Work Text:
Sternfall, Lord Captain’s Log, 999.M41
4 224 999.M41
Translation: Sotto’s Tomb, Koronus Expanse
2134, Vespers:
Astropathic Transmission
Origin: Reaper’s Light / Kassard von Valancius
Destination: Sternfall / Helena von Valancius, Rogue Trader in the Emperor’s Light
Cipher: adamantine/ grade prima, Choir Imperialis
Status: Corrupted fragments reconstructed by the Choir at 42% loss
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To my esteemed sister in the Emperor, Helena von Valancius, salutations.
I trust this reaches you without undue delay. The last weeks have been turbulent, and I speak with urgency rather than ceremony.
[redacted]
Warp routes we relied upon are twisting, reforming, or disappearing outright. The Maw [data corrupted] perish or are stranded [data corrupted] the Maw for over 50 years now.
We must assume that the closure is permanent and that central authorities will be unable to project any meaningful force here in the foreseeable future. Already, communication lags make anything more than broad directives nearly impossible.
[redacted]
This places unprecedented responsibility upon those of us who remain [data corrupted] means to act. For this reason, I ask that you [data corrupted] Lucin’s Breath System.
[redacted]
I look forward to seeing you under more stable stars than those we currently sail beneath.
In His Light,
Kassard von Valancius
Rogue Trader by the Grace of the Holy Terra
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4 258 999.M41
Translation: Lucin’s Breath, Koronus Expanse
0700, Matines: Lucin’s Breath Mandeville Point in 3.35, Projected
1030, Matines: Reaper’s Light hailing Sternfall. Repeat: Reaper’s Light hailing Sternfall
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1918, Vespers:
Navigator’s Observation Log — Entry 44/999
Aboard the Sternfall, Koronus Expanse
Transit Attempt: Lucin’s Breath System
Upon final alignment and approach to the Mandeville Point of the Lucin’s Breath system, an anomalous warp entity appeared within immediate proximity to the Sternfall.
A void leviathan of considerable mass drifted parallel to our translation vector at a distance fluctuating between five and eight astral furlongs. Creature showed non-aggressive posture but maintained consistent orientation towards our vessel.
Auditory resonance phenomena manifested immediately upon its appearance: harmonic sequences resembling choral cant interlaced with sub-vocal frequencies outside the human auditory spectrum. These harmonics propagated through the hull and were felt across multiple decks.
While the resonance persisted, all attempts to enter the Mandeville aperture proved impossible.
Translation buildup collapsed repeatedly, regardless of compensatory adjustments to the warp coils or realignment of the Gellar-field harmonics.
At 0.761 ship-hours into the event, two voidsmen assigned to guard duty in the upper art gallery (Section Aurelia-5) were discovered missing from their posts. Initial search of adjacent corridors yielded no trace of the voidsmen.
Subsequent examination of the gallery revealed saltwater pooling beneath the frame of the seascape painting listed in the ship’s manifest as Sternfall No. 3, accompanied by fragments of sea vegetation consistent with littoral flora native to no known world registered in Navis Imperialis surveyor archives.
Painting’s frame was cold to the touch and exhibited residual condensation. No structural breach or environmental malfunction was detected in the compartment.
Resonance ceased abruptly at 0.883 ship-hours. Void leviathan dematerialized. Translation to real-space remains on hold pending command authorization.
Awaiting further instructions.
— recorded and filed, Her Excellency Cassia Orsellio, Navigator Primaris, House Orsellio
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I
The first thing one notices about Sternfall is the clarity of the waters and the sharp cerulean hue of the skies. Even in the stormy churn the eye catches the remnants of the life before — palaces in the deep, spools of phosphorescent fish darting between the columns, the slow, imposing shadow of a many-handed octopus gliding through the archways, inspecting its abode. Ivory sheen of the walls blotted by rust and crimson barnacles. Skeletons embracing in the underwater alcove — skulls too triangular and delicate to be human.
A graveyard, an asylum.
The boat docks; I throw a silver throne into the decrepit cup. The ferryman does not acknowledge me.
The murmurs of the sea hand me over to the soundscape of solid ground. It touches my ears slow and careful, as if it knows to be gentle — salient, clean-cut palette of zephyrus kissing the groaning totems, the murmuration of sea starlings teasing the surf, the mournful cries of gulls, the crash of the waves martyring themselves on the decrepit storm breakers.
A raven croaks above, a discordant note — screech of metal on metal, sending cracks across the susurration of the winds. A cyber-bird, no doubt about that. I search the skyline — rocks, distant islands, the chapel, the row of abandoned fishermen’s huts — all fail to blend with the horizon, all stand out like primitive charcoal outlines drawn by the child's hand.
I see him — a sharp black dot cutting circles above the chapel.
Waiting for me.
Diving down to touch the surf, shooting up to the vault of the skies where the sun should be.
But the sun is nowhere to be seen.
The land is all lichen-incrusted rock and vast fields of immortalles undulating under the cutting breeze, every blade of grass and violet star of a flower razor-sharp and stark in the skylight.
If I will it, I can hear the stalks push through the young, crusty soil, through the layers of moss to meet the light. Leaves unfurl; the shroud of the earth being torn. They hurry — to live their days, to sway in the wind. To drink of the skies together, until the hoarfrost does them apart.
The chapel is cut into the rockface, looking out onto the union of navy and cerulean far out in the ocean, the seascape specked by whitecaps. There is a faded mural on the wall – a shooting star falling into the waves.
This should mean something to me, the thought comes, unbidden, a feather landing on a pile of down.
The weathered planks of the door are rimmed with salt, hinges blotched with verdigris. Someone had pressed colored glass shards into the frame long ago: jagged tiles of yellow and blue, catching the grey light. A crude aquila looks down from the sill, wings uneven, lines broken. Scratched in by the chisel or a similar tool.
Put here as an afterthought.
Imperator Protegit.
My hand closes on the iron handle.
The air ripples.
Sublime at first – an alien shiver in the steady wind, a break in the beating of the grasses. It grows, swells into a steady thrum, ruffles running over the corroded surface of the door. The colored tiles liquefy, bleeding into one another — yellow drowning in blue, blue bleeding into white. The crude aquila stretches, reforming, feathers patterning themselves with impossible precision, coming into immaculate polished brass.
Glass to gold. Wood to marble. Salt to candlewax and perfume.
My hand jerks away; I catch my face in palms – shake it off, shake off this witchery.
My breath catches in my throat—
—the raven dives.
His urgent cry splits the air, a croak dragged into a metallic shriek. He drops like a thrown blade, slicing through the air, wings tucked tight. Feathers peel from him mid-descent—black, then gold-edged, falling around him in a swirl.
He lands feet first.
I am looking into the face of Persimus Shale, the Master of Ceremonies, Palazzo Dargonus Magnum.
Gone are the chapel, the soft whispering of the grasses, the patina, the flimsy latches, the oceanscape. On his cue the double doors before us slide apart slowly. I watch, stupefied: mirror-like polish, von Valancius crest beaten into each half — olden-age sextant and skulls on argent, the hand holding His Warrant — take what is yours, rise to the stars through the horrors of the void. The archway adorned with intricate labyrinthine motifs, interlaced with scriptural pieces.
Nothing remains of the vision.
Persimus Shale inclines his head with ceremonial gravity.
“This way, Inquisitor.”
The aquila above the doors is as immaculate as they get — brass and gold, ruby eyes, diamond talons. His Light be upon you, who steps through this arch.
And so, I step.
The hall beyond is a vast, bare room — save for the mirror occupying two of its walls. The woman looking back at me from the glass is an ice queen — ruthless, competent, fit to hold power over whole sectors. The future Warden of the Expanse. Raven braids folded into austere buns, face pale and composed against the dark of the dress uniform. My hand flies to the rosette at my throat – the opener of all ways, the mark of His Divine Authority. The touch brings calm and strength.
My name is Helena de Vahl, of Ordo Xenos. I serve the Most Holy Inquisition. I shall not fail in my duty.
I turn away from the mirror – the Pactum Rostrum awaits me ahead. Through the narrow slits of the windows I can hear the crowds churning below, awaiting the word of their celestial parent, the Warpstrider of the Expanse, the Sword of the Emperor. The one holding them in his palm.
All while the Inquisition holds him in theirs.
I walk out into the sun, to face this auspicious day.
Below my foot something snaps.
A cyber-raven’s feather.
II
The Rostrum is a platform atop a great column — raised high, housing the great ledger of the Von Valancius dynasty. The book stands on its dais, adorned with the trifecta of dynastic sigils — sextant, starborn ledger, the Emperor’s hand — each etched into miniature plates of silvered adamant.
I take my post to the left of it. To the right stands Seneschal Werserian: decorated voidsman, Navis commander turned baron.
Raised to his exalted position by Theodora von Valancius — my mother.
I’d take one Werserian over a hundred Drivestems.
The Emperor protects, Heinrix shares my opinion.
The arabesque grilles in the center open like the petals of some vast, alien flower.
Persimus Shale, the Master of Ceremonies, leads Heinrix von Valancius — the Heir — to the book and into the focus of fate, adoration, and hatred.
In the blazing light of Dargonus’ sun, Heinrix von Valancius is a sculpted idol from an older, stranger age.
His body — once mutilated, stripped to the bare minimum for survival—has been restored to its perfect form by biomancy.
He is too perfect.
Stance too effortless, stride too purposeful, skin too smooth, lines clean and confident.
He shed every implant and graft the moment he entered Theodora’s orbit.
The steel-rimmed skull plate, the coffin of augmetics bracing his ribs and hands, the cable ports at the base of the neck — gone.
Replaced by living flesh, he reshaped it with his own hands — molded and recomposed like wet clay under psychic flame.
All that remains of the old Heinrix of the Ordo is the eyepatch — immaculate, cut from matte, structured material that drinks in light.
Beneath it, the new eye still grows, cell by cell. The process careful and painstaking.
No room for error. The patch sits neatly on his face, as if the injury was a deliberate ornamentation.
His hair is even longer now, reaching his shoulders — black, lush — not tied back, not oiled into submission, but flowing freely. Soft and comforting, catching the light like silk.
He let it grow once he removed the cranial augmetics, as if to make up for every year he spent as a half-mechanical wretch.
It makes him gentle, young, and open. Warm.
Even the void could not bring itself to harm him.
And on his hip, fixed at the perfect angle, hangs the psy-sword.
Sheathed in a scabbard of lacquered bone, inlaid with thin veins of gold that pulse faintly when the blade sleeps.
A cursed weapon. A reminder that mercy comes with teeth.
Obey me, my children – out of love, not dread. But remember: I alone hold the blade of mercy.
The great theater of the ascension begins.
“Rejoice, subjects of the dynasty! Proud citizens of Dargonus!” Shale’s voice, amplified by a thousand voxes, sends tendrils of pain into my ears, rattles my bones, rearranges my innards. I almost cry out.
The address flies down the Square of Beholding, down the thousand promenades, streets, and alleys running through the Upper City, down to the hives. He is heard in every corner of Dargonus Sigma: in every nook, in the darkest underbelly, in the tallest spire.
But first and foremost, he is heard in the noble galleries flanking the rostrum.
There — right in the front row.
The Lord Inquisitor came in force — Brasswhisper, Xue, and several junior acolytes are all with him. They’re like a spurned family crashing a wedding they didn’t approve of — and tried to ruin, without success. Aishara is nowhere to be seen, but she’s around — I know it. Skulking in the crowd, sniffing out rumors. Interrogating Secretary Scallander, so help him, Emperor.
I steal a glance at Heinrix. If he’s unnerved by their presence, he doesn’t show it.
He stands between me and Abelard like a living statue carved by a master — smiling graciously, a promise of good tidings to come.
Oblivious to the fact that he is walking a razor’s edge.
Or, perhaps, deliberately ignoring it?
“You have been granted the joy of witnessing your master. A great honor bestowed by Rogue Trader Heinrix von Valancius! Redeemer of Dargonus, savior of Kiava Gamma and vanquisher of the heretecs, may their blaspheming kind perish in the flames of justice...”
The crowds answer — a great cry rising in their collective Dargonian throat, cutting through the ranks. Up to the smog-laced skies.
A pressure — as if something is breathing through me, bestowing the felicity of being upon my body, blessing my existence.
“… smote the worshippers of the Archenemy and liberated Janus from the clutches of the vile…”
Made a secret pact with the xenos to defeat the Chaos worshippers — a capital blasphemy.
Defended his decision — the xenos knew the planet, understood its stewardship, could bring it to heel without the cost of human lives.
Sound reasoning — and a dagger in Calcazar’s hands, should he ever need one.
When.
I rebuked him. Said that the prohibitions of the Imperium existed for a reason. That to be a Rogue Trader — to be empowered with the privilege of legal heresy — was to walk the edge of the pyre. One step off, and the fire would pounce and take.
“I have the power now, Helena,” he said. “And I wish to use that power to change things for the better. To build rather than tear down.”
His face was inscrutable, calm. Gone was the flinching, the folding in of a psyker jumping at his own shadow, fearing the judgment of his handlers.
No qualms about deciding the fates of millions. No regrets, no give.
Conviction — and arrogant belief in his charter.
This threw me in a tailspin. I could have been the one to build, if I had asserted my right.
But I chose to run away — to become a guardswoman. And I would have died a guardswoman, if not for that promotional poster with my face on it.
Calcazar — whom I still struggle to call father — would not have found me. I would never have met Heinrix von Valancius, né Van Calox. I would never have seen him as a disfigured, downed psyker. I would never have known him reforged from scratch.
The threads in the tapestry of fate are woven in odd spirals.
I had not put our conversation in my report. Glossed over it, presented his reasoning as my own.
Was that treason, de Vahl?
“… who wrestled Vheabos laborers from the unholy clutches of despicable Drukhari…”
“... protector of Footfall, patron of trade … defeated the famine…”
Oh, that. Footfall's cleansing, Footfall's repentance through hunger and death. Never happened, by the flick of his hand.
“I have derailed Incendia’s little scheme,” he proclaimed, setting up the regicide board. “You, though, haven’t offered an opinion yet.”
His crooked smile — right corner up, left corner down. Another thing he was going to keep.
“I wouldn’t gloat too much if I were you,” I offered. “The Rogue Trader is a ruthless and dangerous opponent. She’ll take revenge if given the chance.”
Every little folly. Every saving grace. Every heretic spared and reformed. Every one of the thousand cuts.
This was the first time I beat him at regicide. He’d already claimed one victory that day — and he’d let me have this one.
The Master of Ceremonies concludes the recounting of Heinrix’s heroic feats and brave escapades.
It’s the book’s turn now.
“Behold: the oath of the von Valancius dynasty!” Shale looks upon the book reverently.
Heinrix raises his right hand and touches the aquila before him.
“I, Heinrix von Valancius, Rogue Trader by the grace of the Emperor, vow to be the paragon of Humanity…”
Calcazar shifts in his seat, watching his charge slip through his fingers — a predator deciding whether to pounce, or to extend the game a bit longer. A giant, murderous cat on the prowl.
“... Unbroken by adversity, to walk bravely first into darkness, to unite and reclaim what was lost, to triumph over nightmares unseen…”
The captains of the Battlefleet Koronus, the cardinals of the Foulstone, the planetary governors, the Deathwatch marines, the leaders of Houses Chorda and Winterscale — all have their little black letters by now.
Instructing them to report and coordinate with the Lord Inquisitor’s agents before supplying House von Valancius with any major resources.
Will they obey?
Will they choose profit over prejudice?
Will they trust a psyker over a psyker’s handler?
“... To hold boldly the reins of fate, to walk steadily the road of thorns, through pain to greatness.”
The thunder — the roar of the rabble rising and spilling out into the white, blinding haze of the migraine.
He won’t have him. He can’t get to him. There is still time, still a chance to escape.
The crowd writhes below, showered by a rain of gold coins, flower petals, and confetti — until finally, a hush falls over them. I can see the faces of some in the galleries up close. They stare at him with mouths hanging open — hero worship, admiration, love flying off them.
Many still bear terrible scars — souvenirs from the battle of Dargonus. They await his directive, the word of their almighty father.
Did he prepare a speech? What about his stutter, that still dogged him at moments of excitement and terror?
If only he asked me.
But he would not — he would not.
An Inquisitor is a beast of fear and authority, a weapon in the hands of the Holy Ordo — not a friend.
I almost take a step toward him—
catch myself.
Your father is watching, or did you lose your marbles completely, de Vahl?
Heinrix straightens up, shoulders unfurling, and raises his chin. The voice booms above the heads and the posts and the galleries—sonorous and free, imposing and soothing at the same time:
“Fear not the coming day — henceforth, you are all my charges.”
Reverend Tychon of the Drivestem line steps forward with the Rite of Anointment—
and here, Heinrix von Valancius becomes a Rogue Trader.
In word and deed.
By the Will of the Emperor and Holy Terra.
III
The grand cogitator in his strategium is a work of ars technica — rebuilt after the Drukhari sack, using a standard template gifted by Pasqal Haneumann.
The painting above it had been replaced as well: the Terran Litany of Hatred exchanged for a tranquil seascape — islands emerging from the waters, stars sinking beneath them. Sternfall No. 5, a work of the Amarnat Collective.
I catch a whiff of sea mist in the air. But it’s gone the moment I take a closer look at the painting.
A hallucination born of exhaustion.
I skim the shadows — curio cabinets, the rows of rare books, the portraits of von Valancius ancestors — those I renounced and rejected. Those I could still reclaim — a word in the right ear, a rumor shot from the right pistol.
Twin moons of Dargonus are all rage, spilling silver and blood into the room through the tall panoramic windows. The white and the red perform a ritual dance: embrace, recoil, clash, mingle.
Heinrix follows me inside, stepping from the brightly lit gilded hall into this kingdom of lies and dancing shadows.
I drag him into the moonlight. His face — half-silver, half-crimson — is a mask of concern.
“We don’t have much time, Heinrix.”
The words are jagged stones in my mouth, reeking of extracted confession — murdered, consorted, accepted.
“I brought you here, away from prying eyes, because I have something very important to tell you.”
Covered tracks.
His left eyebrow arches; the right remains still — neurological damage persists. He hasn’t fixed it yet… or won’t. I remember our brief meeting in the hallways of Corona Solaris — the skull plate, the empty socket, the mask of dread looming above. The monster was young and scared.
“One of my best specialists. A look at his face, a flick of his fingers — be it xenos or a cultist — all fall in line.”
A chuckle.
“Isn’t it so, Heinrix?”
“Yes, Lord Inquisitor.”
“You, Helena, should come for a demonstration.”
“Any time, Lord Inquisitor.”
“You, my dear Heinrix, made such a great interrogator. Much better than you’d ever do as a Knight.”
A parting gift — knife below the ribs. Met with a thin, crooked smile — never mind that — such a trifle of a cut is no match for a skilled biomancer.
My lip twitches, ruins the prefect ice queen façade. Makes me look lost and lacking. Too human for what I must do.
A ghost of a smile touches his crooked mouth.
“Do you wish to confess something, Interrogator de Vahl? Were you eating the regicide pieces to win over me, perchance?”
I bite my tongue to draw blood. Pain grounds me, reminds me to focus. I push back the stutter threatening to expose me.
He steps closer, close enough that I can see the gold specks adorning the gray iris of his good eye, the delicate embroidery keeping together the patch over the eye that’s still being nurtured back. Aquamarine detail over soft xenobeast leather, burning violet in the reddish glow of the moon.
“Talk to me, Helena. What has you so alarmed?”
“I need a moment. I am trying to find the right words—for what I must say to you. For what I intend for you—”
“For what you intend—”
The words are snag at the back of my throat, hooked on the instinct — make not the promises that you won’t keep. I try again — choke. My tongue swells, glued to the roof of the mouth, as if speech itself were treason.
The tick-tick-tick of the pulse against the back of my skull. Ant bites, prickling the skin, rime settling between my shoulders like a pair of invisible hands, squeezing the breath out of me.
His face is so close. Chiseled out, immaculate, a face of a noble scion he was born to be. Born to sweet delight.
The people have not seen his disfigurement, the mask of dread, the shame, the terror.
I alone hold this terrible secret.
“Helena,” he says. “Let me … let me help”.
I struggle for breath — for words.
Is it betrayal to let him work his sorcery?
To let the warp touch, unknot, unravel?
To let the muscles loosen and uncoil?
To let go of control?
Surely it isn’t so grave a sin?
I nod — fast. Just do it, while the brave lasts.
The temperature plummets. His ethereal touch is light, there and not, like a grain of spice falling from the dagger’s tip into a retort, ripening the concoction within.
What will it do? Unmake? Heal?
The lead in my stomach melts away. My vision sharpens — with a clarity only the warp allows.
Took their cursed gifts.
I swallow hard.
I was raised to speak cleanly, decisively, without tremor, without fail. Demand and take. Theodora prepared me to inherit her voice, trained me in oratory, in the arts of persuasion, in the poison of coercion.
Calcazar’s schooling was more direct.
"You can get way further with a kind word and a bolter than you can with just a kind word. But then, there is a rosette." He’d say and laugh. And whoever was the object of his attention would deliver instantly — themselves, their friends, their planets.
As you wish, Lord Inquisitor.
Calcazar excised the last hesitation out of me.
But this — this is different. This is disloyalty wearing the mask of duty. This is a knife turned inward. If I say these words, name my father’s intentions aloud — is that betrayal? Of the Imperium? Of myself?
A thin tremor runs through my fingers, and I hide it by curling them into fists.
“Listen to me — tonight something very important is going to happen.”
“What—”
“Steel yourself,” I say, the last of my doubt unraveling as the choice fleshes out.
His eyes bore into mine, pupils eating up the irises.
He knows. He gets it.
“… and be prepared. Do not do anything foolish — I beg you.”
He exhales, shuddering.
All his tells — the twitch of his eye, the quiver in his sculpted lips, the working of his throat, the clench of his jaw, the uneven shrug of his shoulders (stronger on the left, where the Scholastia’s augmentics once governed his hand) — explode in my sensorium.
A torment for my heightened hearing.
“Bear in mind that you are not being threatened with anything right now. Remember that.” Anything to placate the aching circlet squeezing my head.
“I give you my word.”
No.
It’s a lie.
My word means nothing.
I don’t control what my father will do, want, or decide. I don’t know if he told me everything.
I can’t promise safety. I can’t be sure.
I am a liar.
And a traitor.
I know Calcazar’s woven a net — spun from the tackiest, strongest spider silk. He’s loaded his guns with silver bullets. Trained his mind to null and dull, to beat the warp to a pulp.
He will not let you go.
You will not be free.
Never.
I want to—
To stay with you.
If freedom is unattainable, I want to share the un-freedom.
Spoke their tainted oaths.
“I swear on the Golden Throne and all that is holy, Heinrix…”
The leaden weight reasserts itself, pinning me to the floor. The pain returns to flay the taut muscles with a vengeance.
“I cannot reveal everything without contravening prohibitions and vows that are far more important than you or I.”
“Important by whose standards?” he asks quietly, but the dare is there. Stand up to your fears, get out from under your father’s thumb.
“There are lines we cannot cross.”
Another half-truth. The lines have already blurred into a bloody haze.
The paint that once marked the distance, forbade entry, concealed secrets — washed away by the tides, leaving pale, fading outlines.
I see him now, believing himself free for the first time in his life — asserting control over his body, reclaiming his sight, his hair, his love of bright colors. Owning his mercy, and his connection to the people and the world beyond.
Wanting to live simply. To study the world, and the wonders within.
Something I can never have.
Psykers or not, we are the tools of the Imperium. All of us.
Save for the Rogue Traders.
IV
When Theodora decided to spite Calcazar by taking his toy away, that toy was given a chance — to wrest his destiny, his birthright, from the clutches of the Administratum, the Scholastia Psykana, and even the foremost of them all — the Inquisition.
But he hasn’t won.
The web will grow, thicken, until it becomes a cocoon obscuring the skies.
His agents, his lawyers, his administrators, his captains — all will answer to my father.
All will carry their secret orders.
Sink their hooks into him, tie him with their ropes, and drag him down—
There, he will carry out the Emperor’s will by the only method afforded to psykers: obeying the Lord Inquisitor’s orders, preempting his every wish and decree.
Theodora spat at the tenets of Lex Imperialis from beyond the grave.
She made a cursed mutant — a witch — the Emperor’s Anointed.
Laughed all the way to the Warrant Chamber.
Well, she is dead now.
And you, dear Heinrix, shall pay for her sins.
“Enough hand-wringing,” Heinrix says at last, his face relaxing into a soft smile.
“I think I understand.”
Relief grabs me — throws me around like a riptide chasing a flimsy skiff.
“I had to tell you—” The words roll out fast, afraid they won’t get another chance. “To warn you that there’s no genuine threat to your life. My father... he only wants an alliance.”
Betrayed His holy secrets to them.
The word is no bird — let it out, and it won’t return to its cage.
It won’t return.
It won’t un-damn the damned.
His lips, his eye, his mercy, and his soft care are so close — just extend your hand, and—
The world slows to a halt, suspended in wait. A lull before the explosion. A stay of execution.
To brush his lips with mine — just a small, probing touch. To get a hint of his taste.
To tear off the gloves. To trace his cheek with a bare hand. Skin to skin.
To run fingers through the silk of his hair.
To allay the injury of watching him reclaim what was lost.
To quell the violence of the reconstruction.
There is no one else. Just you.
Can’t you see—you are building something that will never break?
V
Silk sheets slide against my skin as I stir — hand instinctively clutching the rosette at my throat, though it isn’t there. I’m in my own bed. The crest of House von Valancius looms above, carved into the high ceiling.
A rush of pale light spills from the panoramic viewport, casting the room in a cold blue tinge.
Heinrix lies in deep unburdened sleep. One arm stretched toward me, the other curled under the pillow. The sheet draped low across his hips, breath rising and falling in soft, steady rhythm.
The starlight gives a metal sheen to his dark hair.
I touch it softly, fingertips only.
Mine.
His lashes flutter — but he does not wake.
The light catches onto the painting on the far wall, frame gilded in old Aurent-pattern filigree—Sternfall No. 7: stone chapel on a rocky cliff, surrounded by fields of immortalles, sea churning and rolling in the background.
I sit up, hair damp with sweat. The silk chemise clings to my back. I half-expect to find sand between my toes.
I cross the chamber, barefoot across the warmed tiles, and stand before the canvas. The brushstrokes are too precise, the colors too rich. I can smell brine and candlewax where there should only be pigment.
Something glints on the floor.
A cyber-raven’s feather.