Lord of the Night

'You'll never be my lord!' Sahaal stormed, reserves of rage spilling through the cracked edges of his soul. 'The Haunter chose me! I was the heir to the Corona Nox!'

'Little Sahaal. Little Sahaal...' the beast shook its head, smoke oozing from burning eyes. 'So foolish... You were never its heir. You were merely its keeper'

'Spare me your lies, scum! Let me up! Fight me!'

'Ha... Have you never considered, little Sahaal, that Konrad Curze intended all of this?'

'How dare you speak his n—'

'He had seen his own death. He had tasted the future. You know that. It plagued him all his life.'

'W... What of it?'

'Do you truly believe, foolish little Sahaal, that he had not foreseen your disappearance? Do you truly believe he did not know you would be lost to this galaxy for ten thousand years? Have you never asked yourself why he would allow such a thing?'

'I... I...'

Lights bulged before his eyes. His world quivered around him.

It couldn't be true. The Haunter had never foreseen it!

Acerbus's voice was a poisoned needle, pumping toxins into his brain. 'Of course he knew,' it hissed. 'He understood his own soul better than anyone. He understood the division in his heart. He understood the choices before him.'

'But he chose me... he chose me!'

'He chose me, Sahaal. He knew that he was two men. One was... just and righteous — ''the daemon spat the words, disgusted'' -whilst the other... mm... the other had felt the kiss of Chaos all its life. One thrived on focus. The other ate fear!'

'And he chose the first, damn you! He spurned Chaos! He chose me!'

'No.' The claws scooped at the flesh of his shoulder, igniting every nerve in his body. The voice was relentless, crumbling every bastion of his resistance. 'He fooled himself. He was divided, but the dark side was strongest. He had foreseen the fate of the Corona, so he bequeathed it to you. He set you to chase after it like some vapid dog, doomed to an era of sleep. He sent you away, so your... ha... your worthy witterings could not obscure his vision. His vision of a Legion that sowed fear in his name. A Legion to eat the terror of the Imperium. He knew you would never accept such a thing. He knew you had to be removed.' The beast leaned down, so close that its fanged maw all but touched Sahaal's cheek. Hot breath washed over him. 'He condemned you to your prison, little Sahaal. He exiled you!

'No! You're lying! If that were true he would have simply killed me!'

'And leave the Corona unguarded? Leave his killer to steal it? Use your sense, Sahaal.'

'But he told me everything! The... the sanctioned genocides! The Emperor's betrayal! The assassin before the Heresy!'

'Lies. The whispers of his Chaotic side, pouring poison in the ear of his virtuous self. Perhaps... hah... perhaps he even believed it himself.'

Sahaal's brain collapsed upon itself. This would not stand. He could not allow himself an instant's doubt. He could not permit the suggestion — the suspicion — that Acerbus spoke the truth. To do otherwise would be to make a lie of everything he had ever believed, and everything he had struggled to achieve.

The Daemonlord was wrong. That was all there was to it.

'You're lying, warpshit!' he snarled, spitting in the creature's face. 'The Corona is mine! He gave it to me!'

'Ah... ah yes, the Corona. I have been without it long enough. I think I should like to have it now.' The creature dug claws further into Sahaal's wound, twisting with a vicious grin. 'Where is it?'

A voice spoke from nearby. 'It's right here, you bastard.'

It was the witch. Little Mita Ashyn, the woman who had set Sahaal free. She stood with blood pouring from her eyes, legs shaking at the tumult of psychic revulsion pouring from the monster, the Corona brandished before her like a halo of darkness. She looked on the verge of insanity and death, and were it not for a single detail, a single redeeming facet, Sahaal might have cursed her for all of eternity, for presenting the prize to the Daemonlord.

In her spare hand she held a melta gun — prised, no doubt, from the dead fingers of a broken servitor.

She smiled.

The melta-stream hit Acerbus full in the chest, and he barrelled away from it as if struck by a rogue meteor. The indistinct tentacles that held Sahaal down whipped away, tangled amongst the devastation of the tumbling beast. It roared so hard that the hive seemed to shake, flexing and mewling at a wound on its front, as if a great scoop had been plucked from its flesh. Raw warpstuff — liquid gore that glimmered and dissolved even as it touched the air — geysered from the crater, becoming smoke and ether before even hitting the ground.

Sahaal was on his feet and sprinting before the beast's collapse was complete. He had no energy to speak of, his mind was a wreckage without hope of salvage, and every truth he had every believed had been stolen from him. In all the world, in all the brutal realities of the galaxy, one thing alone held any meaning.