Lord of the Night

'Hate? What did you have to hate? You fell from grace by choice, traitor, you were not pushed!'

For the first time real, honest emotion ignited behind his eyes. This was not a part of some elaborate game of words, she understood suddenly. This sentiment boiled from his guts and infected the air before him like a cloud of locusts, as heavy with conviction as it was with contempt.

'Hate for the accursed Emperor. Hate for your withered god.'

'I'll kill you! Speak one more word of this filth and I'll—'

'You ask what I hate? I hate a creature that speaks of pride and honour, that fosters the love of his sons, that smiles and scrapes at every obedient act, and then turns like a diseased dog and stabs his own child in the spine!'

'Shut up! Shut up, damn you!'

'I hate a being so sick, so certain of his own brilliance, so twisted by the call of glory, that he repays the greatest sacrifice of all with betrayal''

Mita seized at the flapping cords of the Night Lord's voice, struggling to pull herself free of the confusion gripping her.

'Sacrifice? Your master sacrificed nothing but his soul!'

The Night Lord's eyes bored into her.

'He sacrificed his humanity, child.'

And suddenly his voice was so melancholic, so deep and so calm, so bloated by sadness, that Mita found all her rage dissolved. The gun faltered in her grip and she lowered it, tears in her eyes.

'W-what?'

'He became a monster. He formed us, his Night Lords, in his own image: to spread terror and hate, to forge obedience through fear. He rescinded whatever purity he had, he cast off the humanity that was never intended for him... he risked insanity and damnation, and all to bring order to his father's Imperium.'

'He sacrificed his soul to the dark, and—'

'You aren't listening. You weren't there. I tell you, little witch: he sacrificed his soul at the Emperor's behest. He became the tame monster the Imperium needed. And how was he repaid? He was reined in. He was humiliated before his brothers. And then? The assassin's kiss.'

'He went too far! The histories do not lie! The excesses of the Night Lords are famed thr—'

'Excesses? We obeyed every order! We did what was asked of us! Listen to me, child! The "excesses" of the Night Haunter were sanctioned.'

'No...' her mind rebelled at the suggestion, lights flashing before her eyes. 'No, no, no... the Emperor would never countenance in—'