Chapter 92 - Three Brothers' Plan to Bathe Curze
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[Ding! Congratulations, Host, for witnessing the return of gene-primarchs Sanguinius and Konrad Curze, and for witnessing the successful absolution of Horus Lupercal.]
[Rewards being distributed...]
A long string of numbers flashed across his retina. Eight figures. Kaelen stared at the sum, and the stone that had been sitting in his chest finally dropped.
On top of that, extraction authority for thirteen battle-automata housed in the Imperial Palace's underground vaults had been transferred to his name.
Power, wealth, top-tier protection. He had all of it now.
Kaelen sank back into the broad, soft sofa in the VIP suite and let out a long breath. The miserable grind since transmigrating into the Warhammer universe had finally, finally turned a page.
And those points could be exchanged for even more valuable things.
"Four primarchs back, the Lion about to wake up. The Imperium's situation is so much better than the original timeline."
His voice echoed in the empty suite, talking to no one.
He knew exactly what that meant. Every change traced back to him. The old man on the Golden Throne wouldn't let that slide, and neither would the Chaos Gods.
So running off to play hero solo right now would be no different from walking into a grinder. The optimal play was to stay inside Terra's inner circle of power, bound to these gene-primarchs, rising and falling together.
Besides, he'd saved them and helped them. The goodwill and friendship they'd given back were real.
As for the Emperor's earlier cryptic remarks, and that transparent attempt to probe him by dangling a Living Saint matchmaking scheme, Kaelen had let it go in one ear and straight out the other.
When dealing with a creature nearly forty thousand years old with a belly full of schemes, watching what he did mattered a lot more than listening to what he said.
The door opened.
Horus and Guilliman walked in.
The Lord of Ultramar looked terrible. Dark circles hung under his eyes, and the veins at his temples were visibly throbbing. Preparing for the Indomitus Crusade while simultaneously racing to compile corruption evidence on Terra's senior officials — Guilliman had been running on no sleep for half a month straight.
Horus, trailing behind him, wasn't much better. The Lupercal had been completely conscripted as his brother's errand-runner, spending the past several days grinding through administrative work across Terra's various departments. Stacks of data-slates and parchment scrolls had done what no enemy ever had: worn the Warmaster of the Great Crusade down to a frayed edge.
"What happened? You two."
Kaelen sat up, gaze moving between them.
This wasn't just exhaustion from heavy workloads. Both giants wore an expression of deeply absurd vexation, the kind that came from something genuinely baffling.
Guilliman walked to the table, grabbed the water jug, poured himself a cup of cold water, and tilted his head back to drain it in one go.
"Tribune Trajann reported Father's instructions to me. Father wants to add something to the Custodes' organizational structure."
Guilliman paused for a long moment. His azure eyes held nothing but incomprehension. "Anyway, Kaelen, you should be able to figure it out. I can't even bring myself to say the word."
Kaelen raised an eyebrow.
He got it instantly.
Femboys.
The old man was actually serious? Kaelen had only ever seen that in fan works.
He didn't quite believe it. He pressed further.
"Was this given as a primary strategic directive to the Tribune?"
"No." Horus shook his head. "Father summoned Trajann to have him fully cooperate with Roboute's upcoming purge of Terran officials, and to finalize the transfer of Custodes command authority within the expeditionary fleet."
"The matter Roboute just mentioned was purely a spur-of-the-moment supplementary request. Father's little addition."
Horus rubbed his bald scalp.
"Trajann thought it was outrageous, a disgrace to ten thousand years of Custodes honor. But he absolutely did not dare defy Father's verbal decree to his face. And since it was a personal request, he couldn't exactly run it through the Administratum's normal reporting channels. So he came to Roboute and me to discuss it. Neither of us could make the call."
"Which is why we came to find you." Guilliman picked up the thread, eyes fixed on Kaelen.
Two primarchs, completely unable to parse their father's thought process.
"Simple. Just refuse." Kaelen leaned back into the sofa, hands laced behind his head. "Don't indulge him. Treat those words like a fart and let them go."
Guilliman and Horus exchanged a glance. Hesitation in both sets of eyes.
"Won't refusing him so directly provoke Father's anger?" Guilliman asked.
"Provoke what anger." Kaelen snorted, puncturing the primarchs' reverence for their father without a shred of hesitation. "You're both overthinking it. You've spent so long treating him like a majestic sovereign that you've lost perspective. You need to actually think about his current psychological state."
He raised one finger and wagged it.
"He sat on that chair for ten thousand years. Couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Now I've installed a speaker for him and he can finally open his mouth. Put yourself in his position. If you'd been bottled up for ten thousand years, wouldn't you seize every chance to run your mouth and blow off steam?"
Guilliman opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
"And besides, throwing out absurd directives like this, that's just pranking. Mischief." Kaelen stood up and walked between the two of them. "If the Sigillite Malcador were still alive and heard a request like that, he would have slapped the rejection report directly onto the Emperor's face."
"So the more seriously you take it, the more you agonize over it, the more he enjoys himself. Pretend you didn't hear it. Delete this part entirely. That's the optimal solution."
With Kaelen's logic laid out, the tension visibly drained from both primarchs' shoulders.
"Understood." The steadiness of Guilliman's usual pragmatic self settled back over his face. "I'll tell Trajann to expunge this portion of the unofficial conversation from the record archives entirely."
The words had barely left his mouth when the door opened again.
Sanguinius stepped in. He took in the two brothers and Kaelen, and smiled.
"Chatting in here without calling me?"
"My brother, Roboute and I only just finished with official business. I barely have the energy to breathe, let alone chat."
Horus managed a tired smile.
Sanguinius moved to his side. He was about to say something when a sour stench hit him, sharp and strange, threaded through with the ghost of incense. He frowned slightly.
"Horus. You need a bath."
"I don't want you ending up like Curze, reeking from head to toe."
There was a faintly aggrieved note in Sanguinius's voice. He'd felt the whole business of beating Curze up hadn't been worth it. The brat had been filthy all over and smelled absolutely foul.
Horus shrugged helplessly.
"If I had the time, I'd absolutely go soak. I'm already missing the bathhouses of Macragge."
"I can't even get my power armor off..."
Guilliman said it with a note of irritation, fingers brushing the wound on his neck left by his fallen brother.
Sanguinius watched from the side. Something connected in his mind: Fulgrim and Curze, drawn together.
"Fulgrim's fall is lamentable."
He said it quietly.
"He chased perfection too obsessively. I still preferred who he used to be, especially the period when he looked after Curze. Curze was at his most normal back then too. At least he wasn't so unhinged. At least he bathed."
"Yes. Fulgrim."
Horus and Guilliman fell into a brief silence. Sighs drifted through the room.
The Phoenix Lord, once synonymous with perfection and nobility, had become a serpentine monster beyond recognition. When Fulgrim had hung between life and death under that poisoned blade, the grief in Guilliman's heart had far outweighed his anger. His relationship with Fulgrim had been a good one. He'd even played matchmaker, building the bridge of friendship between Fulgrim and Ferrus.
And Curze, now dragged back from the dead, left Guilliman's feelings tangled.
On one hand, a brother returning from death was worth celebrating. On the other, the things Curze had done — the terror campaigns across the Five Hundred Worlds, the threats against his adoptive mother Lady Euten — those sat like a thorn lodged deep in the Lord of Ultramar's chest.
But he knew. Curze's greatest crime was madness, nothing more. His Nostramo brother had been starved of love, of warmth, of companionship, and the prophetic visions had ground that deprivation into something broken. If Curze had been allowed to return to the Imperium and stay close to him back then, perhaps everything would have been different.
"Pardon the interruption." Kaelen spoke up, cutting through the melancholy.
"I think you could fill the role Fulgrim played back then. All three of you."
"Give Konrad the things he never had. Nudge his worldview a little, pull him back from the extreme edge. And you're not Legion Masters anymore. You actually have time to spend together now, more than you ever did during the Great Crusade."
All three primarchs' eyes lit up at the same moment.
"A brilliant idea, my friend." Horus grinned, the exhaustion swept clean from his face. He turned to Sanguinius and Guilliman and laid out a plan.
"How about this. We start with step one. We all help our little brother Konrad take a bath. Solves the hygiene problem and rebuilds some long-overdue brotherly bonds."
"Hmm. An excellent entry point. I fully endorse the concept." Guilliman analyzed it with a straight face, but the doubt on his face was completely undisguised. "However... knowing Curze as I do, he will absolutely, one hundred percent, not cooperate."
He thought back to Curze tearing through Macragge, biting people like a rabid dog. This was going to be high-risk physical labor. Washing one gene-primarch might take half the Imperial Palace down with it.
"Roboute. Don't forget. There are three of us."
Sanguinius tossed the words out lightly.
On that breathtakingly beautiful, seemingly harmless face, a deeply scheming smile spread wide.
"We just go catch him and force him in. Simple. Like dealing with a cat that's terrified of water. Toss him straight into the bath and pin down all four limbs. Because if he keeps wandering the palace every day smelling like a fermenting corpse, nobody is going to survive it."
Two seconds of silence.
Then the three gene-primarchs, towering, ancient, lords of mankind — and one mortal, burst into perfectly synchronized laughter.
➤ Next: The First Legion Arrives
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