Work Text:
"Lord Captain? Master van Calox is heading to your chambers."
"Thank you, Vigdis."
Isabella touched the vox-bead and frowned: she wasn't expecting anyone. But she put her book down and habitually checked her wig.
So funny: now she couldn’t imagine herself without it, but in the early days of her Rogue Trader ‘career’ she really hated the damned thing. She knew how important it was to create the right image and to look more like Theodora’s heir than a bald mutant, yet she was still looking for a chance to get rid of the wig, at least in her chambers.
Back then she argued with Abelard until they both got hoarse, but finally, the old seneschal said: “You cannot know when agents of the Inquisition or assassins will visit you, Lord Captain!” Isabella could not argue with such a statement: she really didn’t want to give the assassins the wrong impression of herself.
Well, for now, the Emperor was protecting her from any sort of hired killers, but an agent of the Inquisition was already walking from the elevator to her study.
When he entered the room, Isabella rose from her chair, straightened her dress and nodded politely to her uninvited guest:
"Master van Calox! What do I owe the visit? Hopefully not the new finds on the lower decks. If cult's artifacts were found there again..."
The interrogator froze in the middle of a polite bow:
"Cult's artifacts on the lower decks?"
Isabella bit the tip of her tongue. Oh, right! While they were dealing with the crisis over the Final Dawn amulets, van Calox was still pursuing the cultists on the surface of Rykad Minoris. How could she forget?
Sometimes it seemed to Isabella that Interrogator van Calox had been in her retinue forever. They are right to say that one quickly gets used to all sorts of good things.
“Well, if it’s not about them, it’s for the better. How can I help you?"
Wrinkles cut the skin around van Calox's piercing eyes, and Isabella silently sighed: she said too much and drew his attention. She didn't really have anything to hide but suspected the stack of reports getting dangerously close to the ceiling of van Calox's cabin, and she didn't want to add to it.
"Seneschal Werserian didn't warn about my visit?"
Now it was Isabella's turn to squint suspiciously: her seneschal and the Inquisition interrogator didn't get along, to put it mildly. What deals could they have with each other?
"As you can see, he did not."
“Well,” van Calox bowed again, this time very formally, and his words sounded accordingly to his gesture:
"Seneschal Werserian asked me to help you prepare for the future ceremony of accepting the title. More precisely, the part of it that concerns dancing."
Isabella blinked, hiding her confusion. Then again. And again.
"Abelard asked?" She allowed herself to raise her eyebrows slightly. "You?"
Van Calox smirked, put his arms behind his back, and stood up even straighter than usual, imitating Abelard's military bearing:
“Every soul onboard this ship works for the benefit of the von Valancius dynasty, young man. And since you have no other duties necessary to maintain the well-being of the protectorate...”
“Enough, I beg you,” Isabella couldn’t help but smile slightly. "Master van Calox, you have a talent for imitation."
"More like I have a habit of dealing with a certain type of people. But I must admit that Seneschal Werserian can be quite persuasive."
"That's true. But I'll tell you what I told him already: thank you, but I don't need help."
A strange expression flashed across van Calox's face, so quickly that Isabella didn't have time to catch it. Surprise or... disappointment? Whatever it was, now there is no trace left of it: only icy calm... and a barely noticeable fire in van Calox's eyes.
"So, you can dance?"
Isabella folded her hands on her hem and lowered her head, presenting her most modest smile.
"I heard no complaints."
Van Calox stepped forward, and Isabella felt his presence, suddenly oppressive and unpleasant.
“Forgive me my curiosity,” he began very slowly while going around her in a circle. "But where did you learn to dance? During your service onboard “Blood of Phlebas”, or earlier, on “Penitent Halo”? Dancing is definitely not included in the Scholastia Psykana training program.”
Isabella held her breath. Her heart was pounding, an unpleasant trembling ran through her body, she felt as if being targeted. Why 'as if', though?
The Inquisition's agent had read her dossier, it was as expected and obvious as the fact that he was spying on everything happening on her ship. And still... still.
She raised her chin, caught the Interrogator’s gaze, and said coldly:
“Master van Calox is well-informed about my past."
"Master van Calox is devoted to his duty," he got silent for a moment. "While Heinrix would want to help you.
He stepped back and pinched the bridge of his nose, hiding his frowned brows.
"Forgive me, Lord Captain, I..."
"Isabella."
"Pardon?"
“If Heinrix is here to help me, he'd better get used to my name."
Van Calox's strange, mismatched eyes stared at her without blinking, but she held his gaze and saw the corner of his mouth twitch upward slightly before he said:
"As you wish... Isabella."
But before she had time to catch her breath, Heinrix hit her with a question:
“And now will you tell me why you lied to me? Especially about such a trifle as your dancing skills?"
Isabella turned away and walked to the table, hoping to gain a few minutes to come up with a witty answer. Nothing came to her mind, but was it even worth the effort? Heinrix seemed to be as stubborn as she was.
She tapped her finger on the xenos skulls she had inherited along with the rest of her study, then suppressed a sigh and turned back to her interlocutor.
“I got tired,” Isabella confessed.
And saw her reward: a visible surprise on Heinrix’s face. He didn't expect such an answer... or such sincerity. Well, sometimes honesty truly is the best policy.
“You know, Heinrix, I didn’t intend to become the head of this glorious dynasty. I was... You already know that Theodora’s people pulled me out from the "Phlebas" middle decks. Does your report say where exactly I served?"
“Knowing your specialization as a telepath...” Heinrix thought for a few moments. “I would venture to guess that you were assigned to the disciplinary division. Am I right?
Isabella shook her head and answered shortly:
"Supplies."
This time he almost managed to hide his surprise under the mask of polite interest, but Isabella noticed the already familiar pattern of wrinkles and lines on his face, the angle of his eyebrow, the subtle tilt of his head.
Reading his face was like learning a new language: unbearably difficult, incredibly fascinating. She even lost her breath out of the excitement.
"Congratulations, Heinrix, you've just learned another secret of the von Valancius dynasty. I'm just a junior quartermaster officer."
Heinrix tilted his head a little and nodded to his thoughts.
“That explains why Vladaym Tocara was in such despair after meeting you,” he remarked in a very serious tone. “They say in Footfall that you stripped him to the skin, and I kept wondering how you managed it. But since you're an imperial quartermaster? I have no more questions."
Isabella laughed in surprise, loudly and sincerely, like back in those very 'Phlebas" middle decks, with people who knew her well.
With her people.
She closed her eyes, driving away the strange thought. Then she looked at Heinrix again:
"Well, back to your question... I had to learn a lot of new things recently, and I didn’t want to add dancing to the list. That's all."
Isabella pushed herself away from the table, spread her arms to the sides and shrugged. Then, coming closer to Heinrix, she said:
"Before you object: Abelard gave me a whole lecture. I understand how important all this is, but I still refuse. You can call it a character weakness."
“Isabella,” Heinrix paused as if he was still getting used to feeling her name on his tongue. “It’s not weakness, just stupidity.”
Her pupils dilated, lips parted slightly, fingers trembled — Isabella had already seen her own surprise through the stranger's eyes and knew what it looked like. And judging by Heinrix's focused gaze, now he knew it too.
Stupidity, really?! How quickly she got unused to hearing this word. Even Abelard, who had every right to use it, now chose softer expressions, after their memorable fight in the chaos of the lower decks.
Isabella wasn't angry, she was curious. However, she wasn't going to show this as well.
"Is that so?"
"Unless you plan to even further destabilize the Expanse by renouncing your title..."
Heinrix raised his eyebrows slightly, and Isabella shook her head, answering the question unasked.
"No? Then this problem will catch up with you, sooner or later. You want to save some energy, but you only waste it instead, arguing with me while you might as well just try it."
Such persistence... he needs to gain her trust this much?
Isabella allowed herself a barely noticeable smile.
“It looks like you really want to help me, Heinrix.”
She was looking at his face, waiting for a reaction, and only that's why she managed to notice it. Another fleeting display of emotion, a new word in her vocabulary whose meaning she had yet to learn. But not now — now Isabella allowed him to get out of this conversation:
“I will ask Abelard what arguments he used to light such zeal in you.”
“As I already said, Seneschal Werserian appealed to my sense of duty."
They played 'don't break eye contact' again, and this time Isabella was the first to look away, but not because she couldn’t stand the test. Something was happening under the thickness of age-old ice that had become an integral part of the interrogator’s armor, something very interesting, which could be noticed only from the corner of the eye.
“Well,” Isabella feigned a heavy sigh. "Consider me convinced. So, how's it going to be?"
Turned out, it was going to be boring.
As soon as Isabella realized that she was in for another lecture, she returned to her chair hoping that the massive table, littered with papers and trophies, would serve as a natural shelter and at the same time play into her image of an attentive student.
Well, at the very beginning of it, she tried to delve into Heinrix’s explanations, but he lost her somewhere between the words “square” and “step”. Isabella rested her chin on her fist and simply watched as he paced back and forth in front of her desk, busy with his speech.
Interestingly, he didn't seem interested in his own lecture, he acted as if he was paying off some kind of debt to the Imperium, and yet... It was only an image. Heinrix didn’t even notice that Isabella wasn’t listening to him!
She tried to focus on his words again but quickly gave up, but there was something very pleasant and... calming even, about sitting there just listening to the sound of his voice. Isabella would even risk falling asleep if it weren’t for the persistent thought, annoyingly spinning at the edge of her mind, not wanting to be put into words, until suddenly...
“Dancing is not included in Scholastia Psykana’s training program,” Isabella said quietly. "Heinrix, where did you learn to dance?"
He stopped mid-sentence and turned his head sharply. Isabella noticed the deep shadows that outlined his nodules, and the pause that he needed to answer:
“I have already mentioned that I used to belong to an aristocratic family. I was taught everything that a descendant of a noble house needs to know."
“Until it turned out I was a waste of time ,” Isabella didn't need her powers to “hear” what wasn't said.
She cursed herself in her head: she could have just guessed it, especially since she knew how painfully many psykers perceived the loss of the life they had before the curse manifested itself.
Isabella herself didn't have any “before”: she grew up in the complexes of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, knowing well what she would become.
“So you had to dust off such old skills for my sake?”
“No, not at all” Heinrix’s face was still tense, but his lips formed a smirk. “You won’t believe how often such skills have come in handy in my service to the Golden Throne. But enough..."
“Of this conversation.” Isabella finished in her head and even caught herself on feeling upset... until she realized that she had guessed wrong:
“...enough theory, Isabella.”
Heinrix stepped forward, bowed, and extended his hand to her. Well, the retribution for inattention was standing right in front of her, and yet, while placing her palm in Heinrix’s, Isabella tried to delay the inevitable:
“Won’t we need music to dance?”
Heinrix froze. His attentive gaze darted around the room in the obvious hope of finding a vox-caster in the pile of Theodora's treasures; Isabella didn't envy him, she knew that actually finding something here could be considered a miracle. Giving up, Heinrix cleared his throat and admitted:
"I didn't think about it."
Inspired by her success, Isabella stood up so quickly she almost jumped:
“I would suggest asking Vigdis to broadcast something to us via personal beads..."
"But?"
“The rumors. Vigdis is a great Vox Master but a hopeless gossip. This is their professional deformation: the better they are at the job… However, I have another idea."
"Why am I sure that I won’t like it?"
Isabella shrugged as if saying "You tell me,” and suggested:
"Since we need a tune, maybe you should humm it?"
She might as well suggest him going to the bridge and kissing the aeldari. Isabella added a new expression into her imaginable dictionary marking it as “disgust” and “horror.”
"Well…"
Sure that this lesson was successfully avoided, Isabella stepped towards Heinrix, not bothering to remove her hand from his... just to find herself trapped: his palm lay under her shoulder blade, forcing her to straighten up, while his voice above her ear was filled with the calmness of the Great Void:
“Well,” Heinrix mimicked her tone. "For a beginner like you, music actually can be a distraction. Now you'd better focus on your technique, on your steps. You listened to me carefully, didn't you?"
Isabella turned to meet his gaze — direct, mocking and a little tired, as if he knew in advance how this would all end.
"So this is how you extract confessions from heretics?"
"Only if they avoid answering my questions, as you do."
“Let’s say,” Isabella let the words hang in the air. "Let's say I didn't listen to you at all. And what will you do about it?"
"To begin with, I will get you to the middle of this room."
Isabella expected him to let her go now. She was wrong. His palm, unexpectedly warm, pressed a little harder into her back:
“It’s not that difficult, Isabella,” Heinrix promised."Relax, try to feel... me. And let me guide you."
When an agent of the Inquisition asks you to relax...
Isabella closed her eyes and let her thoughts run through the first lines of the Peace of Mind Litany, and the known remedy had not failed her. Although now she could not go into deep meditation, which means she needed an anchor.
And she found it in the scent: not really strong, but fresh and clear, like morning on the seashore. Heinrix smelled of a mixture of some greenery and something tart, and also salt, which immediately reminded her of Janus.
After years spent in closed complexes, on the cramped decks of ships and space stations, Janus shook Isabella to her core. Huge, open, bright, crazy, scary — it almost broke her with the power of its life force. But she survived, and then she completely fell in love with the planet.
Now Heinrix's presence felt neither repulsive nor oppressive to Isabella. It was as if the Inquisition interrogator had briefly given way to someone else, and next to this “someone” she felt surprisingly calm. So when Heinrix gently pulled Isabella towards him before taking a step, she followed him without hesitation. And then again, and again, and again.
"See? This is not that difficult. You're doing great, Isabella."
"Golden Throne's agents allowed to lie?"
"Golden Throne's agents allowed to do anything" Heinrix squeezed her fingers gently. "As long as it serves the Humanity."
"I'll remember your wo-"
Isabella tripped over Heinrix's leg and would have fallen if he had not held her. He had strong arms; Isabella had seen him in the battle, crushing the enemies of humanity and her enemies, but feeling it herself was a completely different matter.
“Don’t get distracted,” Heinrx advised, helping her regain her balance.
"It's not so easy. I'm afraid I really need some music to focus on. Alas, I have run out of ide-"
She fell silent so abruptly that Heinrix seemed worried.
"Isabella?"
She looked up and made that Lord Captain's face she practiced for hours in front of the mirror.
“Master van Calox, I require Inquisitorial approval,” Isabella said. “I request permission to use a minor psy-power.”
His eyes narrowed slightly before he nodded, making a decision.
"I see no reason to refuse."
Isabella smiled, carefully released her hand from Heirix's and placed her fingers on his temples. And then she carefully reached out to touch his mind with hers.
Isabella wasn't afraid to harm him, she had excellent control over her abilities, even though she used them rarely and reluctantly. She knew that the contact would not cause Heinrix any pain, but still, she moved slowly and carefully, weaving a thin connection between their minds.
She wasn't afraid to bring something into his head, but the opposite, to take something away, to see what was forbidden, to find out what was hidden under his icy shell —oh, one day she would know it, but not today, and not like that.
Feeling that the connection is stable, Isabella removed her hands:
"Will this music go?"
The melody, familiar to every note, played in her thoughts, and Heinrix could now hear it.
“A decent choice,” his voice sounded distant as if Heinrix himself hadn't decided whether he liked Isabella's presence in his head. "You have a good memory for music."
“I’ve just heard this one many times. My senior officer on "Phlebas" was close friends with one of the vox engineers...” Isabella shrugged. "The imperial quartermasters take what's theirs, you are right. Shall we continue?"
She placed her hand back on his shoulder and waited for his fingers to close around hers again. Bound by the melody in their heads, they moved across the soft carpets of her study as gracefully as if they had been practicing for weeks. It was so natural to follow Heinrix, and so easy now because she could predict his movements, catching his nervous impulses even before he became aware of them.
They danced, and there was joy and life in it.
“That's a smart trick,” Heinrix squeezed her fingers again, his voice sounding surprisingly soft. “But you won’t be able to use it all the time, Isabella.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she gave him a sincere smile. “I wouldn’t even suggest it to anyone except..."
"...people like us?"
Isabella nodded and focused on him, again.
Heinrix van Calox, agent of the Throne, warrior, interrogator, spy, executioner... there was so much blood on his hands, so many invisible scars left by torture and murder, and yet, here and now, Isabella trusted these hands endlessly. He held her so tightly and so carefully at the same time, it took her breath away. It seemed to her that even if the gravity went suddenly out, Heinrix would stand on his feet, and would hold her, too.
His hand on her back... oh, she wanted it to slide lower, she wanted Heinrix to press her closer to him. She wanted to feel his strength: the psyker curse made her own body weak and fragile, perhaps that’s why she was so drawn to strong people, and Heinrix... Heinrix could easily lift her, and carry her. And he certainly could hold her while...
Without warning, her mind switched to a new picture: a waterfall of lifted skirts flowing down from her hips, his palms on her pale skin, her legs crossed behind his back, and his face, devoid the guard, completely under the power of the...
"Void damned!"
A sharp pain shot through the toes of her right foot, causing Isabella to curse and return to reality. Heinrix was looking down at his boot, which had crushed on Isabella’s elegant shoe; he looked tense as if he was solving an incredibly complicated math problem in his mind. Finally, he stepped aside and said still looking down:
“I beg your pardon, Lord Captain. I got distracted. Lost... the melody.'
Isabella would give everything right now to master the art of biomancy for a couple of minutes just to stop the blood rushing to her cheeks, calm her breathing, and slow her pulse.
Oh, Holy Throne, did she really?..
The tense expression on Heinrix's face clearly indicated that Isabella had shared more than just a melody with him.
Damn it! But it didn’t matter if her cheeks were now redder than his interrogator uniform, Isabella was still able to save the face.
“You should be more careful, Master van Calox,” she said sternly, releasing their mental connection.
Heinrix bowed formally to her, still avoiding eye contact. Isabella was grateful to him, she could barely suppress her emotions, and any little trifle could still start a chain reaction.
“My fault,” Heinrix began very slowly. "Knows no boundaries. I called myself a teacher, but I harmed you..."
“Don’t be so cruel to yourself,” Isabella hastily interrupted him, feeling that she was losing the battle against the advancing troops of hysterical laughter. "Let's just forget about this... awkward episode."
“Thank you for your mercy, Lord Captain.”
He bowed again, and then finally looked into her eyes. Isabella had to remember all her self-control training to withstand that gaze, and she succeeded. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not read the expression on Heinrix’s face, and all the “vocabulary” she had collected today suddenly became useless. Was he angry? Was he embarrassed? Amused? She had no idea.
“This won’t happen again,” Heinrix said. “Next time I'll make sure we have a vox-caster.”
Isabella released him with a short nod — and clenched her fists till her knuckles got white, watching him leave.
Only when she heard the sound of the elevator, did she allow herself to laugh. Hardly moving, she reached the table, collapsed into a chair, and pressed her face into her palms.
The way to Kiava Gamma and back to Dargonus promised to be long.
But interesting.
Very interesting.