Lord of the Night

'Death is nothing compared to vindication,' he finishes, sitting forwards on his mighty throne, 'Now do your job and be done with it!'

And her hand rises, and the thing in her grip flickers bile-green, and...

And...

Sahaal stared down at the priestess, blinking through a film of water, and gathered himself.

'No,' he said. 'He is dead. He was betrayed by one who should have loved him.'

The effect of this upon Chianni could hardly have been more devastating. She rocked back in her chair and scrabbled at her face, tears and spittle oozing between fingers, breath catching in her throat.

Sahaal was unsurprised. To him, a veteran of the Horus Heresy, the idea that the gods and angels of the Imperium might be capable of betrayal was nothing new. But to the peasants amongst whom he walked — people like this woman — he was less a living being than a myth made solid. Little wonder their minds rebelled against his words. And little wonder the priestess's nausea: it is not often one is told their gods are just as capable of misery, flaw and evil as any other being.

'Restrain yourself,' he said, tiring of her fit. 'You questioned me regarding my master's legacy, not the reason for his death.'

She recovered her dignity by degrees, straightening into her seat and smoothing her tangled hair. 'Aapologies, lord,' she choked, wiping her face. 'I... I had no idea...'

'He is dead,' Sahaal repeated, eager to return to the story, flushed with a gratification at speaking it aloud that he hadn't expected. It was as if the millennia of his dormancy had allowed the pain to fester in his soul, to expand like some poisoned gas, swelling his ribs with pressure he could no longer contain. Merely speaking of it, merely venting his memories, felt like opening a valve in his mind, expelling the venom in a great invisible cloud. 'He is dead and that is an end to it. He had foreseen it, and for that was grateful, for he could prepare himself. He named an heir, he bequeathed his mightiest treasure, and that heir was — is — me.'

'T-then this treasure is-?'

'Is the item I seek on this world.' He clenched his jaw, remembering. 'It was stolen from me before I could even claim it.'

The Haunter's head, so placid in its aspect, tumbles to the floor and rolls. There is no blood.

The killer stands thus poised, grisly mission complete, and perhaps she pauses to savour the moment. Perhaps she reflects upon the ease with which it was done.

Or perhaps she has more still to do.

She bends to the body and plucks at its dead limbs. A ring, she steals, and a silver blade worn in a flesh scabbard at its shoulder. And then she turns, hunched low on the writhing floor, seeking something.

And then she straightens, and in her hand she holds it. Dislodged from his person at the moment of death, she finds it and she takes it.

The prize.

The Corona Nox.

In the shadows, Sahaal gapes. His master had not foreseen this.

And then she is gone, as quick as a cobra. And it is then, only then, with grief overcome by sudden anger, with teeth rasping together and hot tears turning to ice on his cheeks, that Sahaal quits his vantage and races in pursuit.

'S-stolen?'

'Yes. By my master's killer. I should have known his enemies would try to take it...'

'H-he is here? That is who you pursue? This Slake — he is the one who killed your master?'

'No. No, this happened... many years ago. She is dead now.'

'S-she?'

'The killer. The assassin.'

Chianni had the look of one who was drowning in a sea of surprises, and still had not even sighted the shore.

'Then... my lord, why here?'