Chapter 113 - All Have Aged
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"Kaelen?"
"Kaelen?"
"Kaelen!"
Kullen's voice dragged Kaelen back to reality.
They were inside the banquet hall of the Arx Angelicum. The Sons of Sanguinius had thrown together a makeshift feast to celebrate their Gene-Sire's return, nothing grand, just something quick and heartfelt. As the Great Angel's guest of honor, Kaelen had been invited as a matter of course.
He'd drunk himself into a stupor. Kullen had to half-carry him to a side room to sleep it off.
"You drank far too much."
Kullen's tone left no room for argument.
"It's not me, old knight. It's the wine. Something's wrong with Baal wine, I think they cut it with something. The kick comes out of nowhere and hits like a freight hauler."
Kaelen shook his head. He'd talked up sampling Baal wine before they arrived. One sip in, he'd wanted to spit it straight back out. Vile didn't cover it. But he couldn't exactly do that in front of everyone, so he'd knocked it back under a hall full of watching eyes and paid the price.
"I'll tell you this much — if today's drinks had been Space Wolves mead, I'd be dead."
He cracked the joke mostly for himself.
"Watch yourself." Kullen said, irritable. Then, almost immediately, the edge in his voice shifted to something closer to urgency. "When do we set out?"
"What, eager to see the Lion already?"
Kullen said nothing.
The silence was deafening.
Kaelen laughed.
"Relax. We'll be moving soon. Your father Lion has a few Fallen Angels keeping him company right now. If you're worried about his safety, don't be."
"But I heard Lord Konrad mention that one of his sons is over there as well. I'm worried..."
Kullen was worried, specifically, that his old father would wake up and immediately butcher Curze's favorite son.
Honestly, if the Lion killed Sevatar — First Captain of the VIIIth Legion, the Legion Master — it wouldn't be hard to justify. The man was a traitor by any measure. But Kullen didn't want to see it happen.
These past days had changed something in him. He'd watched Konrad Curze change. He'd watched Loken and Horus find their footing as father and son. The old knight was almost embarrassed to admit it, but he didn't want the Lord of the Night to be left alone. And once the Lion returned, he didn't want this business with Sevatar to become another wound between them.
Put simply: Kullen wanted to reduce friction inside the Imperium. Especially among Primarchs. Maybe that was what had shifted in him after his audience with the Emperor of Mankind.
He knew what ten thousand years of faction against faction, Legion against Legion, Primarch against Primarch had cost humanity. He'd seen where it ended.
"Relax," Kaelen said. "Your father's temper has improved considerably since he woke up. I doubt he'll execute Sevatar on sight."
He paused.
"Besides, Sevatar's a psyker. He can see his own future. He knows how to use words to keep himself breathing long enough to reach Curze."
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Avalones. A small room in an unremarkable estate.
Sevatar jolted upright.
Cold sweat ran down his forehead in heavy drops. A violent migraine tore at his nerve endings. The dream had come without warning, and in it, countless jagged shards of prophecy had been forced into his skull all at once.
Among the grotesque images, one was perfectly clear.
A tall, pale figure in black armor.
Konrad Curze.
His Gene-Sire was not dead. He had been on Baal. He had cut the head off a xenos with his own hands.
Sevatar pressed his rough, withered palms hard against his face and forced his two hammering hearts to slow.
The heavy wooden door swung open.
A tiny figure sprinted into the room.
"Yago! You're awake!"
The girl's voice rang bright and clear off the walls.
Othalia.
She was the fortieth-generation great-granddaughter of the Astropath Othani. Ten thousand years ago, Sevatar had saved Othani's life aboard a Dark Angels flagship. Ten thousand years later, he had buried his name in Avalones and become this family's old butler.
"Awake." Sevatar lowered his hands. His gaunt face managed something close to a smile. "Why is it so loud out there?"
Othalia threw herself against the side of the bed, eyes blazing.
"I just ran through the streets! Yago, you will never guess what I heard!"
Sevatar reached for the tin cup on the nightstand. "What news could possibly make you this excited?"
"The Lion!" Othalia punched the air with both small fists. "Lion El'Jonson! Gene-Sire of the First Legion! The legendary great hero, he's come to Avalones!"
CLANK!
The tin cup hit the floor. Water spread across the stone.
Sevatar's body went rigid.
"Who did you say?" His voice came out rough. "Lion El'Jonson?"
"Yes!" Othalia was glowing, completely oblivious. "It's all over the Governor's Palace! With Lord Lion here, every villain and rebel lurking in the void will be driven out for certain!"
Sevatar's heart dropped.
The Gene-Sire of the First Legion was awake.
That cold, merciless executioner from the Great Crusade had come here.
"Do you know where he is now, Othalia?" He kept his voice level.
"Everyone's saying Lord Lion is resting at the Governor's Palace," she answered happily.
The prophecy of his father's return. The Lion's arrival.
Sevatar could smell it, the particular scent of an age turning on its axis. Two forces that should have stayed buried in history were forcing their way back into the material universe, and they were doing it loudly.
"Yago, why are you staring like that?" Othalia poked his knee with one finger.
Sevatar looked down at her face. Open. Trusting. He pulled out a bitter smile. The scar beside his mouth twisted with it.
"Nothing. I was just thinking, the Lion's arrival may not be the good thing everyone seems to think it is."
"How could it not be?" Othalia crossed her arms. "He's a great hero. It says so in the stories."
"He was never a hero." Sevatar's voice was quiet. "He is a butcher without mercy. When he strikes, he is colder than the most savage beast. He does not care how many people he destroys, as long as the objective is met."
Othalia didn't understand. She puffed out her cheeks and looked away.
"I need to go out tonight, Othalia." Sevatar stood and ruffled her hair. "You stay home. Listen to your parents. Don't go anywhere."
"Mm! Be careful out there!"
The Governor's Palace.
Night had swallowed the compound whole.
Sevatar pulled on a heavy cloak that covered him from collar to boot. The bolt pistol at his hip had been with him for ten thousand years. He'd cleaned it carefully. It was ready to fire.
He left the estate and moved through the back alleys toward the Governor's Palace. His body was old and worn, but his movements were still precise. He slipped past every patrol route without touching one, scaled the high stone wall without a sound, and tucked himself beneath the crossbeam of a tower on the building's flank. Shadow covered him completely. Below, the private garden lay open and still.
He waited.
A dozen minutes passed.
Heavy footsteps sounded from the far end of the corridor.
A figure walked out.
No signature suit of auramite. No ceremonial trappings. Just the frame, the bearing, the presence.
Sevatar recognized him instantly.
Lion El'Jonson.
The breath caught in his throat.
The man he remembered had been something close to a force of nature, golden-haired, sharp-edged, radiating the feral beauty of a Calibanite beast in his prime. That man was gone.
The Lion had aged.
Not metaphorically. Physiologically. Genuinely.
The golden hair had gone gray and white, grown out into something unkempt. The clean, blade-sharp face was carved deep with wrinkles. A thick, untrimmed beard covered his jaw. The extreme, dangerous edge that had once seemed capable of drawing blood at a glance had vanished entirely. What remained in its place was something heavier. Deeper. The kind of weight that only ten thousand years of wind and frost could put into a man.
This Primarch carried the weariness of someone in his final years.
Sevatar was still processing it when four more figures emerged from the other end of the corridor.
All four wore battered power armor.
On their shoulder plates, the heraldry of the Dark Angels.
➤ Next: The Little Bat Caught by the Old Lion
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