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Heinrix van Calox was asleep.
They had decided to read together on the floor of her office - settling on pillows pillaged from her bed, and sat before Amber’s newly installed fireplace. Amber had stoked the embers in the pit until the flames crackled, turning all the other lights down to a dampened glow.
Her reading material - the oh-so-urgent reports on the state of the fetch-farms on Janus. Charts, diagrams, crop yields. Dull, cold statistics. But necessary. Her duty.
And his - one of the books from Theodora’s library. Her library. The Shadows on the Sand. Some pulp-novel, printed cheaply en masse and distributed widely.
“For the people’s entertainment,” Heinrix had said with his crooked smile.
He had pulled one of her blankets over his shoulders as he settled in against the pillows on the floor. “To keep the chill away, and the warmth closer,” he had answered to her questioning look.
And judging by how deeply he slept now - an arm wrapped around her, the blanket pooled around their waists, a comfortable weight pulling her close - the novel had been riveting. It lay forgotten by the fire, alongside her reports - she had left them on the floor where they lay to wrap herself in Heinrix’s embrace. She could pick them up later - whenever later was.
Amber always felt more comfortable with a fireplace nearby. Safe. Warm. A reminder of home, when home had been plasteel walls and flickering glow-globes. The office of an Infernus Master - her father. Two beds tucked away in a storage room, reports scattered across his desk and floor, and a roaring metal hearth-fire warming the room at all times. Keeping the cold of the void at bay.
Just as the fireplace in her office would keep the darkness between the stars just a little bit further away.
The light of the flames flickered against Heinrix’s skin, a glowing warmth against the dim room around them. Amber shifted in his hold, tucking her head under his jaw where his jacket had come undone. She hid in the comfort of his chest, wishing to banish the chill in the air.
So she pulled on the warp - just slightly - just so - feeling the fire and feeding it. Letting it grow, lapping on her powers. The cold receded, and the air grew warmer with the warp.
Amber sparked fire, and the embers responded hungrily.
Heinrix mumbled something in his sleep, the free hand at his side twitching. It moved down her waist until it came upon the edges of their blanket. Grasping it, he pulled it up, over their shoulders, and tucked them both beneath the weight of it. His arm came to a rest over her shoulders, and he made a low, satisfied noise in his throat.
Amber shifted again, drawing herself slightly away from his embrace - just enough to take in the contours of his face. The way the flickering shadows were cast across his jaw, his collarbones. The glow in his dark hair, bright and warm.
The usual tensions in his profile during the day were gone. The sternness he held while awake had slipped away - given way to something softer, gentler. The creases on his brow had smoothed, and there was a rare peace in it. Relaxed. Safe.
She hoped he felt safe in her presence.
As safe as she felt in his.
A safety that felt like home.
Or at least, a safety that was enough to let him fall asleep on the floor of her office, with her in his arms.
Amber tucked her head back into his chest, her ear pressed to his heartbeat, listening. It was calm - beating in time to her own - as it often did now with the instinctive influence of Heinrix’s powers. A mooring against the world outside her office. Alive. His arms tightened around her, pulling her close, not letting her slip away.
She listened to his breathing next - steady, consistent. Like the shallow waves on the beaches of Khramah, when the voidship Aeternum Arcanum made planetfall for the first time in decades.
She had dipped her toes in the waters there - her father’s arm around her to steady her steps, his palm pressing into her back, their off-duty laughter full and free, singing in the ocean air.
It was the first world she had stepped on, and the last until she arrived on Terra.
She had been a teenager, blinded in the light after the darkness of the Black Ship, brought before the might of the Golden Throne, so that her soul might be bonded.
It had burned - a searing terror she would never forget.
But she had survived - praise the Emperor - and learned how to burn everyone else.
Five years in the Scholastica Psykana.
Four years in the Imperial Guard.
And now this.
Rogue Trader.
Heinrix mumbled again in his sleep, a deep rumble echoing in his chest. His hands pressed into her back, circling her skin, trembling in an unseen dream.
Amber’s vox crackled to life.
“Lord Captain, your presence is required on the bridge.”
Abelard.
Duty called.
Amber twisted just enough to free one of her hands. She clicked in. “Is it urgent?”
There was a brief pause on the other end of the line and then, “No, Lord Captain.”
“Then I’ll be there when I’m ready, Abelard. Just a few moments - I won’t be long.”
“Of course, Lord Captain,” came the ever professional reply.
She clicked her vox off, nudging it back down her uniform. Heinrix’s arms wrapped around her tighter, pulling her back in. He murmured something into her hair, his fingers threading at the base of her neck in soft caresses.
She should wake him - would wake him - in just a moment. But she wanted to hold onto it for just a little while longer. This precious moment. This fleeting, flickering moment.
But it would have to come to an end, sooner or later.
Duty called.
She cut off her connection to the warp - that fragile thread - and the fireplace sputtered in defiance. The cold closed around her again - that insistent darkness - despite the heat of Heinrix’s body still pressing against her.
Heinrix stirred, as if he felt her intent. His arms wrapped around her waist again, his lips resting at the nape of her neck, his breaths coming in shallow waves.
“Don’t go,” he whispered.
So she let his arms pull her back into his warmth, as the fire burned down to embers.