307.947.M30 – Eremus Gate
Another medical check. Malchior is relentless, but I cannot fault him. Our gene-seed is strong, but not invulnerable, and the irradiated carcass of the alien ship was no place for flesh. He assures me I am whole. No corruption, no hidden weakness. That is enough.
When duty loosens its grip for a few hours, I turn again to my mortals. It is fascination, yes—but also duty. The Granite Guard are as stone: we are nothing if not the wall behind which humanity endures. How can I be their wall if I do not understand them?
So I gather mine: Cassian and Selene Orpheos, Remembrancers of Karthene, and Warrant Officer Jocasta of Bakka. My helots. Cassian paints, sculpts, writes—his hands translate the world into beauty. Selene paints with light, with words, and preserves what we are. Together they give shape to memory, so that if we die here, something remains. Jocasta is no artist. She is a blade in the dark, a hustler, a criminal perhaps, but clever. The crew fears her, but I see only efficiency and obedience. These are virtues enough.
With Iskandra, the Navigatrix, I continue to walk strange paths. She admits the astralabe is failing. Not by sabotage—she swears she would know—but by neglect. She never studied the machine’s inner workings, thinking it beneath her. No longer. Now she swears she will master it. She claims she can still guide us, dead-reckoning through the Immaterium to the systems we hold in our charts. Brave words. I do not doubt her resolve, but would it not be better to wait?
The Societas Solis continues its quiet meetings, mortals and Astartes alike, bound by Sol’s distant light. And I keep my friendship with Magos Rhadamanthine alive. He is stretched thin, yet when I asked—half as a joke, half in hope—if he could fashion me artificer armor, he did not laugh. He said yes, time permitting. That will have to suffice.
With Tyndrel’s leave, I prepared two dispatches. One a report on the Expanse, sent by astropathic relay back to Legion command. It is slim fare, yet perhaps enough to remind our masters we are not forgotten. The second is more dangerous: my visions. The pattern I saw when I consumed the Navigator’s brain. The serpent spiral that haunts both warp and machine-code. This I sent encrypted, as the Guard demands, for the Keepers’ eyes alone. There will be consequences. But truth unspoken is rot, and rot devours walls.
Calvien came to me. His voice was hollow. Erastes had already poisoned the Emperor’s Children squad with talk of betrayal. They tried to kill him in the cages. He struck them down. Now he stands alone, his brothers dead by his hand. The Wolves are shaken. Even they admit such brother-murder chills the blood. We are fewer now—nine Astartes gone from fifty. Each loss weakens the expedition.
He then gave me the Eye of Horus. A gift, he said, from Horus himself. He cannot throw it away, yet cannot bear it close. No more putting another before his Primarch. He swore to me he would atone—to prove himself to Fulgrim, to the Emperor, to us all—or die in the attempt. And perhaps death will come soon enough for us all.
Stone endures. But even stone can be smothered in the blood of brothers.
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