Chapter 182 - The Mournival — Face to Face
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"You place a lot of stock in this kind of ceremony? All the call-and-response, the formal questions."
Kaelen leaned against the stone-carved balcony railing, swirling the last of the wine in his glass.
"That banner ceremony this morning. I'm still not used to it."
"In formal settings, it is necessary."
Cullen stood beside him, armor still on, posture still carrying that particular rigid uprightness unique to veterans of the First Legion.
"Though the content of the oath, it sounded like an adaptation of a pre-battle vow. Lord Guilliman must have polished the original to make it fit a public occasion."
From inside the banquet hall, the sounds of revelry filtered faintly through the thick glass doors.
The celebratory feast had hit its peak. Cups raised and crossed, laughter spilling over.
And this mortal and this Astartes had quietly retreated to the small balcony, savoring a rare slice of quiet.
"Did you ever go through any of that?" Kaelen turned his head.
Cullen shook his head.
"The First Legion does not concern itself with so many formalities. For us, obey orders, accept the mission, complete the objective. That is everything."
His tone was flat. The tone of a man stating a fact that needed no decoration.
"Compared to other Legions, it can seem somewhat dull. Take Lord Lupercal's Luna Wolves."
Kaelen gave a slight nod.
He understood what Cullen meant.
The cultural differences between the Astartes Legions were staggeringly vast, and to a great extent, those differences had been shaped by the gene-fathers themselves.
The cold, taciturn Lion. The open, outgoing Wolf King. Two utterly different souls, who had pressed utterly different temperaments into the sons of their respective Legions.
"Speaking of which, Cullen." Kaelen remembered something. "What position has Horus arranged for you in the Legion? One of the Mournival?"
Cullen's brow twitched, almost imperceptibly.
"I am a Son of the Lion." A trace of irritation entered his voice. "Not a Son of Horus."
Kaelen couldn't hold it. He burst out laughing.
Light, easy laughter, scattering into the night breeze.
"...So what post is it?" he asked, once he'd had enough.
"An ordinary company captain." Cullen exhaled, his shoulders easing a fraction. "I don't aspire to become part of his exclusive inner advisory circle. I am here lending my strength to Lord Lupercal's rebuilding of his Legion out of my own conviction, and by the Lion's command. And if it becomes necessary, I will protect him."
"A Legion exchange student, basically."
Cullen was silent for two seconds, apparently working through the phrasing with genuine effort.
"...If that is how you understand it, you are not wrong."
"And what about you, Kaelen?" Cullen turned the question back. "You don't intend to join the Mournival?"
Kaelen laughed, the short bitter kind, and drained his glass in one go.
The wine slid down his throat and left a warm trail behind it.
"Not capable enough. Same as you, I'm not chasing that position. You saw my command performance on the Cadian battlefield. Two mortal infantry platoons, at most. Add one more squad and I'd be completely out of my depth."
He set the empty glass on the stone railing and shook his head.
"Put me in as a Legion commissar, though, morale speeches, that sort of thing, and I'm quite good at that."
He paused, gaze drifting through the glass doors toward the warm lights of the banquet hall.
"Besides, the Mournival already has its seed, doesn't it?"
He raised a hand and pointed inside.
Loken was trapped in a ring of female remembrancers.
The young women were gazing up at him, eyes full of admiration, questions coming one after another. The handsome Cthonian, his face marked by a scar that suited him, wore a polite, somewhat rigid smile, while his eyes frantically hunted for an exit.
Then his gaze passed through the glass and found Kaelen on the balcony, waving at him.
He had his excuse instantly. He practically broke free, squeezing through the crowd and covering the distance in three long strides, stepping out onto the balcony.
"Loken! Fleeing the ladies' enthusiasm — not very gentlemanly."
Kaelen laughed with open delight, every bit of it schadenfreude.
"Please stop tormenting me, Lord Kaelen." Loken managed a strained smile. "I've never been particularly good with remembrancers..."
"Including Miss Mersadie Oliton?"
Cullen blinked, searching his memory for the name.
After a moment, he gave up. His archival records contained nothing on this person.
"A mortal?" he asked.
Kaelen nodded.
"During the Great Crusade. One of the Luna Wolves' mortal remembrancers."
Both of them noticed it. The instant Loken heard that name, he went still.
The pause was short. Short enough that a mortal would barely catch it. But Kaelen caught it, and Cullen caught it too.
"I never imagined I would hear... her name again, from your lips, my lord." Loken's voice dropped half a register.
"She was a hero, Loken. No one forgets a hero."
Kaelen didn't press further.
He knew the full shape of what had existed between Loken and Miss Mersadie. A Platonic bond, never fully bloomed, ended in the most brutal way. These things didn't need to be pulled back into the light. He only needed Loken to know that someone still remembered.
"Yes." Loken lowered his eyes.
"She was a very special... hero. Like the thousands upon thousands of heroes of the Imperium."
A weight settled over him.
But he shook it off quickly. Not because it no longer mattered, but because the Primaris upgrade had reshaped him at a fundamental level. The old mortal sentimentality was suppressed now, held down by the hormones of a more powerful body, filtered through more rational neural pathways. He still remembered Mersadie. Remembered her voice. Remembered the little habit she had of biting the end of her stylus when she was deep in a report. But those memories no longer burned the way they once had.
And there was one thing Loken was ashamed to admit even to himself: his feelings for Mersadie had always fallen far short of his loyalty to his Legion and to his gene-father, Horus.
That fact had gnawed at him for a long time. Until he slowly learned to accept that this was simply how he had been forged.
Kaelen let the subject go.
It touched on something private, and he had always known when to stop. He pivoted to business.
"Loken — any leads on candidates to rebuild the Mournival?"
"The Warmaster has the intention." Loken surfaced from his memories, voice settling back into professional calm. "But no candidates have been confirmed yet."
His gaze moved between the two men standing before him. His father's two closest friends.
"I believe the Warmaster will want Lord Kaelen and Lord Cullen to join —"
"That's not our job." Kaelen cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Leave it to the right people, Loken. Of the original Mournival, you're the only one left. If Horus can't decide, then the selection falls to you."
Loken opened his mouth.
But Kaelen's words had found something. Like a key sliding into the right lock. A quiet click, and something turned open.
He realized it then. The once mighty, once united Luna Wolves, the brothers who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the Mournival, only he remained. Sedirae, Abaddon, Aximand, Torgaddon.
Their faces moved through his mind one by one, like old photographs lifted by the wind.
A quiet, faint loneliness passed through him.
He didn't let it reach his face.
"I will do my best, my lord," said the Cthonian.
The words settled over the balcony. From inside the hall, a fresh wave of cheering broke out.
After a brief silence, Kaelen picked up the wine bottle and poured a glass for himself and another for Loken.
"Then, to the heroes." He raised his glass. "And to our future."
Loken looked at him, then lifted his own.
"To the heroes. To the future."
The two glasses met softly in the night breeze.
➤ Next: Horus: Russ Might Not Be a Barbarian
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