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Commorragh’s dank and dark pits robbed any sparks of hope the air they needed to breathe and survive. For a good while, Helena had held it close to her chest, feeding it with the little she still had. Buried underneath a mountain of corpses it was what had her claw her way out, grab what and who she could. Knife held between teeth she had climbed the spiked metal chains evading drukhari patrols uncaring when their sharp edges tore her feet and hands apart. In the shadows she crawled and waited living off mouldy rations and the dirty water that flowed in the spire’s grooves.
However, it fizzled when she found herself in the arena on the heels of betrayal. When Heinrix’s blind eyes roamed around not seeing her but still seeking before toppling over, it had sputtered out. If Abelard had not been there, he would have cracked his skull wide open.
Now she knelt before him while his hands gently cradled hers, hidden between crates in the more secluded area of the Pit. An ember, an echo of its former strength, peeked out from the ashes. Around her was the chill his powers brought and the sensation of tingling spread from where his thumbs glid over her bloodied knuckles. Open skin, torn muscle and frayed tendons knit together as his brows furrowed and eyes were squeezed shut under the strain.
Not a moment later, he let out a choked gasp as he had expended most if not all of his energy. The chill dissipated and Helena surged forward and into his waiting arms again. Still rapidly breathing from the exertion, he pressed his nose into her tangled and matted hair and drew her tightly into him. Closing her eyes, Helena pushed her nose into the crook of his neck wishing to be as close as she could be.
“Helena…,” he murmured as he slowly drew her away despite the noise of protest that escaped her.
Bewildered Helena stared at him. The cold seeped back in threatening to stifle the ember before it had the chance to properly rekindle when he gently pried her arms from his neck.
“Heinrix, don’t –“
A knot in her throat cut her off as tears began to well up in her eyes when he firmly pushed her back so she was kneeling between his outstretched legs. After everything they had shared not hours ago… The touches of disbelief that they were real, alive and in the other’s embrace, the relieved kisses hungering for more and her coaxing the barbarism done to him by man and xenos out of him, she had thought –
“No... Please, don’t cry.” He reached out to cradle her face between his palms, thumbs wiping away the tears. “Helena, please….” He kissed her nose. “I need you to listen. Listen carefully. And I need you to understand. Promise me?”
Numb Helena nodded and grasped at his wrists to anchor herself to him. His skin was still clammy, but the pulse under her fingertips was steady and strong. A stark contrast to the erratic flutter when he had first stumbled out of the tank. He was mending and right now it was all that mattered to her.
“I did not answer you when you asked about an escape from here,” he began quietly. “I… didn’t know what to say. More glad to have you alive before me, it clouded all rational thought. Yet… I cannot lie and say we stand a considerable chance. Remember, no one ever returns from Commorragh. Our chances are dwindling slim if miniscule. While you did indeed draw the attention of those who would see us succeed, they are not interested in our survival nor an escape. As soon as our use runs out, they will forsake us.”
Helena closed her eyes. The mysterious masked figure always spinning rhymes and theatrics had ensured her survival, while Yrliet had been the reason why she even was able to hold Heinrix here and now. It rankled her still she had needed them. If she had been able to, she would have refused. But Edelthrad had decided that they needed them in the end. Commorragh made for the strangest bed fellows.
“Helena, look at me. Don’t close your eyes to this reality,” Heinrix pleaded. When she opened her eyes again, she saw how his eyes had darkened that they were almost the same shade in dim light. “I realise…” – he dragged in a ragged breath through his nose visibly fighting with himself –“I understand why we might need their help. This is not about them. Even with their help, our chances are still so low that it would count as miraculous if we got out. Yet… despite all that… all the uncertainty, the calculations I have done, I will do everything that is within my power… I will ensure that we….” He faltered and a wet sheen fell over his eyes. “That you will escape.”
He fell silent. Yet she knew he was not yet done with his piece. She saw it in the way his jaw clenched and unclenched, the way his mouth drew into a thin line as an invisible battle was fought. In the end, he wrestled down whatever had him stop.
“If it comes to it,” he spoke quickly pulling her further to him so he could stare her directly into her eyes as that their foreheads touched. “If… if it comes down to it. If it gives you even the tiniest amount of chance that you will get to live and escape, I will lay down my life for you.”
Suddenly the world tilted around Helena as the floor, merciless under her knees, was pulled out from under her. Her grip on him faltered and she felt herself sway and would have fallen if not for him keeping her upright. Blood rushed in her ears as a despair she had not felt since first time she saw him die in those visions took hold of her. She began to shake her head, his face blurred to the new onslaught of tears.
“And I will do it gladly.”
A fury, one she had never felt before, flooded the hole despair left and filled it with a shaking rage. Her hands shot to the collar of his tattered uniform, the dulled golden seams screamed mockingly up at her. She gripped it so tightly, her joints creaked, and then shoved.
“No,” she snarled. “I refuse!”
His eyes widened and he fell back under the sheer force of her push.
“Helena?” he whispered completely caught off guard.
His hands hovered around her shoulders unsure what to do with them as she loomed over him.
“No. You will not,” she hissed shifting further up to him on her knees until she was right in his face. “I see you now, Heinrix van Calox.”
A flash of hurt passed over his face, but Helena did not care for he needed to hear this lest he made this foolish motion into reality.
“You, a noble scion of Guisorn III, still cling to the notion that you are a knight only born and bred to protect and defend those in your charge. But never close to them… never touching.”
She leaned forward until her lips barely brushed his. In turn he had grown stock still under her, only the puff of cold breath hit her face now interspersed with brief falters. The workings of a choked sob he still desperately tried to get under control. A control that was fraying.
“That is all you see yourself worth for. Someone only meant to sacrifice themselves piece by piece until nothing is left of them. Because you think yourself so wretched and undeserving of love, of compassion, that you rather die doing what you think is the only way to redeem yourself in the eyes of the Imperium than accept you are deserving of all that and more.”
His breath hitched and now it was him trying to evade her gaze. Unable to face her, a glint caught in the green light glaring down on them. Once again he hid himself away from her, not wishing her to see him shatter. Her hands slid up from his collar to his cheeks and gently held his head in place. Making him face her, unable to hide. Along his eyelashes clung a tear, stubbornly refusing to fall.
“And the only way you know how is to be the knight you always dreamed to be and still do. Always honourable, always strong and unwavering in devotion. Yet, so utterly untouchable when all you wish for is to be touched and to touch. That is what you want more than anything. And you still deny it to yourself! You push it down until all you are is what everyone else wants to see: a man made of ice incapable of feeling. But in truth you feel so deeply and selflessly. You care and yet you hate yourself for it for they told you to do so.”
His body started to tremble, his shoulders drooped despite the tension in his body tightening. The hands that hovered above her shoulders settled around her, curling around her shoulder blades. Not pushing her away, just holding her in place.
“And I do not wish this fate for you, Heinrix.” She caressed his cheek as gently and softly as she could muster. “I want you to live.” She took his hand and placed it over her chest where her heart was hammering against her ribs. “For me. You are and always will be my knight. And you can only be that if you live, my love.”
The bare threads of his control snapped. And the tear fell, accompanied by many others as he sank back against the crate he was leaning on. His arms drew her to him until she was nestled against his chest with his face buried into her hair where he cried and sobbed clutching her to him as if she’d disappear into thin air if he were let go.
“Thank you,” he breathed into her hair. “Forgive me…”