The boy's tense muscles shivered under the cool touch, and an involuntary whimper, like that of a wounded cub, escaped him.
"Am I a brave one, then?"
"In my heart, you will always be brave."
"How about compared to my brothers?"
"You are all brave."
Though the Primarchs walked divergent paths, their purpose was the same: to save humanity and to take pride in that mission.
During the Great Crusade, nearly every Legion protected mortals, except the World Eaters and the Iron Warriors.
The World Eaters were shackled by the Butcher's Nails; the Iron Warriors cared only for the efficiency of siege and conquest. One who doesn't value his own life could hardly value another's.
But that era is gone; there will be no more Legions of the Butcher's Nails. Caelan believed Angron would become the man he was meant to be.
The Primarchs were malleable by nature. Even in the canonical timeline, after the Nails were hammered into him, Angron never became a complete puppet of rage.
When he accidentally killed his adoptive father, he wept.
Even while consumed by fury, he led the gladiators in rebellion.
Though that uprising ended in failure, the compassion Angron showed his fellow gladiators, his brothers and sisters, proved there was more to him than anger.
He mourned their deaths, gave up his food when they starved, and when all provisions were gone, he even fed them with his own blood.
The Butcher's Nails were never his fault. The blame lay with Nuceria's dark science.
Just like Colchis, Prospero, and Barbarus, Nuceria too bore the fingerprints of the Four Chaos Gods.
Even so, Angron retained a deeply human soul. His body may have been chemically altered, his mind engineered to know only rage, but his spirit remained unbroken.
He tore the Emperor's Custodians apart in wrath; he slew his own sons in madness.
But he also longed for the gladiators who had fallen beside him, and dreamed of dying a warrior's death among them.
He wished he had died on Nuceria, shoulder to shoulder with his kin, instead of being stolen away by a man who called himself his Father.
During the Great Crusade, not a single deed of the World Eaters pleased the Emperor.
For Angron never followed orders completely: when the Emperor said "conquer," Angron heard "slaughter."
He conquered worlds inefficiently, at terrible cost, and his net contribution to the Crusade was nearly negative.
Even so, the Emperor insisted on keeping him as a Legion Commander, punishing Lorgar, but never Angron.
The Emperor's logic was always... beyond comprehension.
Sometimes Caelan truly wanted to crack open the man's skull just to see what sort of wiring lay inside.
Once, Angron had been a coward. He could tear his own sons to pieces in rage, yet before the Emperor, he dared not even breathe too loud.
Only when Horus's banner turned red with rebellion did he, like a mangy dog startled awake, drag his festering pride back into battle.
He didn't rebel out of courage, but because someone else had stepped forward to bear the Emperor's gaze.
Even his hatred was borrowed, secondhand fury worn like a general's cloak over a beggar's back.
"Did I... disappoint you?"
Angron's head sank low. His voice rasped and broke, each word bleeding from deep within his chest.
Caelan froze mid-motion. He had forgotten, Angron could hear his thoughts.
Everything that had flashed through his mind now lay bare between them, exposed and raw.
"Don't think too much. That's not the real you, nor the you that will be. Look at yourself now: aren't you already rewriting your fate?"
Caelan brushed away the dried blood between Angron's brows, as if erasing invisible scars.
"History won't repeat itself, because I am here. Don't you believe me?"
"No one believes in you more than I do!" Angron's roar shattered the silence, like a hammer smashing frozen glass.
"And I believe in you," Caelan smiled faintly, "so you must believe in yourself. Don't chain your feet with the shadows of futures that may never come. The storm I foresee need not be your destiny; it is but one of countless possibilities."
He laid a gentle hand on Angron's head, his fingers brushing through the boy's wild hair.
Angron was right; no one understood each other better than they did.
Caelan treated all his brothers with honesty, but only with Angron did his soul truly resonate, nothing hidden, nothing restrained.
Angron was unique, possessing gifts no other Primarch, not even the Emperor, could match.
"Those people... what happened to them?" Angron asked quietly.
Caelan heard the worry in his voice. Angron was no slave. When the games ended, he could return to the palace, where Caelan would tend to his wounds.
But the other slaves weren't so lucky.
They should have died in the pits, and even if they'd survived, the highborn knights would never let them live.
Not through direct murder, but through "rigged duels" that no one could survive.
"I bought them," Claudia's voice purred with lazy satisfaction, her tone lilting like a cat playing with silk. "Now you can train them, make them your warriors."
Caelan raised a brow. "They agreed?"
"Why wouldn't they?" She tilted her head, lips curling into a perfect smile as her finger tapped her chest. "They'll profit handsomely from it. And who would ever suspect me? Would I betray my own class?"
Even if the truth came out, no one would believe that a noblewoman like Claudia had betrayed her own kind.
Slaves and commoners betrayed upward, dreaming of rising, even if it meant licking a noble's boots or becoming their dogs.
But the highborn had nowhere higher to climb. To betray their class was to walk willingly to the guillotine.
How many had that kind of resolve?
In Caelan's experience, very few.
Back in the M2 era, there had been visionaries like that, men and women of ideals greater than their status.
But Nuceria bred none of those. Claudia's betrayal wasn't born of ideals; it was born of lust.
'She just wants my body,' Caelan thought flatly.
'Love-brained women are terrifying.'
His thoughts flowed openly into Angron's mind. Angron nodded silently. 'Father was right. Claudia was terrifying.'
Still, neither harbored any intent to harm her. She had risked everything to help them; to repay that with cruelty would make them less than human.
Even the Emperor wouldn't sink so low.
"My poor child..." Claudia's tone softened suddenly. Her fingers brushed Angron's cheek as delicately as if he were porcelain that might shatter.
"Look what they've done to you..." she whispered, her voice trembling like fractured crystal.
Tears welled in her eyes, catching the moonlight like dew. One drop slid down her pale cheek, falling onto Angron's hand, clear against the stains of blood.
Angron stayed silent. He could read her mind, and she knew that. Yet still she showed genuine care.
Her concern wasn't feigned, but it wasn't pure either. It was care born from her love for Caelan.
Her goal never changed: she wanted his father. And that desire only grew stronger.
Her tears fell with perfect precision, not enough to smudge her makeup, just enough to sparkle heartbreakingly.
"Angron, my child," she sobbed, shoulders trembling in a carefully measured rhythm. Then, suddenly, she collapsed forward like a puppet with its strings cut, burying her face in Caelan's chest.
"Don't cry."
Caelan had to catch her to keep her from falling. Now he had to comfort both Angron and Claudia, his patience wearing thin.
'You're both adults, why are you like this?'
Angron knew she was acting. Caelan knew she was acting. But what could they do, slap her?
That wouldn't be very Sigmar-like.
"My heart aches," Claudia wept. "How could they treat our child this way?"
Her perfume mixed with tears, soaking Caelan's shirt.
But Angron saw it, the fleeting curve of triumph at the corner of her mouth when she lowered her head.
Angron shut his mouth. Whatever, none of this concerned him.
'She meant no real harm. If she wanted to "claim victory" over Father, so be it.'
'Even if she got her way, what was the worst that could happen? A few new siblings? Out of twenty, what's two more?'
'If Father didn't object, how could I?'
She just wanted to be his mother. What crime was that?
At least she wasn't his real mother.
Beyond the palace's shadow, through three high walls, Angron found them, in a desolate estate bathed in moonlight pale as a burial shroud.
They crouched by a fountain, washing wounds and drinking water, the new chains on their ankles scraping stone with metallic groans.
Claudia had given them better shackles, silver rings gleaming gently in the dark, like cruel ornaments.
Angron understood. It wasn't her sadism; it was protection.
The chains marked them as her property. Without them, they could be killed by anyone, anywhere, without consequence.
A girl polishing her ankle ring looked up first. Through her straw-colored hair, her eyes gleamed like tarnished brass nails buried in ash.
When her gaze met Angron's, her joints cracked, and she slowly rose, as if pulled upward by unseen strings.
Then another, and another.
The clinking of chains spread through the crowd like a plague. Bent spines straightened; trembling knees locked with stubborn pride.
One rose too quickly, his shackles tore open an old wound, but he pressed his bleeding feet deeper into the dirt.
"Sit. However, you find comfort," Angron said softly.
His voice was a calm breeze through the night, no psychic force, no fear.
Only peace.
They could even hear their own blood flow, slow, heavy, like an underground river grinding at its bonds.
"Freedom is not a gift, it is a battle!" Angron's words struck like a dull axe against frozen ground. "I will not give it to you, but I will lead you to take it with your own hands!"
"The weight of choice is yours to bear. Rebellion is the key to freedom!"
His voice cut through the silence like a crack in ice.
"If you choose freedom, then follow me, and together we'll shatter the chains of the old world! I cannot promise you'll live to see the dawn... but I swear to you, the dawn will come!"
"What a wonderful child," Claudia murmured, leaning against Caelan. Her voice was soaked in moonlight.
"Moved, are you?" Caelan asked.
She said nothing, just nodded against his chest, her hair brushing his chin.
"Then could you please put the wine glass down?"
"There's some of my saliva on it. Want a sip?" she teased, swirling the amber liquid under candlelight.
Caelan ignored her. 'Who the hell drinks wine while pretending to be touched?'
He didn't expect true idealism from her. Actions mattered more than motives.
To betray one's class was far more valuable than to think noble thoughts. Claudia had crossed that line; he had no right to demand more.
A lady who dared touch a slave's shackles was already a heretic among nobles. What, did he expect her to smell their rot, too?
Even Caelan himself wasn't that saintly.
He could break chains and preach freedom, but he wouldn't lick a slave's wounds.
Not even Claudia's.
But Angron was different. He would.
Out of compassion. Out of empathy.
When he touched others, their emotions flooded back into him, like waves lapping the shore.
He didn't just sympathize. He felt.
And every time he used that gift, it hurt him too.
Caelan saw him approach. "Not staying a bit longer?"
Angron shook his head. He'd said all he needed to say. He wanted to spend what little quiet time remained with his father.
"Claudia," he said politely.
She stroked his cheek. "Sweet boy, call me mother."
He didn't. "Thank you, Claudia, for going to such expense."
"Expense?" she smiled slyly, eyes glittering with calculation. "My dear child, this was an investment. I bet on all of you surviving. Do you know the odds? One to a thousand. I used only a fraction of that to buy them. If you keep winning, maybe I'll use my winnings to buy the entire arena before you revolt."
"You really believe in Angron?" Caelan asked, studying her. Even he hadn't expected Angron to save everyone, but Claudia had bet everything on him.
"Darling," she whispered, biting his ear until pain blurred with heat, "I don't believe in him. I believe in you."
Angron looked down. 'This stepmother is completely insane.'
'But madness or not, it didn't matter. Without Father's approval, she would never be mother.'
"With your heart as the mirror, you will see the true nature of the Warp."
Enor leaned close to Mira's ear, her breath warm against the girl's skin.
"Relax," she whispered, voice soft as moonlit water. "Let the Warp flow through your veins, like spring wind brushing newborn leaves."
Her slender fingers rested on Mira's trembling wrist.
"Don't look with your eyes. It breathes between all things, not in the span of your palm. Feel it... like your heartbeat."
Mira's furrowed brow eased. A faint blue light flickered at her fingertips.
"Yes… that's it."
Enor's lips brushed her ear as she whispered, voice like silken threads weaving through the Warp. "You're not commanding the storm, you're dancing with the stars."
"Listen with your heart. But beware, never let the whispers of Chaos consume you."
Humans were not like the Aeldar.
The Aeldars were born psychic, a race of innate psykers. Their average psychic power far surpassed that of any species, but only a few reached the level of Seers.
Since the fall of their empire, since the birth of She Who Thirsts, the Aeldars had lived like prisoners walking a spider's web, each soul dangling over Slaanesh's tongue.
They dared not use even the faintest ripple of power.
Humanity, however, stood at the brink of psychic ascension.
The race had become a boiling crucible, psykers sparking across the stars like wildfire.
The weakest barely brushed the Warp, glimpsing its reflection as if through fog; the strongest could twist the laws of reality with a gesture, their wills making stars tremble.
Humanity stood upon a knife's edge, between ascension and annihilation.
Beneath the ice lay a hungry abyss; above it, a bridge of light to the stars.
Slim though the hope was, there was still hope.
The power at Mira's fingertips danced like living sprites, gathering into rivers of blue starlight, then scattering into shimmering mist.
Each flex of her hand sent light gliding across her skin like morning dew or swirling around her arms like ribbons of fireflies.
It was alive, playful, affectionate, brushing her wrist, kissing her ear.
Suddenly, Mira threw her arms around Enor. "Sister Enor, thank you!"
Enor gently returned the embrace. After a long pause, she whispered hoarsely,
"Mira… if you truly want to thank me, will you do me a favor?"
Mira nodded eagerly. "Mm! What can I do?"
Enor's fingers tightened around her sleeve. Her silver hair fell forward, hiding eyes full of turmoil.
"Please… ask my master to give me to you. Let me be your servant alone."
"Why?" Mira whispered, stepping back. "Did… did Sister Claudia hurt you?"
"Hurt?" Enor's hand paused, the spoon in her grasp trembling. Ripples shivered across the tea's surface.
"If you mean the body, then I wish it were only that."
For the pain of flesh has limits, but the torment of the soul… knows none.