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Chapter Text

Heinrix van Calox had set his trap. 

He sat back and took in the gentle, low light from the hanging glowglobes and flickering candles, and the sweet scent of jasmine that mingled with Rina von Valancius’ persistent aroma of metallic holy oil.

She was bent over the regicide board. Dark hair fell across her pale face, and she bit her lip in concentration has she scanned the grid. 

He enjoyed these nights, alone in her quarters. The distractions of the outside world disappeared, and he could focus purely on the game. 

Well, mostly. Rina had forgone her usual tactical bodyglove for a silk dress that draped across her form and revealed the dozens of connector ports installed across her neck and shoulders. 

Heinrix wondered where else she might have augments, but he quickly pushed that thought away. He was here as a teacher, a confidant, the only one aboard the ship who knew that the Administratum block Kunrad Voigtvir had plucked her from had been Inquisition deep cover; he would not betray the trust she had placed in him with dishonourable thoughts. 

Her uncovered eye flicked towards the citizen in the centre of the board. He’d left it wide open for her Empress. His trap. The uninitiated failed to realise that citizens were expendable in the greater battle for the Imperium. But would Rina? 

Behind him, the great bank of cogitators that walled her office whirred and beeped. Her collection of strange technology grew week-upon-week. In response, Rina rotated a dial on her eyepiece, before turning back to the board. 

Her hand hovered over her Ecclisiarch. The smart move. 

Each and every one of the bugs that Heinrix had placed in the Mercy of the Stars’ vox system had been removed within hours of installation, and he was still to crack the encryption system that she’d installed across all comms.

She was clever, there was no doubt, but, in regicide, at least, she was a beginner. Her slender fingers moved to the Empress, and she took his citizen with a smile. 

He had her. Caught, in the Petrokian Gambit. Now her Ecclisiarch was pinned. She doubled down, came at him viciously with her Empress. She had him in check. This was the moment when he’d let her think she’d won. 

She looked up at him. ‘So what now?’

Her heart was beating, hard. The excitement of thinking she’d bested him? Part of him wanted to let her, but he wouldn’t be much of a teacher, then. He sent his own Ecclisiarch after the now-vulnerable Empress. 

Throne knew he shouldn’t have been monitoring her vitals, but it was a habit that died hard. 

‘You tricked me,’ she said. 

Interesting. Could she see the trap? It wasn’t yet sprung. 

‘Did I?’

He had. The check had been nothing but a distraction. He moved his Emperor to safety, then, with an unassuming citizen, took the Ecclisiarch that he had pinned three moves ago.

‘Clearly.’ She grinned. ‘Would you…show me how you did that?’

He took the pieces from the board and rearranged them to show her the gambit. She often stopped him to request explanations like this, and she paid rapt attention as he talked through each move, each feint and response. 

No one else listened to him like this.

Even when the cogitator bank spluttered and spit out a ream of dot matrix paper, she remained focused on his explanation. He moved the Ecclisiarch into place, and, just as he removed his hand, she made to grab it. Her fingers brushed his. 

She quickly pulled back. ‘Sorry.’ 

Her cheeks were flushed. Heart-rate elevated. He had to stop this. It wasn’t fair. On him or her. It could mean anything. Who knew what data was flowing in through her ocular augment? Perhaps she was reacting to that. 

He swallowed and returned to his explanation. 

*

When the lesson was over, Heinrix lingered by Rina’s door. The candles were mere stubs in their sconces; it was getting far too late for him to be here. 

‘Thank you for tonight,’ she said. 

‘As always, you are very welcome.’ 

She fiddled with a port at her wrist. ‘It’s nice, not to be the Lord Captain for a while. Thank you, for indulging me.’

‘I believe I am the one who has been indulged,’ said Heinrix. ‘It is a pleasure to have a regular regicide partner.’

There was something inscrutable in her smile. ‘You are a good teacher.’

‘Thank you.’

The air hung heavy for a moment. The flickering candlelight danced upon the red glass at her eye. If only he could reach out and—

Rina laughed, awkwardly. ‘Anyway, goodnight!’ 

He nodded. ‘Goodnight, Rogue Trader.’

Chapter Text

‘Enter warp jump in three…two…one.’

‘Confirmed, Lord Captain. We have now exited realspace and are riding the brushstrokes of the warp.’ 

Rina did not need her navigator to inform her of the jump. Her own pskyer-mind shuddered and contorted as they left the comfort of reality. She gripped the handles of the operations table to keep herself steady. 

The bridge swum in front of her. The bright lights of the cogitators bloomed against the technomats’ censor-smoke, and the great metallic columns, draped with cobalt blue von Valancius banners of arms, seemed to shift like jelly.

She fought to maintain her composure. These people thought of her as a leader, even if she seldom felt like one. 

Abelard, always steady himself, helped Cassia down from the throne. She was a little wobbly on her feet, and leaned against him as he led her towards the rest of the crew. It might have been safer to make this a piloted jump, but Rina couldn’t afford to burn out the only navigator she had. 

‘We are safely cruising at warp speed,’ Cassia said. ‘I will refrain from major adjustments until we are ready to leave the warp.’ 

‘A week?’ asked Rina. 

‘Yes, provided no course corrections are needed.’ 

She giggled, and her mutant-blue skin wrinkled around an undersized nose and death-pale mouth. 

‘Perhaps, Abelard,’ she continued, ‘that would give us time to have those dance lessons you promised. Please, come find me after I have had some rest.’ 

Despite the toll the hop had taken, she almost skipped off the bridge. 

Jae lounged in a leather swivel chair across from Rina. She flexed her pointed boots, and fixed an even more pointed look on Abelard.

‘Dance lessons, eh?’

Abelard shook his head. ‘I promised her nothing of the sort.’

Cassia was young, alone. Rina felt for her, despite the headaches she had caused. None of Rina’s tech-infiltrator training had prepared her to explain why blowing up one-hundred doves was not conducive to ship morale. 

‘Let her down gently, Abelard,’ she said. 

Abelard scoffed, ‘Lord Captain! My youngest grandchild has ten years on her. Surely she has no impression that…’

Heinrix threw a data slate onto the table. ‘Stranger things have been heard of in the houses of the Navis Nobilite. She may have been raised expecting to marry someone as old as her grandfather.’ 

Abelard frowned. ‘Be that as it may, I want to make it very clear to her that I do not condone fraternisation amongst officers.’ 

Jae stifled a laugh. 

‘I shall inform Lady Orsellio that whatever lesson she is expecting will not be forthcoming,’ said Abelard.  

Rina relived him and turned her attention to the day’s maintenance report. There were potential weaknesses in the Gellar Field that would need to be monitored throughout the jump. She would ask Pasqual to—

Jae broke her attention. ‘Master van Calox, talking of relations between officers…’

He let out an embarrassed cough.

Jae launched herself from the chair and wrapped her arms around Heinrix’s back. He stood stiff, awkward, and looked towards Rina for help. 

‘Heinrix, ashmag, how would you like to be alone with our Lord Captain for an evening? I have a romantic rendezvous I must attend. Take my shift, yes?’

She let him go and patted him on the back. He was beet-red.

Rina shot him an apologetic smile. ‘With who?’ she asked Jae.

‘The battle-angel herself,’ she replied. 

Rina’s smile disappeared. ‘I thought you said she was “married to the God-Emperor”.’

‘Well, she approached me in the gym this morning.’ Jae moved from Heinrix to Rina. ‘I had my silly little aerobics routine going; she was lifting one-hundred pounds of pure steel, and afterwards she came up to me.’ 

Jae draped herself around Rina, more intimately than she had Heinrix. She wound her hands into Rina’s hair and spoke with false breathyness. 

‘Jae, I see the Exalted One himself in your figure. Meet me in my quarters, tonight.’  

‘I expected more…restraint…from a Sister of Battle,’ said Heinrix.  

She chuckled. ‘Ashmag, restraint gets you nowhere. You could do with unlearning it.’ 

He glowered. ‘And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?’

Rina did not need this tonight. She had to focus on the jump, the Gellar field, Throne, she needed to prepare what she would say when they reached Dargonus and she finally met the mysterious Lord Inquisitor she had heard so much about.   

‘Heinrix, you can take her shift, right?’

He nodded. ‘Gladly.’

‘How cute.’ Jae pulled Rina closer. 

Rina pushed her away. ‘Jae, shut up and go get ready for your date.’ 

*

All was, finally, quiet on the bridge. The graveyard shift consisted of a skeleton crew, and Rina and Heinrix were the only officers on the bridge. 

They worked together quietly, passed each other reports on the status of the engines and shields, checked and rechecked the ship’s vital operations. There were a number of political situations sitting on her data-slate to be dealt with, but they could wait until they returned to the material world. 

Maybe they wouldn’t matter at all, if Heinrix’s superior officer gave her her old job back. It wasn’t as if the Inquisition was going to have a secret von Valancius heir in their pocket, but maybe there was something, anything, he could do. 

A steaming mug of recaf appeared before her. She looked up to see Heinrix holding his own mug. She took a grateful sip. Strong. Just the way she liked it.

‘Question,’ he said. 

‘Mmn?’

‘What does “ashmag” mean, exactly?’

‘Little brother.’ She didn’t say that it also meant blind old man, or a curse, and that Jae definitely meant it in all three ways. 

‘I see.’

Before he could query further, she changed the subject. ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about.’

‘Oh?’

‘Kibella. I’ve stationed her below-deck for the jump. I let her read my tarot and…’

Heinrix finished her sentence. ‘She’s a psyker.’

Rina nodded. 

‘What do you want to do?’

‘There is nothing I want to do. I know what the right thing to do is. But…’

‘You don’t wish that on anyone.’

‘No. But then…Idira.’

‘That was regrettable. Theodora should never have entertained an unsanctioned psyker, but I do believe Argenta’s trigger finger is rather happy.’ 

‘We like to ask questions, first.’

‘Indeed.’ 

‘Think about it. We’ll have to deal with her when we get to Dargonus.’ 

Before all that, Rina wanted to do some work that she was actually interested in. She’d had precious little time with her cogitators since assuming the mantle of Rogue Trader, and she was certain there was something strange hiding in the recesses of the ship’s data-crypts. The machine spirits were restless, agitated, and she wished to sooth their anxieties. 

She tied her hair up and went to sit by the main cogitator. Once there, she unzipped the top of her bodyglove and pulled it down to gain access to the ports that covered her neck and shoulders. 

From the tangled mess of wires, nodes and sacred seals she pulled a number of jacks and started plugging them in behind her ears and on her front. Residual elasticity bit into her ports, the ghosts of the motive force giving up the last of their energies. 

The bus that slotted into the back of her neck did not want to stay in place. She tried it one way, then the other, but didn’t quite have the reach.

‘Do you need a hand?’ asked Heinrix. 

‘Please.’ 

He stood behind her and gently tilted her head forward with both hands, then steadied her neck as he inched the cable inside of her flesh. The touch of his hands, the pressure as he pushed in—she tried not to be weird about it. This was just normal operating procedure. To turn this into something it wasn’t was to violate the sacred protocols.

And then she was in, surfing the crests of the motive force, her mind scattered through a hundred different data-crypts and terminals, searching the hyperlink-labyrinth for whatever ailed her ship. Like this, she felt as one with the Omnissiah, the true form of the Emperor of Mankind.

The ship lurched. Rina was pulled into spacial reality as the cables were ripped from her head with a shock of searing pain. She lost her grip and knocked a stack of melting candles over her cogitator screen as she fell. 

It was as if her stomach had been turned inside out, as if her brain was being boiled, bombarded by sick information, the very inverse of the Machine God’s light, the dark heat of—cool, calm, white light. Her heart slowed, and a gentle energy flowed through her veins. 

She recognised this feeling. Heinrix’s biomancy. 

It wasn’t just his energy, but his arms, too. He’d caught her, saved her from smashing her head against the hard plasteel floor. 

A heady overtone of frankincense met her senses as he pulled her up and steadied her.

‘Thank you,’ she said. 

He was still holding her shoulders. He looked at her strangely, then brushed a stray hair from the port at her temple.

‘I’m always here for you Rina, always,’ he whispered.

Rina swallowed, willed her heart still lest he picked it up. Throne, he wasn’t taking Jae’s advice, was he? 

Speak of chaos and it doth appear. The stomp of heeled boots broke the tension, and Jae threw herself into her chair. 

Rina darted back from Heinrix before Jae could gather more fodder for her jokes. ‘What happened to your date?’

She threw up her hands. ‘I have no clue! I voxed her. I am a lady who likes to be prepared, so I asked her, did she want the normal one, or the big gold one?’

It took Rina a second to realise what Jae was referring to; when it hit she laughed and shook her head. ‘You might have to go to confessional for that one.’

‘Ugh, Shereen.’ Jae leaned back in her chair. ‘Unlike you, I am not ashamed of my desires.’ 

Heinrix arrived on the bridge from a side stair. ‘I think she meant the blasphemy…’

Had he not just been next to her? How had he vanished so quickly?

‘Where did you come from?’ she asked.

‘I was at the Starboard cogitators.’

‘But weren’t you just…’ she gestured next to her. 

‘What?’

‘Nevermind.’ 

‘I wasn’t interrupting, was I?’ asked Jae. 

Heinrix and Rina spoke almost in sync. ‘No!’ 

She crossed her legs through the holographic map. ‘Guess I’ll join the not-getting-any club for tonight’s shift then…’ 

*

Darkness pressed in on all sides. Rina couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. The stench of sex and flesh-rot filled any breath she could take. Pain. Pain like every nerve lit on fire, like every muscle clenched, like she would give in just to end it. Give in. Give in. Give—white light. Slow, it draped her like a shroud, like a sweet death in the Emperor’s cause, like fragrant corpse flowers. She focused on it, death over chaos, the Emperor’s embrace. He circled her in His arms, and in His gentle embrace she—

Woke up.

Rina’s heart beat hard against her chest, and she willed her breath slower as she pulled her tortured mind from the depths of the immaterium and back into the room, into realspace. She kept her eyes closed, focused on what she could feel: the plush mattress at her back, the sweat that stuck her silk nightgown to her skin, the duvet tangled at her feet, and the God-Emperor's arms, still around her. 

The what? She wrenched her stinging eyes open, and there, next to her in the dark, she saw exactly where the feeling had come from. 

Heinrix. Half-naked, wearing nothing but trousers and his rosette on a chain around his neck. It’s gold metal glinted in the sliver of light that shone through the crack in the curtains. 

Her breath caught in her throat. ‘What are you doing here?’

He ran a hand against her temple as she pulled away from him. Did he really think it was appropriate to just…turn up in her bed? 

‘I could hear your dreams,’ he whispered. ‘The pain, the darkness. You cried out for me.’

Had she? If she had, she’d have expected Heinrix to turn up with a pistol and a power sword. And likely massive abashment at being in her bedroom. Perhaps she didn’t know him as well as she thought. And this was…weird…but not unwelcome. 

She hesitated. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.’

She found a very interesting spot on the headboard to stare at. One that didn’t feature Heinrix’s eyes, or his bare chest. Without the distraction, her mind started to pull itself from the sticky trappings of chaos and into clear thinking. This was all very exciting, but it betrayed a serious problem with her security. 

‘Where are my guard?’ 

‘I ordered them out.’ 

Did he have the authority to do that? They had been officially requisitioned, and Rina had never turned down his advice, yet…perhaps she was more attached to this Lord Captain farce than she’d realised. 

He pulled his arms from her and sat up against the headboard, against the dark-wood craving of apple blossoms in spring. She couldn’t help but look at his muscular chest, at the way his trousers clung to his hips. Had he thrown them on in a hurry when she’d screamed at him in his dreams? 

‘Come here,’ he said. 

It sounded like an order, took on that dark timbre she heard only when he spoke to heretics and the condemned. Perhaps he used that voice in other situations, too. 

She tentatively obeyed, still unsure of his intentions. When she sat up, close to him, he pulled her into him so she lay against his chest, between his knees. His breath upon her neck was strangely cold. He laced his fingers through her hair and pressed the pads of his fingers to her head once more. 

‘Let me help you relax.’

Perhaps she’d misread things. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done this before, on Rykad Minorus, or when they attempted Weizs’ ritual, or just that night, on the bridge. It was comforting. His touch was like Inquisitor Ocatvius’ retinue, like amesec and regicide, like the closest thing to a home she’d ever known. 

He’d never done this in her bed, though. 

One by one, her muscles began to relax. The tension in her shoulders dropped, her arms grew loose, her chest opened. His bright, light energy flowed from her head to her toes, danced between her veins and in her bloodstream. Her heartbeat slowed, one…two…steady. Her blood pressure dropped. This was different to those fleeting moments of white light. It was slow, gentle, and it dawned on her how much trust she was putting in him. He could stop her heart at any moment. 

The feeling changed, grew languid, lazy, something beyond relaxation, something like falling, sinking, melding into Askelphionian honey. She pushed into him, embarrassment and confusion forgotten in the sensation. 

His fingertips pressed harder into her skull, and she let out an involuntary gasp as the relaxation become something else. It pooled in her belly, curled her toes, spiked pleasure through her whole body.

Why was she reacting this way? He probably had no time to get dressed because he thought she was in danger, probably didn’t mean for her to feel this way at all, and with his biomancy he could tell exactly how her body was responding.

‘Stop,’ she said, through quickening breaths. ‘Please, I—’

‘Whatever you’re feeling, it’s fine.’ He held her fast, refused to stop the energy flowing through her body. ‘Just…’ His breath ghosted against her ear, ‘give into the sensation.’

She swallowed, hard, bit her lip as he kept the sweet energy flowing through her veins. This was the same power he used to pull confessions from the sick heretics who had abandoned the cause of humanity. How was it so soft, so gentle, so sensual? And how was it coming from the man who looked like he was about to die when she’d accidentally-on-purpose touched his hand during regicide?

He slid his hand from her temple to her chin, and turned her face towards him. His dark eyes were half lidded in the starlight, and he leaned down to kiss her.

Throne, who cared? She’d wanted him from near the moment they met, clung to his familiar habits, their parallel histories, his soft kindness and righteous cruelty.

She tried to turn around, to kiss him properly, but, the second she moved, his arms clamped around her waist and held her close to him. 

Desire pulsed through her body like a shockwave, like a knife’s edge, no longer soft and patient but demanding and brutal. 

‘Stop it!’ She wriggled against his hold, but couldn’t move. ‘Heinrix, I don’t want it like this. Stop the biomancy, please.’ 

His laugh was dark. ‘Of course you want it like this.’

Another flash of brutal want spiked through her body. 

‘You are completely incapable of telling me how you feel. If you’d had a single ounce of courage you could have had me here at your beck and call. But you’re a coward. Incapable of making a decision, incapable of doing anything you haven’t been told. So I’ve had to take things into my own hands. Tonight, Lord Captain, you will follow the orders of the Inquisition. Isn’t that what you’re used to?’

The way he held her had her arms and legs pinned left her unable to move, and she didn’t have the leverage to throw him. Her mind was the only weapon she had left, veil be damned.

Heinrix’s power had done nothing to disturb it. 

She screamed out a silent plea, threw a torrent of her worst emotions towards the man she had begun to suspect was not Interrogator van Calox, and commanded his mind to let her go. What she felt there was not normal. Human minds were sometimes fortresses, other times open fields, but always spacial, always interpretable, never this. Never darkness…pressing darkness, and pain, and sex and flesh-rot. The unmistakable taint of chaos!

The room was immediately bathed in pellucid frost that glowed from within. Tiny psychic snowflakes drifted before Rina’s face.

The vile daemonspawn that wore Heinrix’s face still refused to let go. Its strength was supernatural, a vice grip that held her fast.

‘You do not give me orders.’ He pushed her away, and her face smashed into the frost-covered mattress. ‘Take off your nightgown.’

Her arms cracked and crunched, moved at unnatural angles as it forced her to move using it’s vile imitation of Heinrix’s power. Her wrists strained, twisted further than the bone would allow, as they tried to pull the straps from her shoulders.

‘You’re not him!’ she spat through the pain. 

She screamed as the dress came over her head and wrenched her up with it. 

Distorted laughter filled her ears.  ‘Of course I’m not.’

It let her go and her arms fell, limp and exhausted, into her naked lap. She shivered in the frost, whether out of cold, or fear, she did not know.
 
The daemon grabbed her around her waist and threw her down, pinned her to the bed so she was forced to look into Heinrix’s eyes as the thing imitating him straddled her.
 
Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes and immediately froze. ‘Please…’

‘Let you go?’ It mocked. ‘But you want this, don’t you? You’ve thought about it. About Heinrix van Calox bursting into your room in the middle of the night, pinning you down and fucking you. You know he’d never do it.’
 
The thing pressed it’s knee onto her cunt, sent agonising pressure through a body that was already convulsing with artificial pain and pleasure. 

‘He’s as pathetic as you are.’ It spat in her face, and as saliva slid down her cheek, Rina saw the flicker of a forked tongue. ‘Which is a shame, given you’d turn this ship over to the inquisition at any given moment. He is your superior, isn’t he, throne agent?’ 

The thing fumbled with the buttons at Heinrix’s crotch and freed his cock. It pumped it languidly with one hand and held her down with the other. 

‘Don’t you want to just give up?’ It hissed. ‘Give him your ship, your body? Become nothing but a vessel for the Imperium? That’s what you are, aren’t you? Tell me, once you reach Dargonus, how long will it take you to see Abelard locked up in an Inquisition blacksite for the xenotech that’s on this ship?’ 

It pressed it’s forehead against hers.

‘Or maybe you’d prefer the real me. Maybe you got a taste for it in the Ordos Malleus. You’ve seen things that mean you can never truly be human, not any more, not if you ever were, you psyker bitch. You’ve been cursed with knowledge. How about some more?’ 

Her eyes widened as she saw it’s true form, as Heinrix’s skin turned from burnished gold to sick purple, as horns exploded from his head, as his cock turned huge and bloated, studded with sick barbs. 
She struggled in vain as the thing moved closer, positioned itself to—

Blood splattered all over her face. Through ichor-smeared vision she saw a horned head fall to the bed, severed. 

She was pulled up, and her shivering, naked body was engulfed in soft wool. Frankincense filled her senses as she was pulled into an embrace. 

‘Are you harmed?’ asked Heinrix—the real Heinrix—his voice desperate, pleading, all sense of command gone. 

She looked up into his face. At his strong jaw, his tender eyes, the stern mouth that had been on hers moments before. She felt nothing but disgust. 

She pushed him away and held his cloak close to her chest, pinned the Inquisition insignia against her skin.
 
‘Get out,’ was all she could say to him.

Chapter Text

When Heinrix arrived for the Lord Captain’s all-hands, the mood on the bridge was sour. Abelard gave him the briefest of nods, Cassia extended her usual polite greeting in dour tones, and he was ignored by the rest.

Jae’s head was in her hands, slumped against the map table, all the flippancy from last night gone. She kept sneaking glances at Sister Argenta, who seemed without her God-Emperor given confidence today.

Rina didn’t even look at him.

He wasn’t expecting a display of gratitude, not even a thanks—he had done his duty to vanquish chaos where it reared its blasphemous head—but he was worried about her. The vile things that daemon was attempting to do, may even have done, had haunted his dreams all night.

‘Good morning, Rina,’ he ventured.

She started at the floor. ‘We’ll get started when Pasqual arrives.’

Perhaps she was uncomfortable, given what he’d seen. She should be recovering, not calling an all-hands. He gently sent the question to her mind.

++Are you well? After last night…++

++Get out of my fucking head, Heinrix.++

A layer of frost blanketed the map table as the words hit him like an attack. Cassia gasped and stepped back from the table, Abelard shook his head.

Heinrix didn’t know how to feel, so let the Inquisition mask fall into place.

‘I would advise against using psychic power during warp travel, Lord Captain,’ he said.

She looked at him then, really looked at him, with a glare that sent daggers into his heart. ‘Then take your own advice.’

Metallic footsteps stepped onto the bridge. ‘This unit is reporting for duty, Lord Captain.’

Pasqual looked around the group, at the frost covering the table. ‘Has there been a social malfunction? I am sensing disquiet.’

‘We have an emergency,’ said Rina. ‘Something is very wrong, but the details I am about to share with you are…dangerous. A cognitohazard. We are dealing with the Archenemy. Every piece of information we learn about it brings us closer to chaos. If anyone wishes to leave, I won’t object.’

Heinrix knew this speech. He’d received it as an agent, and given it several times after he’d been promoted to Interrogator. It was the burden of a member of the Inquisition to carry the warp-tainted knowledge that allowed them to defend the Imperium, but they would not expose innocents to dangerous secrets unless absolutely necessary.

He straightened his shoulders, stood fast as was his duty. He would stand by her in this.

Abelard cleared his throat. ‘Well, Lord Captain, I saw many horrors in my years by Theodora’s side, I’m sure anything a former administratum clerk could share would not frighten this old officer too much.’

Rina pursed her lips and put a hand to her head. Heinrix wished he could relive her of the burden he knew command put upon her, but he dared not overstep.

‘I’m getting to that, Abelard,’ she said.

Cassia took a step away from the command table. She was young, but surely her navigator’s mind had seen worse than any of them here? She balled up her fists.

‘Lord Captain, I would like to stay, if that is agreeable to you,’ she said.

Rina nodded.

‘Permission to leave, Lord Captain?’ asked Argenta. ‘I would not expose myself to the blasphemies of the enemy.’

‘Of course.’

She walked away. No one else moved. Jae stared at her as she went, but neither she nor Pasqual left the bridge.

After a moment of pregnant silence, Rina spoke. She stood straight, looked up at the holographic map, her expression stern.

‘Last night, I was attacked by a daemon. We are no strangers to the perils of the warp, but this was different. It appeared to me in the guise of an officer. I believe this was a Mistress of Illusions. They are vile servants of the Archenemy who feed on…’ she hesitated, and for a moment her mask slipped, and a red flush appeared across her face. ‘They feed on repressed desires. The one that attacked me is dead, but where one daemon is found there will be another. We will be unable to trust anyone until this foe is vanquished.’

It made sense, the way it had her pinned, its purple form. He’d had little contact with daemons in his work with the Ordos Xenos, but he had enough passing familiarly to know that they had a serious problem on their hands.

Cassia gasped. ‘Lord Captain, could this…daemon…provide an explanation as to why I believed Abelard had offered me dance lessons?’

Of course. There had been multiple confusions that day.

‘Not just that,’ Heinrix offered. ‘Jae, your…date—do you think it was truly Sister Argenta that approached you in the gym?’

‘Were either of you attacked?’ asked Rina.

Cassia shook her head.

Jae sighed and turned to him. ‘You make a good observation, ashmag, but my desire for the battle angel was never repressed, simply unrequited.’

‘Yes.’ A theory was taking shape. ‘You told her when you asked about—ahem—equipment. And Abelard addressed the non-offer of dance lessons with Cassia. Rina, whoever you saw, did they say anything strange to you before you were attacked, did you speak to them about it?’

He tried to remain professional, to let the investigation take over his mind; he didn’t want to wonder who on this bridge lingered in her thoughts. Was her friendship with Jae something more? He’d heard a distressing rumour about her asking Pasqual to remove his robes…it was none of his business.

She shook her head, still refused to look at him. ‘You and I were the only officers on the bridge last night.’

Jae snorted. He ignored her, kept the cogs turning. Only him and Rina on the bridge last night…but he’d spent most of it at the starboard cogitators. The logical explanation suggested—surely not. That line of inquiry was out of the question.

‘Shereen.’ Jae’s smile had returned. ‘Perhaps a little honestly would benefit you, and all of us.’

What did Jae mean? Had there been someone else on the bridge?

Rina’s fists tightened around the edge of the map table. She drew in an impatient breath, then sighed heavily.

‘If you want honesty, fine. The daemon doesn’t feed on just desires. Secrets, too.’

As she undid the top button of her bodyglove and reached inside, Heinrix realised what she was about to do. Throne, he didn’t know if this was a good idea. She seemed determined that the Inquisition would help her when they arrived at Dargonus—but what help was there to give? The warrant had accepted her blood. To deny her right to the title of Rogue Trader was to deny the Emperor himself.

She pulled her rosette from her suit and threw it on the table. The red metal insignia fell through the hologram and onto the map with a heavy thud.

‘The Mercy of the Stars is now under official investigation by the Holy Ordos Malleus of the Emperor’s Inquisition.’

He kept his face impassive as he scanned the table for reactions.

Abelard worn a stern expression. ‘This does not entirely come as a surprise, Lord Captain.’ Heinrix felt his stare. ‘I am at least relived to know your reluctance to use the full remit of the trade warrant was not guided by outside influence.’

Jae scoffed. ‘After hearing about four exes with the same title, a girl starts to wonder if it is type, or circumstance.’

Rina smiled for the first time this morning. ‘You don’t meet many people in my line of work.’

She had alluded to some kind of affair within her Inquisitorial retinue in the past, but he’d never quite had the courage to ask for details. Of course, his duty demanded that he should have, that he should understand any and all connections to the woman who, truly, his task was to surveil, but something about the question felt vulgar, intrusive.

‘And yet, Shereen,’ said Jae, ‘now that you are meeting new people…’

Abelard cleared his throat. ‘I must remind you, Lord Captain, that the Trade Warrant supersedes any previous commitments you had in the Scarus Sector.’

She nodded. ‘I intend to speak to Lord Inquisitor Calcazar about the matter when we reach Dargonus.’

‘I am sure whatever solution you reach will be one worthy of Theodora’s only living descendant.’

*

Heinrix couldn’t sleep. He never could during these Emperor-damned warp jumps, not when the ship crested through waves of madness and abomination, not when unreality pawed at his psyker-mind like the ailing hands of a beggar.

Tonight was worse, though. Rina was still avoiding him. He’d been through it a thousand times. What had he done? What had he not done? Had he been wrong in thinking himself her confidant? Had he been foolish in wishing to be her protector?

He threw off the brocade duvet and got out of bed, then trudged across his spacious rooms to the en-suite. Rina had spared no expense in furnishing him with the best guest suite on the ship. It was, of course, his right, as representative of the Holy Ordos Xenos. He didn’t dare hope that its relative proximity to her own quarters meant much more than that.

When he splashed cool tap water on his face it jolted him to as close to clarity as he could get between the waves of the immaterium. His dripping reflection in the mirror was a mess; dark circles, sallow flesh, a disquieting expression. The sooner they entered realspace the better.

There was a knock at the door. He had no late-night shifts on the bridge this week. It could only be an emergency. And the last one…

He rushed across the room—didn’t even bother to get dressed, just flung the door open in nothing but his boxers.

Rina stood before him, tiny, shivering, covered only by his cape, the one he’d wrapped her in after the ill-fated events of last night. It draped around her curves and the gold Inquisition insignia hugged her body. Her wet eyes glistened in the low light of the glowglobes that illuminated the corridor beyond.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said. ‘Can I come in?’

He nodded.

Unnecessary use of biomancy during warp-translation was reckless, yet Heinrix’s breath did not catch, his pulse did not quicken, and his blood stayed firmly in his brain as she crossed the threshold. He did not imagine the cloak falling, nor her pressing him against the bulkhead. He focused. The warp and his own desires were nothing before the woman that he had sworn to protect.

Rina held the cloak to her chest with one hand as the other shut the door behind her. For a moment, he just stared, lost in anticipation. The ship’s filtering system fluttered her raven-black hair, stark against her pale, bare skin.

‘What can I—‘ he was cut off by the full force of her body, as she ran to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. The cloak was held up only by the pressure between their chests. His hands shook.

God-Emperor, this was too much. The temperature in the room dropped. Frost appeared at his feet.

‘You’re using biomancy to control yourself,’ she whispered.

He nodded, and she looked up into his eyes.

‘Don’t.’

That simple word hit him like a lascannon; his precious control faltered, and he allowed himself to wrap his shaking hands around her waist.

‘Are you sure? After what happened…’

He let his heart beat naturally, fitfully. Could she feel it, pressed up against him?

‘The demon…’ she said. ‘It manifests as its victim’s greatest desire. For me, it was you.’

A slight smile graced his lips before guilt and shame washed it away. How disgusting! To find elation in the plan of the enemy, to find hope in Rina’s despair? It was sick.

‘Please, Heinrix,’ she begged, ‘I need you to protect me from those vile memories, I need you to replace them with something real.’

Perhaps he was sick, because he did exactly as she asked. The full force of his desire washed over him, pulled him into a sea more torrid than any warp-storm. Heat prickled at his skin as his breath turned ragged and want pooled below. His cock swelled against his underwear, pressed unbearably against her hip—Emperor, this was wrong, she was traumatised, she was processing—she was kissing him and he didn’t care anymore.

He parted his lips for her, let her slide her tongue inside his mouth, let her bruise his neck with kisses, slide her hands down his chest. If this was what she needed, he’d let her have it.

The cloak dropped to the floor and pooled around his feet, but she gave him no time to admire her figure. A shiver of pleasure crawled up his spine as her fingers ghosted his waistband. Her hand slipped under it and grasped his aching cock. A groan slipped from Heinrix’s lips as he rested his head on her shoulder.

Her hand snaked though his hair and held him close. ‘I’ve wanted you for so long, Heinrix.’

It was maddening, the way she stroked him beneath the tight cloth of his underwear. All he wanted was to break free, to scoop her into his arms and—

She pulled back. ‘Take me to bed, please.’

It was if she had read his mind. Had she? Had she seen how much he wanted this?

Her arms wound around his neck and he slipped a hand under her bare thigh. The other supported her back as he hoisted her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom.

She was lighter than he expected. He’d seen her in the gym, straining on the pullup bar as sweat dripped across her skin and pooled between the rivets of heavy metal that let her communicate with the machine. Emperor-knew he’d looked for longer than he should have. But that muscle and metal seemed to weigh nothing, in fact—

Her mouth ended his train of thought. In response, he pulled her closer, tighter, against him, held her unaugmented, unblemished flesh to his weak-willed body.

He lay her gently on the unmade bed and was immediately pulled on top of her. She guided him with one hand on his neck and the other against his ass, pulled him in to wrap her legs around her waist.

Heinrix was powerless as she ushered him against her body, ground mercilessly against his trapped erection. This was all happening so fast.

‘Take those off,’ she whispered.

Throne, her command was so sweet. He scrambled up to comply and was met with glorious relief as he removed his boxers and let his cock was free from its cage.

Her eyes bore into him. ‘Come here,’ she said.

He crawled back onto the bed and she pulled him down by his hair. The slight tug was…not unpleasant.

She kissed him, long, deep and slow, then slid her hands onto his waist and pulled him against her once more. The pressure between their bodies was exquisite, and his breath quickened as he felt her slick against him.

With some force, she pressed on his shoulder and flipped him over. She sat astride him, and kissed his lips gently as she guided his cock towards her entrance. Her long hair tickled his face.

‘Wait, don’t you want me to touch you?’

Her smile was dark as she whispered into his mouth, ‘I was ready the moment I saw you.’

She bit down hard on his lip and lowered herself onto his cock. He groaned in pleasure as she engulfed him and he drowned in her, in pleasure, in every dirty thought he’d pushed away, every touch he’d abstained from, everything he’d failed to tell her.

Her movements were slow, and she rotated her hips as she looked down at him, lips parted, eyes low, a flush across her pale skin. He tried to move with her, but she pushed him down, locked his thighs with her own.

With a shake of her head, she guided his hands to her breasts. He cupped them, a perfect handful, and she let out a contented moan as he brushed a thumb over a hard, pink nipple.

Heinrix ran a hand behind her ears to pull her in for another kiss…and felt smooth skin, again. Rina had augmentations here. Cogitator jacks. He’d helped her with them on occasion, and had tried not to make a sacrilegious connection between sliding the ports inside her and…well, what was happening now.

She’d seemed so shy, then, so awkward, focused on the task at hand but, from what Heinrix could pick up with his biomancy, embarrassed at the touch. That’s why he was surprised at how forward she been tonight, and at how readily she’d thrown caution to the wind. But if she was happy, he was happy.

‘What happened to your implants?’ he asked.

He ran his fingers behind her ears, against her jaw, down her neck, everywhere he knew she had them.

She stopped moving. It took all of his control not to thrust up into her, to grab her hips.

‘I had them removed.’ She smiled. ‘I’m done with this life. You know I never wanted to captain this ship.’

What did they have to do with the ship?

He frowned, desire forgotten for a moment. ‘But…your devotion to the motive force…’

Her expression turned dark.

‘Kept me a slave to the Inquisition,’ she spat. ‘They made me a ferret like they made you a dog.’

He made to push her away, but instead she sat him up, scooped him into her arms, wrapped her legs around his waist so they sat eye to eye. He was still inside her. His cock twitched with need, even though he was starting to doubt that this was what Rina needed.

She kept moving, and her emerald eyes bore into his; her voice was desperate. ‘Put a baby in me, Heinrix. Take me back to your Knight World and reclaim your House.’

It was like a line from his deepest, most embarrassing fantasy. Even if it was possible, nothing had made him think she wanted that life. He willed some composure into his pathetic state.

‘Stop.’ His hands stilled her thighs. ‘Rina, you’re not thinking straight. I don’t think this is what you want.’

She laughed at him, her face contorted into a twisted smile as the threw him back to the bed and with one, suddenly strong hand, pinned both his wrists to the headboard.

The voice that spoke was not his Rina’s. It was distorted, gut-wrenching, carried painful echoes of the warp. He was so stupid. How could he have believed it was truly her? That she would really knock on his door in the middle of the night and beg for him?

‘Of course it isn’t what she wants! You’ve reduced the Lord Captain to fodder for your pathetic, boyish fantasies.’

Whatever-this-was spat at him as it continued to ride him. He struggled against the cold hand that held him to the bed, but her—its—strength was beyond anything he’d fought before. Worse, still, it still felt like her, still looked like her. Part of his traitorous mind wanted to let it happen, pretend he hadn’t heard what it had said.

It placed its free hand against his throat and leaned to whisper in his ear. ‘You think she wants to run away with you and have your babies?’

A disgusting, wet sensation shuddered through him as the thing’s inhuman tongue entered his ear. He jerked away, but the creature held him in place by the throat. His airways constricted as it squeezed.

The monster wearing Rina’s skin pulled back and looked down at him with contempt. ‘You fool! Her imagination is so much darker.’

It squeezed with him inside, and Heinrix was disgusted by how good it felt.

‘You think she’d be satisfied with this?’ It continued. ‘It was so much bigger when I took your form. Shall I tell you the depraved things you did to her? How you used your biomancy to—’

It didn’t get the chance. There was a bang as the door burst open, and footsteps clattered into the room. Heinrix was blinded for a moment as a long-las shot pierced the demon’s head, shot straight through false-Rina’s temple.

‘I think he’s heard enough.’

Through hazy, flash-blind vision, he saw her: an augmented angel decorated in metal, wires connecting her to her smoking lasgun. The real Rina.

Chapter Text

Rina surged forward and grasped her vile clone by it’s thin, weak arm. She hauled it from Heinrix’s embrace and threw it to the carpet. It squirmed feebly. One more bullet. Bam! Blood streamed from the wound, painted the cream rug a deep red.

In death, the daemon’s true form was revealed: purple, horned, the exact manner of creature that had attacked Rina in her bed. They had an infestation on their hands.

She hauled the body to the door of Heinrix’s quarters. ‘I’ll have someone deal with this.’

Her hand hovered above the door handle.

‘I’m sorry.’ Heinrix stood in the frame between the sitting area and his bedroom, now somewhat decent in a hastily wrapped red bathrobe.

She let her hand fall.

Every instinct told her to leave, told her to push him away just as she had when her daemon had taken his form. But, given what she’d seen…perhaps it was time for some honesty.

She let out a deep breath and turned to face him. ‘You don’t have to apologise.’ She shook her head. ‘You were attacked. It’s not your fault.’

‘I was a fool. A damned fool not to recognise chaos in my very own chambers. And to think I imagined you would…’ He pressed his lips together. ‘How much did you see?’

She grimaced. ‘…enough.’

He reached out a hand, then quickly pulled it back. ‘You must know I respect you, Lord Captain, I don’t—it was stupid—I—‘

Rina sighed. ‘Heinrix, please, stop.’

One port at a time, she disconnected the metal wires that melded her mind to her weapon.

‘It was right about one thing,’ she said, focused intently on the long-las. ‘The daemon that attacked me…used your form.’

The last cable came unstuck, and she set the long-las on the floor; she laughed, awkwardly. ‘So I guess we’re even.’

‘…I suppose you could put it like that,’ said Heinrix.

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air, then, they both spoke at once.

‘Please,’ said Rina. ‘Go ahead.’

‘I realise this may be an indelicate suggestion given the circumstances, but if these daemons are appearing to us as each other…’ he trailed off.

‘Do you want me to stay here?’ asked Rina.

‘I—‘ he faltered. ‘I think that would be the safest option.’

She nodded.

The safest, but certainly not the most comfortable. This was not how Rina had imagined discovering Heinrix returned her feelings. Throne, she hadn’t imagined he’d returned her feelings at all! She supposed she owed Jae an I-told-you-so once this daemon issue was dealt with. She might have enjoyed this if it wasn’t so fucked up.

He went to the armoire, then returned with a pair of freshly-ironed pyjamas. He pressed them into her arms. A bloodstained bodyglove was probably not ideal for bed.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘I’ll take the sofa.’

The words were out of her mouth before she knew what to do with them. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Rina?’

‘I didn’t mean—you were literally just attacked—I—‘

Her brought a hand to her face and wiped a fleck of daemon ichor from her cheek.

‘I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable,’ was all she could manage.

He pulled away. ‘Right. Of course.’

When Rina returned from the bathroom, Heinrix was in bed. The throne-damned trousers hadn’t fit, so she wore nothing but his shirt, which dangerously skimmed her thighs. In any other circumstance—and had she not been carrying the long-las, which dripped with unplugged connectors—she might have felt sexy. Right now, she felt like she was being pulled into a black hole of embarrassment.

She felt his eyes on her. Neither of them said anything as she propped the long-las at the side of the bed—she could not bet on there being no further incursions tonight—and slipped between the sheets.

That familiar smell of cedarwood and frankincense enveloped her senses. Was it a fragrance he wore? Or just the consequence of so many hours at the voidship shrine?

She lay as far from him as she could. Truly, she wanted to shift closer, to reach out across the void of awkwardness and uncertainty that separated their hearts, especially now that she knew Heinrix wanted to bridge that gap, too. But…it felt cruel, given what she’d seen. And, perhaps, he wanted things from her that she could not give.

Heinrix broke the silence with bitter thanks. ‘I didn’t thank you. For saving me. So, thank you, Lord Captain.’

She sighed, and turned to watch him stare up at the vaulted ceiling. His eyes were two different colours—how had she never noticed them during those long nights over the regicide board? One was dark, like the gulf of space, another green, and shimmering in the glow of the single candle atop his nightstand.

‘We’re even on that one, too. I’m sorry for the way I treated you on the bridge and, well, then. I just couldn’t get the image of you out of my mind…’

‘Can I ask what happened?’

The pain. Her twisted bones. The perverse pleasure of it. Rina felt sick. But he deserved to know.

‘It used a twisted version of your biomancy…it forced me to feel things…’

He shifted closer and turned to her. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. It wasn’t actually you.’

Heinrix reached out and ran a hand through Rina’s hair, down to the cold ports that studded her neck. ‘It pains me that I was used to hurt you.’

She wondered if he could sense her heart beating in her chest. She tentatively reached up and entwined her fingers with his. They were so close, breaths away from one another, noses almost touching.

‘If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine,’ she whispered. ‘If I’d have just told you…’

‘I could say much the same.’

In that moment, a woman with sense would have kissed him, would have made her feelings well and truly known, would have thrown caution to the wind. But when it came to love, caution was all Rina had ever known. And there was a greater truth she had to understand.

‘Do you really want to leave the Inquisition?’ she asked. ‘If that is truly what you want, we could drop you on-planet somewhere.’

She didn’t condone it; one did not leave the Inquisition. But she wanted him to be happy more than she wanted anything else right now.

When he hesitated, she added ‘obviously, I couldn’t come with you…’

She’d avoided addressing that part of things. Abelard’s words on the bridge flashed through her mind: the last of Theodora’s dynasty. She did not want to consider the implications.

‘No!’ He pulled away, bolted up, and put his head in his hands. ‘No. I am disowned, disinherited, wiped from the record for the sin of my mutation. I can never go back. The Inquisition is all I have. That was a stupid fantasy, Rina. And I am sorry for your part in it.’

The Inquisition was once all Rina had, too. A schola brat, a failed tech-adept; Octavius and his band was the closest thing to family she had known. Yet now…

‘What if you had to?’ she asked.

‘Go back to Guisorn III?’

‘No. I mean…nevermind.’

‘What is it, Rina? Please…speak your mind.’

She resisted calling him out on the hypocrisy of his statement, resisted reminding him of her attempts to relate to him as a fellow psyker, of his obstinate insistence that he was okay when they discovered the wreckage of that black ship. If he hadn’t pushed her away then, would she have found the courage to tell him how she felt? Before daemons were involved?

Unlikely, given their shared affliction. It remained in her mind, the idea that she had some sort of obligation to the dynasty. And she felt…very strongly…for Heinrix. But two psykers? That was stupidity bordering on heresy. Even if she wanted anything close to that, they had no right to bring another mutant into the world.

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘We should get some sleep. I fear worse trials await.’

*

In Rina’s experience, the walk of shame generally didn’t involve the barrel of a revolver pressed to one’s head, but it wasn’t as if she was terribly practised in the arts of love.

She and Heinrix had promised to stay together, but she did need to at least put on something decent, so she had whispered a hasty goodbye and slipped out into the cold corridors of the voidship.

She took two freezing, barefooted steps against the plasteel floor before said revolver was pressed to her head.

A click. An Efreeti accent. ‘My Shereen wouldn’t have the golden stones, daemon.’

The long-las was completely unmanoeuvrable. Any move to take the pistol would be slower than a bullet. She could kick out Jae’s feet, but boots vs bare feet was a bad bet.

Rina slowly and steadily raised her arms in surrender. The long-las clattered to the floor.

‘It’s me, Jae.’

‘What did you do to my ashmag, you groxshit clone?’

In front of her, the bodies of Rina’s guard slumped against the walls. They were undressed, mutilated, corrupted by the same hideous force that had made promises to Heinrix that she could never make.

Behind her, she heard his voice. ‘I appreciate the care, Miss Heydari, but I can tell you, truly, that you have a gun aimed at the Lord Captain’s head.’

‘You have been deceived, Heinrix!’

Rina couldn’t see what was happening behind her, kept her eyes on the long corridor that led to the bridge.

‘I was.’ She could hear the strain in his voice. ‘But Rina killed my daemon as I killed hers. We thought it safest to stay together.’

Jae’s voice dropped to a purr. ‘Oh, is that so, Interrogator? Pray tell, why would it be safest to stay together? What did you see?’

Rina’s face burned hot. She didn’t know why—she’d heard enough of Jae’s lectures over amesec to know that she was well aware of whatever was between her and Heinrix. But standing here in his shirt, knowing that she knew? It just felt…unseemly.

A manicured fingernail touched her burning cheek. Then, a laugh.

‘Okay, this one is truly the Rogue Trader.’

The gun was mercifully removed.

Rina let out a breath and picked up the long-las, bending at the knees to preserve what shred of dignity she had left.

‘I appreciate your vigilance, Jae. But, please, never point a gun at my head again.’

‘I hope I do not have to, Shereen! I will see you this evening on the bridge for a debreif, no?’ She winked at Heinrix.

Rina had to ignore her. It was good-natured banter, nothing more. Any inability to acknowledge that was fuel for the rot that infested the ship.

‘I will see you on the bridge, Jae.’

*

Jae plonked the bottle of amesec onto the map table. ‘Just one drink, Shereen?’

Rina gripped it’s cold, brass handles and shook her head. ‘I need to stay sharp. The archenemy is abound.’

Jae flung herself into a chair and tipped the golden liquid straight from the bottle into her mouth.

‘But we cannot talk of men and women and the arts of love without some fire in our systems!’ she complained.

‘As much as I love our chats, now is not the time.’

‘Now is entirely the time, Shereen. Not speaking enough of these things has landed devils in our lap. And, besides, is this not why we take this graveyard shift together?’

Rina used the heavy brass keys of the small cogitator keyboard to log into the ship’s administratum system. Above them, a holographic table of dates and names shimmered into view.

‘I’m changing the shifts. Putting those who have seen these illusions with their real counterparts. I hope it won’t be too awkward for you and Argenta.’

She started matching names. Abelard and Cassia. Jae and Argenta. Her and Heinrix.

Jae laughed, musical and brilliant. ‘I will survive, I am sure, with an angel to grace my presence.’

‘It doesn’t bother you?’ asked Rina.

‘I do not fear rejection, Rina. Look how much your fear held you back, then, behold! The illustrious Lord Captain walks out of Heinrix van Calox’s quarters in her underwear!’

Technomats and bridge officers alike turned their heads, but quickly got back to work when they met the eye of the Rogue Trader.

She couldn’t help but smile. ‘Please lower your voice. Nothing happened besides sleep, but…he does feel the same way.’

Jae’s exuberant gesture scattered the points of light that made up the shift rota, distorted the data to a luminescent smudge.

‘I told you! I told you a million times! But would you listen to poor Jae Heydari…’

Rina sighed. ‘It’s complicated, Jae.’

‘Complicated how? You go to him, you—’

Her explanation was interrupted by a shrill, piercing laugh.

‘Did you hear that?’ asked Rina.

All eyes were on the monstrosity that lurched it’s way onto the bridge. Its feet were bare, its eyes were sunken. Its long, black hair was tangled and ratty, and upon its head was a cone shaped hat, trailing with silks. Worst of all, it lurched, out of balance, offset by its huge, pregnant belly.

Another monstrosity had stolen Rina’s face.

‘Jae,’ she asked, ‘what do you see right now?’

Jae pointed her golden revolver—the same one that had been at the real Rina’s head that morning—at the apparition and cocked the safety off.

‘It’s you. In a stupid princess hat. And pregnant.’

Rina swept her long-las into her arms and quickly plugged its trailing cables into her head. One. Two. Three. Each one bit like a viper as the electricity shot through her brain, bringing her into complete sync with the gun’s machine spirit.

She fired a round of laser shots at the vile demon. It contorted at unnatural angles, moved with a deft, uncanny speed entirely at odds with its heaving stomach. Not a single hit. The laser heat melted into the plasteel floor, blew out the monitor of a cogitator and sent a pitiful technomat scurrying to the ground.

Jae’s turn fared no better. The bullets ricocheted off some phantasmal shield, and she and Rina ducked to avoid the golden projectiles coming right back at them.

Unblemished, the daemon lurched towards them. It gave another sickening laugh. When it spoke, it used Rina’s voice, but twisted, tuned to a false frequency, a warp-echo of the real thing.

‘It disgusts you, doesn’t it, Rina von Valancius? To see yourself like this, fat with child, weak, dependent. Your body, a finely tuned weapon of the Inquisition, dulled to a bloated vessel. The carrier for a parasite. The carrier for a dynasty.

Do I scare you? Do I entice you? Is this image new to you? Did the schola brat ready to die without a legacy ever picture this? A family of her own?’

Rina fired off another shot. ‘My service to the Emperor is my legacy!’

She would not give in to this. She would not let herself think. She would not let herself feel. She knew only hate. Only righteous fury.

‘No. What you feel is not dogma. It is attachment. You do not serve the Inquisition. You love it. Those people were the closest thing you had to family, and you know that they aren’t looking for you. Just another acolyte, missing-in-action.’

It stepped ever closer. The bridge was frozen. As all stopped to watch the creature speak, snow began to fall from impossible clouds. It settled in Rina’s hair and the blood in her veins froze, kept her rooted and fixated on the daemon.

‘And the people around you now…this is what they’d have of you. Even your Inquisitorial representative.’ The daemon gave her a gummy smile. ‘Especially your Inquisitorial representative.

The vile creature was almost upon her, close enough to touch, and it reached a spindly finger towards her. None moved to defend their Lord Captain. Why would they? She didn’t deserve it. She couldn’t give them what they wanted. A long, chipped nail scratched her cheek. A single tear fell from her unaugmented eye.

‘Why are you resistant to this? What is it that’s wrong with you? Would you make a bad mother, do you think? So detached, so afraid of emotion, more in tune with the motive force than the pathetic sentiments of humanity? It really is a shame the Mechanicus rejected you for your heresies. A life of abstinent mechanical servitude would have suited you.’

More tears stung at the corners of Rina’s eyes. Ignore it, ignore it!

‘I am no heretek!’ she screamed. ‘I was a stupid teenager, and the Inquisition saved me from my own undoing!’

‘And yet,’ the daemon chuckled, ‘sometimes you wonder if you deserved to be undone. I will give you your wish. In time, this ship will be mine.’

The daemon placed one dry, burning kiss against Rina’s forehead, then disappeared in a wave of sickening warp-energy. Puddles formed amongst the lasgun holes in the floor as the ice began to melt.

Jae sprung into action as if reanimated. She grabbed at Rina.

‘Are you all right? What on Terra was that?’

Rina blinked back her tears and picked up the main vox unit. ‘I’m calling an all hands.’

‘Shereen, talk to me!’

She swallowed against her tight throat. ‘All hands to bridge. Repeat. All hands to bridge.’

‘What is all this?’ pleaded Jae. ‘Are you—are you pregnant?’

‘Throne, no!’

The conversation was cut short by the clatter of boots and the arrival of Rina’s closest allies. Abelard, Cassia, Pasqual, Argenta, Heinrix.

‘Heinrix?’ asked Jae. ‘You’re originally from a Knight House, yes?’

‘I am,’ he said, slightly short of breath from his mad dash to the bridge. ‘Why?’

She raised her eyebrows at Rina. ‘Sure was a funny hat that daemon was wearing.’

‘There have been more illusions?’ asked Heinrix.

Rina nodded and looked over her crew. They looked like shit. No one had slept. This daemon plague had to end.

‘The situation has escalated,’ she said. ‘I’d like a report on what everyone has seen.’

Abelard spoke first. ‘Surprisingly little, Lord Captain. The guard stationed in the officers quarters has seen near one-hundred-percent casualties, but I have had no reports of strange apparitions.’

It was a similar story all around. The engine room, chapel and shrine had all seen death, but none had come in guise. Rina put her acolyte’s mind to work. There was a logic to this. After what she’d seen, she knew this wasn’t over, but they had killed two of the vile spawn.

Cassia gently cleared her throat. ‘Lord Captain, if I may? I’m not sure if this is relevant, but I saw a horse on the upper decks.’

‘A horse?’

‘Yes. In livery…like something out of a fairy tale.’ She sighed, wistfully.

‘Like something from a Knight House,’ said Jae.

And then she knew. The knowing pushed down the embarrassment, the shame. There were two. Jae and Cassia’s apparitions—the false Argenta and Abelard—had not staked their thirst for secrets, for desires. They still roamed the ship: as a princess and her steed.

Rina addressed her retinue. ‘We still have two daemons aboard. The horse and…the one we saw earlier.’

‘It looks like her,’ said Jae. ‘Also in Knight House livery. And—’

A hot flush prickled at Rina’s skin. She gripped Jae’s arm to stop her talking. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Heinrix grimace.

‘Rina…’ he started.

She shook her head and held up a hand. She would address this. She had to. But not here, not now, not in front of the whole crew.

‘Here’s the plan,’ she said. ‘We stay together. The Archenemy is targeting the officers. When these things show up, we put seven rounds of bolts through their heads.’

Abelard chuckled. ‘Sometimes the simplest plans are the most tactically sound, Lord Captain.’

Chapter Text

Sex. Death. Pain. It would be a comfort just to drown, to sink into the miasma of it all. Within the heart of Chaos, there was no burden of command, no expectation of breeding. Just mindless pleasure. Mindless pain. One and the same, an ouroboros of sensation.

Rina gasped for air. It entered her lungs like a curse, and she clawed her way back to the material world.

She awoke on the bridge, slumped over her cogitator, breathing fast and heavy. Emperor damn it! She’d fallen asleep!

The scene that awaited her was a waking nightmare.

Jae leaned back in her usual chair. Her soft, brown curls cascaded over her bare chest, and between her spread legs was a giant, golden strap-on. Knelt beneath her, clad in a latex perversion of the uniform of a holy sister of battle, was Argenta. She licked a long line up the golden shaft with an outspread tongue.

‘How does it feel to be married to the God-Emperor?’ laughed Jae.

Rina plugged in her long-las. She raised it shakily towards Argenta. Was she a daemon? She would surely never—but if this was a daemon, where was the real Argenta? Was she looking at the real Jae? Her hands shook. She was trained better than this.

What certainly could not have been real was the sand scattered around Jae’s chair, which glittered like shaved gold, nor the little girl shackled to it, who dug an impossible hole through the deck. Her dirty appearance was shockingly similar to Jae’s. For someone who pressed Rina so, there was no doubt that she had secrets of her own.

And all around them were corpses. Tens, maybe hundreds. The ship drifted through the immaterium with nary an officer to tend to it.

Across those corpses drifted Abelard and Cassia, locked in a daemonic dance, waltzing through the blood and viscera that stained the bridge. Cassia gazed longingly at Abelard as he turned her under his arm.

She raised the long-las again, aimed it at what must be the daemon Abelard but…hesitated.

A laughing shriek mocked her.

‘Go on,’ her own voice spat at her. ‘Shoot. Kill them. Kill all your friends!’

Upon the throne sat the swollen apparition from earlier. Her own sickening mirror.

It cackled again. ‘You got your wish, Rina von Valancius! You are no longer in command of this flagship.’

Before she could respond, her vox crackled into life. ‘…this unit needs help…’ It was corrupted with distortion, she could barely make out the mechanical cries. ‘…corrupted…knight…van Cal—‘

The vox shorted out completely. Rina scanned the vox-records through her augmented eye. They were glitched, malformed, but she saw the last: Pasqual, in the void shrine.

She hurried.

*

The shrine had been desecrated. Pews, splintered into pieces, the cabinets of the von Valancius holy relics smashed and scattered across the vermilion floor. Reflected in them was something unholy indeed. Before the aquilla, which hung lopsided and burning from the ceiling, stood a Knight Abominant, a twisted and heretical imitation of the sacred mechanical champions of Heinrix’s homeworld.

The abomination was twelve feet of humanised steel. In place of heraldry, the creature was painted with vile eight pointed stars that seemed to pierce the very soul when looked upon. Fused into the metal carcass were bone growths that twisted impossibly, lumps and spikes that contorted through the shape of the machine. Where the helm should have been was a skull, with one eye socket smashed out.

Rina rushed to cover behind one of the few in-tact pews. The monstrosity was just that, but this was not the worst she’d seen in her tenure with the Ordos Malleus.

Pasqual lay on the floor, vox still crackling. With a silent heave, she dragged him to safety, then ducked as a rain of bullets spewed from the abomination’s gattling gun.

A gap in the fire and then—bam! A pistol shot from one of the pews in front, a flash of red fabric. Heinrix! He was fighting, alone, against the debased vision of his own unclaimed future.

Rina skidded forward, head down, and moved into cover with him, shoulder-to-shoulder. He nodded, and fired off another shot. It ricocheted from the bone-armour like it was nothing. Rina joined the fray, firing off a las shot straight into the Knight’s singular eye socket, but it bounced off the skull in a flash of yellow light.

‘We can’t damage it,’ panted Heinrix. ‘Pasqual…’

‘I saw this on the bridge, earlier. Some kind of shield.’ She ducked down as more fire rained over them.

‘How is the bridge?’ asked Heinrix.

‘Bad.’

Rina fired off another perfectly aimed sniper shot, and yet, again, the laser scattered into harmless light. The Knight brought its great metal arm down upon their hiding place, and she and Heinrix dived to dodge the impact. She ducked, rolled, and positioned herself behind the next pew. Heinrix hurried after her.

‘Fuck!’ Rina shouted. ‘This is all my fault! I’m sorry. I’m so throne-damned sorry! If I had just told you how I felt, if I had just told you that I’d loved you from the moment I set eyes on you, this would never have happened!’

She reloaded her weapon. ‘I thought I’d die in service of the Emperor. Instead, it’s at the hand of chaos, the vile Archenemy, a demise of my own making.’

The great Knight roared, and a plume of flame roared above their heads. The air was diseased with the stench of oil and smoke. By instinct, Rina raised her head into the blackened cloud and fired a shot into the glowing nozzle of its flamethrower. The ribcage that contained the abominable weapon shattered into countless bone shards that glittered in the ensuing fire.

She ducked back down. ‘It hit?’

Heinrix fired off a shot. Nothing. The shield was back.

‘You hit after you said…’ he hesitated, ‘after you said you loved me. Secrets. It’s powered by secrets!’

He seemed to glow from within as he whispered a fervent prayer under his breath.

‘Regicide,’ he said. ‘You indulged me in teaching you, you allowed me, for a precious moment, to be myself, not Interrogator van Calox.’

His bullet, infused with prayer, rang true, and severed one of the vulnerable cords attaching the Knight’s arm to its socket.

‘You listened. You cared. You made me feel like I mattered. Not as a tool, or a weapon, but as a person.’

He fired another shot. Another cable severed. The abomination lurched to the side, pulled down by the weight of its dead arm.

‘That’s when…when I realised I loved you, too.’

Rina grinned and grasped Heinrix’s hand in the dust. ‘We can kill this thing.’

She lined up another shot. ‘Jae knew, the whole time, how I felt.’

The gun recoiled against her shoulder, but she locked in and moved with the force. The shot scattered against the shield.

‘That much was plain,’ said Heinrix.

‘Okay, okay. The demon. Earlier. It was the same daemon you saw. Me. But…’

She couldn’t bring herself to say it. A hailstorm of bullets from the machine’s remaining arm punctured the pew, and they scrambled again for cover.

As they flew through the storm, boots clattering across the church, Heinrix shouted, ‘You, but what, Rina?’

They ducked under the shattered remnants of a relic case. It afforded far less protection than the pews had, but they were running out of options.

‘Pregnant! It was pregnant.’

‘Throne damn-it, I—’

‘It wasn’t just you. Abelard’s comment about Theodora, my status as the last heir of a dynasty. The idea torments me!’

Heinrix leaned around the case and launched a round of bullets into the abomination’s good arm. Each shot bored a tiny cavity into the twisted bones of the Knight, leaving a sickening pattern of holes scattered across its biological exoskeleton.

‘Keep going! Tell me why!’

‘I…surely you know…’

‘You need to say it!’

Rina swallowed her pride and spoke. ‘I’m a witch, a mutant! To die in His service would be atonement, but to create life, that would be a sin! But then…to let the bloodline die, would that not profane the sacred Warrant? The parchment signed by His very hand? No matter what I do, I lose, and I…I…would make a horrible mother.’

A horrible mother, perhaps, but a good shot. Her las-shot tore though the Knight’s remaining arm and it flew from the socket, leaving a trail of wires, viscera, and shattered bone. The gattling gun turned the red carpet to black as it fell.

Still, the Knight Abominant was on its feet. It lurched forward, and with a gutteral cry of anger it barrelled towards them, armless, reckless and utterly deranged.

They scattered as it dived head-first into the cabinet and smashed it to pieces. What little remained of the glass flew out as great shards, and the wood splintered to fragments.

Rina spun around; the place was desolate, destroyed, and there was no cover to be found. She and Heinrix stood in the centre of the chapel as the Knight rounded on them once more. Their simultaneous shots failed to connect with the walking metal corpse.

Heinrix looked between Rina and the abomination. ‘I don’t know what else there is to be said!’

‘You must have something!’ She fired. Missed. ‘I’ve poured my Emperor-damned heart out!’

‘Nothing!’

They retreated towards the chapel entrance as the knight crashed its way through the sacred space.

‘Fuck…fuck!’

What else could there be? She’d told him everything, everything!

She’d told him…but she hadn’t shown him.

In one hand, she balanced the long-las. With the other, she desperately reached for Heinrix’s head and threaded her bloody, ash-stained fingers through his hair. She dragged him down into a rough, messy kiss.

He gasped and drew back, then, with the passion of the damned, he grabbed Rina’s waist and pulled her into him. They were covered in blood, glass and bone fragments, but, throne-damn-it-all, what did they have to lose besides their pitiful lives?

As his tongue slipped between her desperate lips, the chaos Knight roared, and the floor shook.

Rina opened one eye. The vile creature ran towards her at full speed. With one hand she aimed the long-las right at it’s singular eye. Surely this had—no! No! It did nothing! The shield of secrets held.

She broke away from Heinrix and grabbed his hand. ‘Run, run!’

Her boots crashed against plasteel as she dragged him out of the chapel towards the bridge. He gripped her gloved hand, tight.

‘What about the Inquisition? Anything you couldn’t tell me?’

Heinrix turned to fire rapidly behind him as he ran. ‘I have told you where the limits of my secrecy lie at every turn! There are things I have told you over the Regicide board that—’

Regicide. It couldn’t possibly be the answer, a ridiculous and stupid secret, but she had nothing else to work with.

‘I was the reigning champion of the Tharican League five years running.’

‘What?’

‘I knew how to play Regicide. You didn’t teach me.’

He let go of her hand. ‘Champion? This whole time?’

‘Yes!’ She skidded through the corridor to the bridge, the Knight hot on their heels. ‘And, throne, Heinrix, the Petrokian Gambit is not a replacement for actually developing your board.’

Heinrix ran after her. ‘Why did you…?’

‘I wanted to spend time with you! Men love teaching women things!’

She turned her head just as a laser beam shot from the eye of the bone-creature. She turned on her heel and dropped to one knee, then returned fire.

To her surprise, the shot connected. The bone-mask exploded into dust, and the chaos-tainted machine fell to the floor with a crash. Black smoke drifted from the corpse as the mirage shifted; left behind was nothing but the remains of a purple daemon.

Rina laughed and fell back to the ground. After grand secrets and terrifying responsibilities to the dynasty, it had all come down a stupid lie about regicide.

Heinrix shook his head. ‘I would have liked to have played a proper game with you before we died.’

She held out her hand for him to pull her up. ‘Then let’s not die.’

*

When Rina and Heinrix reached the bridge, it’s status had not improved.

Jae, Argenta, Abelard and Cassia were lost in their distorted daydreams, while Princess Rina loomed over them all from the throne.

‘We need to drop out of warp, now,’ said Rina.

‘But Dargonus, we’ll be adrift—’

She shook her head. ‘Who knows how long the gellar field has been down for?We have no crew, no sane officers! We should be close enough. And I don’t think I’ll find what I’m looking for on Dargonus, anyway.’

She hauled her lasgun onto her shoulder and stalked towards the throne. ‘Focus on Cassia. This is my fight.’

‘Understood.’

Rina put on foot on the first step to the throne. Above her loomed her sickening double.

It smiled down at her. ‘Won’t you bend the knee, von Valancius?’

The terror she had felt in her bedroom returned as the warp-power that parodied the Emperor’s sanctioned biomancy pulled her down to meet the floor. Power met power as she pushed back against it, used her own telepathy to block out the incoming signals, to rewire her brain into believing this wasn’t happening.

Upon leaden legs, she continued up the stairs. Frost blossomed across the carpet with each step.

When she was close enough, Rina pointed the gun at the apparition’s head.

‘Do you really think that will work?’ it asked.

‘Only one way to find out.’ She fired.

It did not hit. The same shield that had protected the Knight Abominant glimmered around the daemon’s gaunt face. A shield built of secrets, of repressions, of the realities one failed to face.

It was face them or die, and she had told Heinrix that they would not die.

She gathered every scrap of courage she possessed, and addressed the beast.

‘You want the truth from me. Fine. I’m fucking terrified. All of the time. I was not made for this. I was made to be a cog in the machine, a tool of the Imperium. I have known nothing else. I have prayed to the Emperor that upon our planetfall on Dargonus I would be stripped of Rouge Trader status, and returned to my place as a pawn in the great machine of Empire.

But I know in my heart I cannot reject this. The blood of the von Valancius dynasty flows through my veins, and I cannot reject the calling that the Emperor himself has vested in me. I hate this. I hate it with every fibre of my being, but I turn that hate outwards. I turn it to you. To vile chaos!

I will rule this dynasty with fire in my blood. I will fear the witch, hate the mutant and kill the xenos. I will bring righteous destruction upon the enemies of the Imperium! I will conquer the frontier in the name of the Emperor, because I am Rina von Valancius, Rogue Trader!’

With that declaration, she shot the bloated apparition right in its pregnant belly. No shield, no protection at all. It was weak and vulnerable, nothing beside the shining light of the Emperor and the power He had invested in her.

Blood dribbled from the wound, thick and red, and the monstrosity staggered off the throne, two misshaped hands pressed to the puncture.

‘Oh very good,’ it spat. ‘Very, good. Rouge Trader Rina von Valancius. Is that it? Really?’

It staggered and fell backwards onto the stairs, then looked up at her with contempt.

‘You think your pathetic acceptance of a title bestowed on you by your corpse-emperor will defeat me? I can see into your very soul.’

The vile creature opened its legs and began moaning and howling.

‘What about when this is asked of you?’ It screamed. ‘Will you taint your stock with your grievous mutation? Will you bring forth a bloodline of accursed warp-sorcerers? How long until one of them turns to my delights? Will you be a mother of daemons, Rina?’

She watched in disgust as the daemon gave birth on the steps to the throne. Bile rose in her throat and she resisted the urge to vomit. Strength. She needed strength!

Below her, Heinrix wrested with the daemon Abelard, attempted to save Cassia from his clutches.

For him, and for everyone else on this ship, she would kill this vile abomination. She pressed the barrel of her gun against its head and looked into her own eyes.

‘I have used this power to serve,’ she said. ‘Over and over. I have listened to the thoughts of the damned. I have destroyed the minds of heretics. I have made-up tenfold the curse of my birth.’ She pressed the barrel harder against the daemon's forehead. ‘I do not feel guilty for what I am. I will use my abilities to destroy you!’

Every one of her nerves lit on fire as she directed the force of her mind towards her own half-dead, birthing clone. The temperature on the bridge dropped to near zero. Her breath clouded in the air. The blast ripped through the daemon’s alien psyche and it screamed and writhed.

It made one last disgusting push, and a pool of blood gushed from its skirts. Within the stream was a malformed fetus, purple and horned, bloated and decaying. The stillbirth, still connected to its vile mother by a twisted umbilical cord, came to rest upon Rina’s boot.

She pulled the trigger.

The daemon laughed as it drew it’s last, rattling breath. ‘I have still done more than you ever could. I am a mother.’

It stilled.

Rina felt the sting of its last words, but there was no time. She kicked the foul abortion from her feet and ran to Heinrix, just as he brought his sword down between Abelard and Cassia and cleaved Abelard’s hands from his wrists.

Cassia still held on to the severed hands as Heinrix gently ushered her to the steps and up to the throne. If that was truly Abelard…well, a set of augmented hands was a small price to pay for life.

The ship lurched, and sent Rina to the floor. Gravity pressed in around her, her head swam, and her mind compressed and pulled itself through the void like she was waking up from a nightmare.

She was.

They had entered realspace.

*

Rina had lost none of her retinue. Everyone was all right, even Abelard, who had escaped the warp with his hands in-tact. She still couldn’t be certain if her estimation of the daemon count had been correct, if what she had seen on the bridge had been an illusion or a twisted truth, but none of that mattered, now. They were safe—or as safe as they could be, adrift somewhere in the Koronus Expanse.

Plotting a new course was tomorrow’s job. She had dismissed the crew to their beds or to the chirurgeon, determined that everyone get some kind of rest. Only she and Heinrix remained on the bridge.

He cleared his throat. ‘That was incredibly brave, Rina.’

She turned to face him with a sad smile. ‘Thank you. Though, still, I fear, this was all my fault.’

He shook his head and stepped closer, took her hand in his. ‘I believe I could take some of the blame. But truly, the fault lies with the Archenemy, whom we defeated. Who you defeated.’

‘We make a good team,’ said Rina.

He rested his forehead against hers. ‘We do.’

Their lips met, in a kiss far more tender than the events in the chapel had allowed for.

It didn’t stay that way for long. He gripped at her hips, at her bodyglove still stained with blood and ash and viscera.

Rina pulled away from him, breathing hard, still inches from his lips, and said ‘we’re covered in blood.’

‘Sorry, I—’

‘Don’t apologise.’

She’d declared herself Rogue Trader, how much harder could this invitation be?

‘I have a rather large bath in my apartments,’ she said. ‘Do you want to join me?’

‘I’d like that very much.’ He whispered against her ear. ‘And then…’

‘And then?’

‘You can show me how you’d break the Petrokian Gambit.’