Chapter Text
When Evanelia had explained planetside that the shards they found around the shattered lenses were similar to the ones found in Lady Theodora’s study, Heinrix had been reasonably confident she was telling the truth. There had been no significant change in her heart rate — a very small uptick, but within normal parameters considering the implications of suddenly receiving questions about heretical artifacts from an agent of the Inquisition. Her voice betrayed no deception: extremely matter-of-fact, slightly annoyed that he even had to verify she was unaffiliated with the cultists.
He revised that assessment when she hailed him later and requested that he come up to her study to speak with her. Her voice sounded strained over the vox-channel, as though she were troubled about something. Which raised the possibility that she was really a gifted actress who had managed to conceal her involvement for some time, only to crack under the pressure of keeping such secrets, and now she intended to confess. Odd, to be certain. But odder things had happened. And it would fit with her cavalier attitude about mutants or xenos.
It would be a shame, if it was true. He had been cautiously optimistic about her.
Of course, it would also mean he would have to reckon with his failure to notice anything amiss sooner. A thorough post-mortem would be required, and he suspected that once again he would find his failures in sentiment. He could almost hear Tanakia’s sing-song taunts, feel the heavy implication of a mocking cheek-pinch that would accompany it. Puppy dog. And he would deserve it. He had walked right into this one, blindly trusting that the Rogue Trader was above board because she was clever enough to say what he wanted to hear and pretty enough that even now he still hoped he was wrong.
He exited the lift under the watchful gaze of Lady Theodora’s portrait. He steeled himself with a deep breath before he knocked.
“Come in.”
She was at her desk — though there was much less of it visible, the rest of it buried under heaps of thick books left open to various pages. Her personal cogitator was also whirring a little louder than usual.
Judging by her appearance, he had gauged her tone of voice correctly. If she wasn’t distressed, then she must have been in the midst of some experiment with static electricity, because her updo had a slightly frizzy halo illuminated by the window, and a few flyaway tendrils of hair had come loose.
Distress seemed the more likely option, especially given her fidgeting.
“Oh, good, you’re here.” She breathed deeply and closed her eyes as if planning what to say. “Heinrix, I need to ask you something important.” Her eyes opened and she fixed him with a stern look. “And I need you to promise that you will answer me truthfully, even if you think I won’t take it well. I swear that I will heed your answer, whatever it is, and take it into serious consideration, even if… Even if it dictates a course of action that is hard, or could harm me. I accept the consequences.”
He narrowed his eyes. That was not how he thought she would start this. “I have a solemn duty to guard the Inquisition’s secrets. I cannot promise that I will answer you honestly.”
At that, she looked… crestfallen?
If she was prepared to confess something, crestfallen wasn’t helpful. He needed rapport. He sat down, lowering himself closer to her eye level. “I will tell you straightforwardly if you are asking about something I cannot discuss,” he said, in a warmer voice. “And if it is something I can speak of, I will tell you what I can.”
Evanelia fidgeted with one of the paperweights on her desk. “When it comes to Chaos artifacts, how much contact does it take for someone to be corrupted?”
His heart plummeted.
Finally he managed to speak. “What is it? And how long have you had it in your possession?”
“What? No, I…” She blinked in confusion. The crestfallen was gone. Now she looked… amused? Annoyed? Insulted? He thought he saw glimpses of all three. The impression he got from his biomancy could have been any or all of them. “Hold on, did you think I was going to confess to being in league with the Archenemy? Of keeping cursed artifacts?”
Either she was an extraordinary actress with secret biomantic capabilities he hadn’t noticed, or she was telling the truth. He met her gaze evenly but didn’t answer. Sometimes it was best to stop digging.
Evanelia huffed with disbelief and shook her head.
“Seat of the Throne, I thought I was cynical. No, I’m not allied with the Ruinous Powers.” Her brow furrowed. “Or at least I don’t think I am. And I have no desire to be so. That is why I wanted to speak with you.”
She stood and started pacing restlessly. She roamed aimlessly for several seconds before she found the words to explain. “When Kunrad took me captive, he forced me to give up some of my blood. He needed it to access something. He didn’t have enough Von Valancius blood himself to make it work. I didn’t want to cooperate. But he slashed my palm open with a corrupted dagger. And ever since then…”
She stopped and looked at him. And there he saw the same distress he had heard over the vox line.
“I’ve been feeling a presence in my mind,” she said. “Not quite voices. More like… an impression. It’s like there’s a separate set of wants and preferences in my head that’s utterly foreign to me. It was strongest in Kunrad’s presence immediately after he wounded me. At that time, whatever it was, it was able to compel me to walk across the room and grant it access. It still didn’t have enough control to stop me from calling for help, but when it made my legs move I… I couldn’t stop them moving. And when I did call for help I could tell the presence was angry.”
She sighed and turned to look out the window. “Since then it’s faded,” she said. “I only feel it occasionally, in the presence of warp phenomena or cultists. But it’s awful. It’s bloodthirsty and cruel. It hates it whenever I show a scrap of mercy or kindness to anyone. So far I don’t think it’s compelled me to do anything I don’t want to.” She paused. “But I’m terrified that one day it will,” she said, her voice haunted. “That it’ll twist me so subtly, so gradually, that I don’t even realize it’s happening. That it will make me hurt someone.”
For the second time in this study, he found himself involuntarily recalling the day his powers had manifested. The horror of finding blood on his hands.
He stood and joined her by the window. Her eyes locked onto his, full of desperate hope that he could put the matter to bed and she wouldn’t have to worry about it any longer. His heart twisted, knowing he was about to dash that hope. “I wish I could tell you that by resisting and refusing to cooperate, you could definitively forestall corruption. But I can’t. Chaos artifacts can corrupt even those with innocent intentions.”
At his words, Evanelia looked ill. She turned to stare out the window again, with an aching dread in her eyes that Heinrix knew all too well.
“What I can tell you is that in all the years I’ve served the Inquisition, I’ve seen two kinds of corruption. The kind that turns the victim into something unrecognizable almost in an instant, and the kind that works more slowly. If it was the first, I think we would know by now. As for the second… the majority of the cases were preceded by willful cooperation, or at the very least some degree of recklessness. And even when I have seen well-meaning individuals corrupted slowly despite their very best efforts, they are almost never aware that anything strange is happening to them. If they are aware the contact occurred at all, it seems completely natural to them.”
Something compelled him then to put a hand on her shoulder. She turned to look at it with a start, then up at him. “The fact that your brush with Chaos happened openly and against your will, that you have refused it at every turn, and that you are not only troubled by the imprint it left upon you, but willing to invite an Interrogator’s judgment leads me to believe you will not be corrupted any time soon.”
He hesitated, then added with a grim half-smile, “Or at least, not by the wound you suffered from Kunrad.”
Evanelia let out a short huff that might have been a laugh. When she finally met his gaze again, he could still see the weight on her mind, but she was no longer trembling with the strain of trying to lift it. It warmed him, in an odd sort of way.
“If the presence starts behaving differently, or you experience anything strange, please let me know as quickly as possible. The earlier I can intervene, the more likely it is that I can deal with the rot without resorting to drastic measures. I will do so if I must, but I… I would prefer not to.”
“Of course.”
She fell into contemplative silence while he wrestled with this strange warmth.
She had told him about a brush with Chaos. A part of her had truly thought he might need to cut her down then and there. And still she told him.
Thank you for telling me. Thank you for trusting me.
What he said instead was, “I am pleased that the Von Valancius dynasty is being headed by one so vigilant to the dangers of corruption, and so willing to heed the Inquisition’s guidance in such matters.”
“I have almost absolute power over billions if not trillions of people. I can only imagine the horrors that would ensue if someone with this much power were given over to Chaos. It would be like handing over a thermonuclear bomb to a maniac.”
“Worse.” Desperate to distract himself from memories of horror, he cast his eyes around for something else to speak about. They fell upon her hands. “Has the wound healed?”
She unclasped her hands and studied the left one, turning it this way and that. There was a pink line across her palm. The taut, still-healing skin above it shone slightly and caught the light. “More or less. There may be some faint scarring but my hand is still perfectly usable. Nobody would even notice at a distance.”
He hummed thoughtfully.
“How are scars viewed on Eugenia-6?” he asked. “Would you want it removed?”
Evanelia frowned and tilted her head.
Heinrix stumbled over his words. “I apologize if my curiosity is rude. If it’s too personal…”
“No, not at all.” She paused to consider his question. Then she said, “It’s a gray area. There is no stigma against having minor cosmetic fixes to wounds, if it restores the original feature to its natural appearance before the injury happened. But there is also no obligation to erase them. For major wounds there is an expectation that cosmetic interference will be involved, lest someone mistake the wound’s effects for something congenital.” He thought he heard an unspoken, very sarcastic ‘Throne forbid’ enter her voice for a moment. Then she pressed her lips together thoughtfully. “In principle I don’t have strong feelings on the matter. In practice… I think having a visible reminder of my brush with Chaos could be helpful. A small safeguard in case the presence ever starts feeling persuasive.”
He realized that he hadn’t clearly framed his question as an offer. Ordinarily he didn’t enjoy using his sorcery, but he would have been happy to heal her hand. It would be such a quick thing. She would only have to extend her hand and he would hold it steady (her whole hand could easily fit in one of his), close his eyes, and trace the fingers of his other hand along the scar as he reached out with his biomancy to coax the collagen into a different arrangement.
It was a bit too late now to say anything, however, and he could not argue with her reasoning. “Prudent.” He turned to her and bowed slightly. “Well, I’m sure you have business to attend to. I will leave you to your work.”
She nodded and gave a small almost-smile. “Thank you, Heinrix.”