Chapter Text
"Maybe they've been cursed since the day their Chapter was founded."
"Then they met their Gene-Sire, Sanguinius, and just like that, all the suffering and bad luck seemed to stop. Twenty-nine of them, Chapter Master Phoros included, all made it through the Rubicon Primaris. And mind you, even now, that surgery is no small risk."
On the bridge, Kaelen was chatting with Kullen.
After Sanguinius accepted the Lamenters, the entire Chapter immediately signed on for the Primaris ascension. To Kaelen's surprise, every last one of them made it through.
He couldn't help but marvel at it. Maybe meeting Sanguinius had bled the curse out of them. After all that bitterness, finally something sweet, and that was no small thing.
"I heard you actually put in for the Primaris surgery too? Weren't you dead set against it before? What changed your mind all of a sudden?"
"A whim."
The old knight's voice was low. He'd submitted his application right after the Lamenters did.
To Kaelen, the move didn't add up. A whim didn't explain a stubborn knight reversing himself, not unless it actually mattered to him.
The mortal narrowed his eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched up. He had a guess.
"Let me see — you're doing it for the Lion, aren't you? For the Fallen Angels too. Some kind of show-off thing? Or maybe... like how regular folks fix their hair before stepping out the door?"
After nearly five years together, Kaelen had this rigid old knight figured out pretty well.
And his words landed squarely on the mark.
Kullen put on a scowl, his voice gruff.
"Is there a point to saying it out loud like that?"
"Hey, you're a Son of the Lion. Lions are cats, and as everyone knows, cats are prickly little divas." Kaelen folded his arms and let out a snort of laughter.
Then the laughter died. After a long moment, he asked:
"Are you going back? Back to the First Legion?"
Kullen didn't know how to answer.
He remembered the first day he'd met Horus and Kaelen. The reason he'd followed them at all was because this kid had told him the Lion would return. And now, that reunion was almost here.
The old knight wasn't excited anymore. If anything, he felt reluctant to leave.
He was silent for a long while before answering.
"Yeah."
"That's a real shame." Kaelen sighed, as if mourning something on Kullen's behalf. "Horus is rebuilding his Legion, but he's short on senior officers and command staff. You'd fit a role like that."
"The Sons of the Shadowed Moon..."
Kullen spoke the Legion's name, then asked, "Is he planning to fill it entirely with his own gene-sons?"
"No. Horus is hand-picking Primaris who specialize in assault and decapitation strikes. Doesn't matter whose gene-line they come from."
Kaelen shook his head.
"He's already learned that lesson the hard way, hasn't he?"
Kullen gave a soft grunt and didn't comment.
"I trust the Wolf-Father won't pull a stunt like that again."
"Who knows about the future? We're not Konrad, we don't get visions. And even if we could see ahead, it'd just be one thread of fate." Kaelen was half-talking to himself now. Then he frowned and nudged Kullen with his elbow.
"You sure about this, kid?"
Kullen turned his head toward him.
"Going to miss me?"
"Honestly? A little, yeah. The three of us — a mortal, an Astartes, and a Primarch — after this long, it'd be a lie to say there's nothing there."
"But you've chosen to go back to the Lion. We can't stop you, can we? Friends respect each other."
Friends...
Will the Lion agree to take me back?
Kullen asked it silently, to himself.
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"I grant it to any son who is called Fallen."
The Lion said.
He, his sons, and the fleet of Avalon had just turned back an attack from a Thousand Eyes warband. Too few of his sons stood at his side to form a real fighting force, so the Lion had issued new orders to Zabriel: find more of the Fallen.
"If they have not embraced the power of ruin, and have not turned against the Imperium, then I will ask their aid. I will not command them to return and swear fealty."
"And if they refuse to return to me, then they may come and go as they please, provided they do not stand against me or the Imperium. That is all."
"Your will, my lord."
Zabriel was stunned. So was Sevatar.
A Primarch who had once been defined by his need for control, now asking his sons for help rather than crushing them into obedience.
Once Zabriel was gone, Sevatar's mouth twisted into a cold smirk.
"Is this a stratagem, my lord? Pretty words to lure your sons in, and then force their oaths once they arrive?"
"You doubt my sincerity, Sevatar?"
The Lion gave him a cold look.
"I have recognized the mistakes I made. I will not repeat them. So I will ask my sons for their help. Coercion is not on the table."
"If you'd held that attitude during the Great Crusade, perhaps the Warmaster of Ullanor wouldn't have been Lord Horus. Perhaps it would have been you."
The Prince of Crows' jab didn't touch him. El'Jonson simply felt unusually calm. The fresh victory in the void, maybe?
No. He was the Lion, master of the First Legion. Victories were fruit within easy reach. He would not be made joyful by one, nor would he be made angry by Sevatar's mockery.
There was only one goal in his mind now. Like the days when he'd hunted as a wild thing in the forests of Caliban, tracking a great beast with absolute focus, deaf to everything else.
"You're right, Sevatar."
"If I had held that attitude during the Great Crusade, perhaps much would have been different. Your gene-father Konrad's mind, for one. Perhaps he should not have followed that vain, posturing Fulgrim. Perhaps he should have followed me, because I would have forged him into a blade of judgment."
The Lion let out a scornful laugh. It set Sevatar's teeth on edge.
He didn't accept that his Gene-Sire was the Lion's lesser. And if Konrad had followed the Lion rather than the Phoenician, things might well have ended worse.
Sevatar opened his mouth to answer, and the words caught in his throat.
Forest vines were rising from behind the Lion's back, and a slow mist rolled out with them, spreading across the bridge.
"What is this?"
Sevatar's disbelief was plain.
The Lion looked unsurprised.
"It seems to be a power of mine. I can open the forest. It has opened again, and I can feel it calling me."
He turned to leave. Then his step caught. He looked sideways, at Sevatar.
"Come with me."
He said.
"Afraid your hostage will run off?"
"No. I sense, faintly, a voice deep in the forest calling your name. Instinct tells me to bring you."
"Instinct? That hardly squares with the Imperial Truth. Least of all from a loyalist Primarch like you." The Prince of Crows sneered.
"Do you really think anything in this age can still be explained by the Imperial Truth?"
The Lion's emerald eyes carried a faint, intermittent weight, a pressure that brushed against Sevatar's skin. He drew a slow breath.
"Fine, then."
Under the astonished stares of the crew, the two of them vanished into the mist. And once they were gone, the mist and vines vanished with them, leaving the bridge empty.