In order to recapture a battleship, they lost another battleship and their leader. When they broke away from the pursuit, the warriors of Broken Eagle felt that they were trapped in a dark and ironic joke.
He was the only one walking in the dark cabin with complicated emotions.
Finally, he came to the navigation room.
The lighting in the navigation room is stronger than that in other rooms and corridors of the ship, illuminated by the grainy light of nearly thirty display screens used for external image feedback.
They cast their gray glare across the navigation room, bleaching the central circular platform like snow. The smell of nutrient solution wafts in the air.
She is not in the water.
In the months since they captured the Cursed Echo, when she's needed to maintain her deepest connection with the ship's machine spirit, even if half of her hull has been grazed or purged by flames, Navigator O Tavia will use Nutrient Pool 5.
The former pharmacist of the Eighth Legion and current leader of the Broken Eagle warband is also a prophet. Talos Valcoran, nicknamed "Soul Hunter", has had contact with and understood the former prisoners of the pilot room, and can also deeply understand the vast majority of pilots. The reason why members of the team refused to stay in the nutrient solution for too long.
The air in Octavia's private space was a mixture of subtle leaks of chemical smells, the ticking sound of sweat, the moldy edges of her books and the not unpleasant smell of natural oils in her hair, even though she had just washed.
Talos walked around the pool and approached the seat facing the monitor.
Each screen showed a different position of the ship's hull, as well as the void above them, with several showing the worlds they orbited, and the contrasting moon.
"Ottavia."
She opened her eyes and looked at him with some vague sleepiness, but it quickly disappeared.
Octavia's dark hair was tied into a ponytail, hanging from a silk handkerchief.
"you're awake."
She said without stopping what she was doing.
"Just like you."
"Yes, even though I don't want to wake up."
Her lips formed a half-smile.
"What did you dream about?"
"I remember basically nothing."
The warrior pointed to the world on the screen in front of her.
"Do you know the name of this world?"
She nodded.
"Setimus told me, I don't know why you want to come back here."
Talos shook his head.
"I don't know either. My memory is still in the fragments before I was knocked unconscious by the vision."
He sighed.
"Home, at least our second home, is in Nostram
After that, there is Sargulhasa, a world of decay. "
"It has been colonized, albeit with a small population, and colonization has only begun recently."
"I know."
"So what do you want to do?"
"I have no idea."
Octavia turned and sat in her seat, still wrapped in her silken blanket.
"It's always cold in this house."
She looked up at him, waiting for him to speak.
When he was speechless, he realized that he had nothing to say.
"It's difficult to sail here, the Star Torch doesn't shine this far from Terra, and the Fringe is darker than darkness."
"Can I ask what this feels like?"
The navigator played with the bobby pins in her hair as she spoke.
"The subspace is dark here, completely dark. The colors here are all black. Can you imagine a thousand black shadows, each one darker than the last?"
He shook his head.
"You're asking me to imagine a different concept than the physical universe."
"It's cold.
"She said, turning her face sideways.
"How can a color become cold? In the darkness, I can feel the existence that is intolerable to common sense: the screams of souls rushing straight into the hull, and the indifferent tumors that travel alone,"
"Tumor?"
"That's the only way I can describe them. Huge, entities of indescribable venom and pain, malicious intelligence."
Talos nodded.
"Maybe it's the souls of false gods."
"How can they be called hypocrisy if they are real?"
"I have no idea."
She shivered.
"The place we sailed before, even if it was far away from the Star Torch, was still illuminated by the Emperor's light. No matter how far we sailed, you could always see shadows scratching the edges, invisible demons swimming through the liquid torment... But I can’t see anything here. It’s not that I can’t find a way through the storm. I’ve been well-trained, but this is simply a blind man’s search for a way, as if it was wiped out by the sound of wind that disappeared in an instant.”
At this moment, he was disturbed by the similarity between her experience and his own vision.
"But we got here and did a great job."
"I also became aware of other things, small creations that were gentler than the warp around them, like eyes that looked at me when I brought the ship closer."
"Should we take this seriously?"
Octavia shrugged.
"I don't know, maybe it's just one of hundreds of crazy people."
"We're here and that's what matters."
Another silence fell between the two of them.
This time, it was Talos who spoke first.
"A long time ago, we had a fortress here, a castle made of black stone and twisted spiers. Our primarch dreamed of it one night, and then it took hundreds of thousands of slaves to build it. It took more than twenty years .”
He paused, and Octavia stared at the cold skull on his faceplate, waiting for him to continue.
Talos took a rough breath, which turned into a roar from the loudspeaker.
"The core sanctuary is called the Screaming Gallery. Has anyone ever mentioned this?"
She shook her head.
"No, never."
"The original body transformed this eternal world to match the original sin in his mind, building walls with flesh and blood... Living people were cast into the style of this building, as delicate as if it had been processed by witchcraft, and the ground was covered with machines. A living face made by servants.
He shook his head, this memory was so strong that it would never fade away.
"Those screams, Octavia, you'll never hear a sound like that, they never stop! People cast into the walls, crying to get out, faces on the floor wailing and crying."
She forced herself to smile an unfeeling smile.
"That sounds like the warp."
He glanced at her and muttered a thank you.
"Sorry, you know exactly what that sounds like,"
She nodded but said nothing more.
"The most evil thing is that you become immune to this crying chorus, and those painful sounds become bearable. After a while, you find that you are enjoying it very much. When you are surrounded by sin, your thinking becomes simpler. The torture was meaningless at first, and then it turned into music."
The prophet was silent for a while.
"Of course that's what he wanted, he wanted us to understand the Legion's teachings, just like he believed in."
Octavia started to panic again as Talos knelt on the edge of his seat.
"I learned nothing from this senseless atrocity."
He unlocked the collar around his neck with a sigh and took off his helmet.
She was shocked again.
He would have been handsome—if it weren't for his cold eyes and corpse-white complexion.
Talos was like a statue, a demigod carved from marble, charming in its monotony but also unfit to behold.
"This is not a senseless atrocity, this is a lesson. The Primarch understands law and order - civilization can only continue based on the fear of punishment. Man is not a peaceful animal. He is a creation of war and conflict. Want to force these beasts For us to be civilized, there must be someone who reminds those who harm the common people that they will be tortured... Once upon a time, we were convinced that the Emperor wanted us to take on this important task. He wanted us to be the Angels of Death. Once upon a time, we were the Angels of Death."
After nearly a minute or so, she blinked.
In many long conversations in the past, he had never revealed so many details.
"Please continue."
She strives for more.
"But some say he betrayed us, once our role was fulfilled, and others claim that the collar should be loosened, that we have taken our role too far and that we have become Killed the beast we were meant to suppress."
He saw the doubt flash in her eyes.
"None of that matters, what matters is how it starts and how it ends."
The lights flickered at this moment and then went out.
The warrior and the navigator held on for a few heartbeats in the darkness, obscured only by the dim light of their armor's eyepieces and the gray screen.
"This has been happening more and more recently. Before, the Blood Covenant hated me, but now the Cursed Echo hates all of us."
"Interesting superstition."
He responded, and suddenly the lights came back on, and the topic was not continued.
For a long time, the two faced each other in silence.
"Did you have no one to lead the team after your father's death?"
"The Legion was scattered into companies and Chapters, each following his master... The Primarch's presence inspired us to unite. Without him, many marauding warbands traveled further out from Sargulatha and stayed outside. longer.”
When Talos said this, he couldn't hide the sadness in his words.
"Over the years, many people have not returned. There are many captains or lords who have claimed that they are the descendants of the Midnight Ghost, but every claim has been refuted by others. Now no one can unite the rebel legions. The fact is It was just that, despite my loathing for him, Abaddon's success made him stand out among us, and his name spread throughout the Imperium, Abaddon the Despoiler, Abaddon the Chosen, not Horus."
Octavia shuddered uncontrollably, she knew the name, she had heard it in whispers in the halls of power on Terra.
Abaddon, the Enemy, the Death of the Imperium, words of his triumph in the last centuries of humanity flowed from beneath the throne of the Emperor.
"Only one person."
Talos changed the subject.
"Only one person can keep his title without being betrayed by his brothers. At least he can survive the betrayal of his brothers so far. But even he has struggled to reunite the legion, but there are too many ideas in the legion. There are too many conflicts and expectations.”
"His name?"
"Iago Severtarion."
The prophet said quietly:
"We call him the Crow Prince, but it is said that he died during the siege of the Royal Palace of Terra, long after my father died."
She hesitated before speaking.
"Marcusen and I talked about him."
"Marcusen came to talk to you?"
The navigator grinned. Her teeth were whiter than every member of the team. It seemed that her time as a slave was still too short.
"You're not the only one here to tell stories, you know."
"What did he say?"
"He is your brother, and he is someone you have never bothered to kill. You should be able to guess."
The prophet's dark eyes flashed with some repressed emotion that she couldn't call happy or bored.
"I still don't quite understand Markushen."
"He most often recounted the Great Rebellion. He told me of his brothers dying on the walls of the Emperor's Palace, or of the Holy War against the Angels, and of the centuries that followed. He loved to chronicle these, to record them. Do you know what he did and died?"
Talos shook his head, he had no idea.
"What did he say about the Prince of Crows?"
"He said Sevatar was not dead."
These words brought a ghostly smile to the prophet's lips.
"That's a really funny lie. Every legion has its secrets and myths. The World Eaters also said that one of their captains was promoted to the Chosen One by the blood-thirsty gods."
Octavia didn't smile.
"When will you land?"
"immediately."
