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AAAAAH!!!! It's finally done!! I am so sorry for the incessant posting! With this, my itch has been sated... for now! And this one's a chonker! Close to 8k words! As always, thank you so much for all the love and support you have shown my work! And I hope you enjoy this one as well! Taglist: @incrediblethirst, @passionofthesith , @mehiwilldoitlater, @gh0st-nebulae, @godzo, @gravedwe11er, @blukitty40k, @beckyninja, @dino-on-the-ceiling, @quietspontaneity, @shankss-magnificent-ass, @w-40k-2, @cunninglinguist-69, @vspin, @owltxt, @luzerrante, @bunny-fair, @myresin, @n0ttmuch, @tangerineallergy, @belfry-bat, @missmannequin, @doubting-dreamingdreams, @blue-ambrisea, @bookandyarndragonwritesdark, @walking-natural-disaster, @artistapreguissosa, @tani-rani, @pippinsquishums, @tomatojellyfish

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This is the one in which Anvitha and Angron meet at last!! Will it go smoothly? Read on to find out!

Also, if you're brave enough, take a shot everytime the words "In." or "Hold." or "Out." make an appearance!

Chapter 5

In. Hold. Out.

The heat from within the closed blast doors hit Anvitha square across the chest.

In. Hold. Out.

The chamber beyond the doors was darker than the corridor outside. Lit by lumen strips that flickered where their casings had cracked, the room had shadows jumping across the walls in torn fragments. Every visible surface bore damage. The deck flooring was scored with deep gouges. One wall panel had been ripped half-free and bent inward like paper crushed in a child’s fist. Chains and cables of the inner wirings of the ship hung from the ceiling anchors and the wall brackets, some of which were intact while some were snapped and now lay swaying faintly in the aftermath of the storm.

She took one more step inside. The sound of her sandals against the deck seemed louder than she remembered.

Behind her, she could feel their presence: Lorgar, vast, grief-stricken and ready to step in; Khârn, rigid and vigilant at the threshold; Lotara, sharp-eyed and still; and poor Maia, whose fear reached Anvitha like the lapping waters of the ocean over shore.

For now, no one followed.

Good.

Or perhaps terrible.

She could not decide yet.

Then, something sparked near the far wall and she turned her attention that way.

For one heartbeat, Anvitha’s mind refused to understand what it was that she was seeing. There were mangled bits of machinery, then wreckage, then some broken apparatus fitted to the wall, and thenm the remnants of what it once was resolved.

A servitor… some unlucky fool who had been turned into a glorified appliance than now looked no better than a well-used punching bag.

She felt the blood leave her face as the torso came into focus, and then the slack mouth, the grey flesh stretched tight around metal. One augmetic arm dangled by cabling, the fingers of a once sentient being now lay twitching through some final useless signal. The cranial housing had been crushed inward, and the fluid within now ran down the side of the face, dark where it met the throat. A vox-grille embedded beneath the jaw emitted a thin, dying whine.

Then it went quiet. Eerily quiet.

The chains had held the servitor upright through its death as its executioner had pummeled it to its demise, as it had been hit over and over again, unable to escape.

Anvitha’s stomach lurched as she realized that the thing had been alive enough to fear, to suffer, its dying throes of anguish and grief assaulted her mind like tiny barbs on flesh.

For a moment, she thought of Tomas on the pallet in the maintenance decks of the Fidelitas Lex, hand clamped around hers, eyes wild with pain, voice breaking around terror.

The darkness… the terror…

This one had likely had no hand to hold.

Then, something moved at the corner of her vision and Anvitha turned towards it.

In the middle of the chamber, she saw the man she had married, for the first time.

Angron sat crouched amid the wreckage that he had wrought in his rage. One knee was pressed to the deck, and one foot was planted beside it. His shoulders hunched forward, broad enough to make everything else in the room seem smaller beside it. His head hung low, his hands were clenched so tightly, she could see the muscles in his forearms throb in response.

He was large… so much larger than any of her imaginings had allowed.

She had seen the other Primarchs. While lord Fulgrim and Lorgar had seemed softer, gentler in their mien and manners, Angron was wrought like a mountain weathered into the shape of a man by a million blows and slashes.

Bare arms corded with muscle and scars. Bare shoulders and back marked by old wounds. Skin slick with sweat. And as her eyes travelled up from his shoulders, she saw the Nails.

So many cables and implants crawled from his skill, and snaked down his neck and spine. Ugly iron roots appeared to burrow into living, throbbing flesh. The Butcher’s Nails caused his head to twitch and pulse with small mechanical jerks, as though some hateful parasite still fed on him from within.

His breathing filled the room, harsh, dragging, uneven.

Every inhale sounded like it pained him. Every exhale sounded like something inside him wanted to break its way out through his teeth.

Where before, with Tomas and with the servitor, Anvitha had felt their pain like a slap to her face, Angron’s pain lashed over her mind like a million different blows.

Tomas had been drowning, yes, but she had felt the shape of him beneath the panic. A young man, terrified and reachable.

What crouched before her now was so much worse… all she could sense was pain; pain braided into nerve, blood and breath until it became the very core of the body that housed it. If there was a soul underneath all that pain, it was like searching for someone while actively drowning in the ocean.

Anvitha felt her body tremble as tears flowed down her face in an incessant stream.

“My lord?” her voice sounded so soft and weak, even to her.

Angron did not move. His breathing continued, brutal and broken. A tremor passed through his shoulders, then down his arms. One of his hands struck the deck suddenly, and the sound rang hard enough to make Anvitha flinch.

Behind her, she heard a faint shift of armour. Lorgar perhaps… or perhaps it was Khârn.

She did not turn. For she knew that if she did, she might remember the sensible thing and leave.

“My lord,” she began again, slightly louder.

Again, there was no answer save the dying servitor’s whine that sputtered and faded into static.

Then, Angron’s head twitched in a movement so small that she almost missed it.

His face remained turned downward, but something in him had heard. Some primitive part, perhaps. Some wounded thing that knew sound meant presence and presence meant threat.

Anvitha swallowed as she took another step closer.

In.

Her lungs filled with hot, bitter air.

Hold.

Her heart struck against her ribs once, twice, thrice.

Out.

She took another step forward. A shard of broken panel cracked beneath her sandal; the sound was tiny, almost delicate.

Angron’s breathing hitched.

The room seemed to tilt toward him.

Anvitha stopped.

His shoulders rose, his hands opened and closed. The Nails gave a faint metallic tick as he twitched his head towards her direction, quick as insect legs.

From the threshold came Lorgar’s voice, low and strained.

“Anvitha…”

She heard all the things he did not say.

Don’t. Come back. You do not understand.

Perhaps he was right. Perhaps none of them understood pain this old that seemed alien and unfathomable to anyone outside the skull it inhabited. Perhaps all compassion failed at the border of understanding.

She took another deep breath, focusing on all the lessons she had learnt from her teachers.

She took another step closer then, another.

The chamber narrowed around her. The smell of Angron’s swear and blood, the heat of him, the acrid stench of burning plasteel all folded inwards until her world became the distance between her hand and his twitching shoulder.

She could see him clearly now.

The scars were everywhere. There was one that continued from his lower back, up and up his broad back and shoulders, like a continuous rope, the scar twisting and turning before vanishing off over his shoulder. Red paint streaked on forearm, smeared unevenly across old wounds. What little she could see of his jaw was clenched so hard the muscles trembled. His eyes were hidden beneath the angle of his brow and the shadow of his lowered head.

The Nails twitched again, and another shudder went through him.

Anvitha’s fingers lifted before her courage could ask permission from her fear.

They trembled slightly as she reached for him and placed her fingertips against his heaving shoulder.

Hot… Slick… Real.

For the briefest fraction of a second, nothing happened.

And then, all hell broke loose.

Angron came alive with such speed that the world around them shattered into motion.

His head snapped up, his eyes were wild, bloodshot, and burning with a fierce rage that made her heart stop for a moment. A snarl tore through him, raw enough to scrape the air around them. His arms lashed out in a wide arc as though he sought to do away with whatever was in front of him. And at the moment, it was Anvitha.

She saw the blow only as a blur. And then, there was impact.

The blow struck her across the side and shoulder, terrible despite its lack of precision. Her feet left the deck and the chamber wheeled. Anvitha felt her breath leave her body as she hit the edge of the low sleeping platform behind her and she fell across it hard enough to make the frame groan.

Hot searing pain flashed bright along her ribs. Her mouth opened soundlessly, and for one sick heartbeat, she could not breathe.

The ceiling flickered above her, the sounds of a chain clinking somewhere nearby sounded very much like the final sound she would hear. Her fingers clawed at the bedding beneath her, seeking purchase… seeking air… seeking escape.

Then, her breath returned in a thin, broken gasp.

Behind her, voices erupted all at once.

Lorgar called out Angron’s name, commanding him to stop, the grief in it was unmistakable.

Lotara cursed, low and vicious.

Maia made a sound Anvitha had never wanted to hear from her.

And Khârn…

He moved.

It was the smallest thing, barely more than a shift of weight. But Anvitha saw it from the corner of her eye as she forced her head to turn towards the door. The equerry’s body leaned forward, one gauntlet flexing, chain links sliding over his forearm. For one breath, he looked ready to cross the room and place himself between Angron and the woman sprawled on the platform.

Then he stopped. Every line of him was locked tight as a single syllable came through his vox, where it was strangled before it could become a word.

“Lad…”

Perhaps he meant to call her Lady. Perhaps it was some other word that meant fool in his tongue.

Anvitha had no time to wonder at it, for the very next moment, Angron surged over her.

He came down like a collapsing wall, immense, hot and furious, one hand planting beside her head hard enough to make the platform jolt. His face filled her vision. Sweat ran down his temples. His teeth were bared as his lips parted in a snarl. His eyes were open and terrible, but they did not see her.

Angron was lost in his pain. And that was the true horror, thought Anvitha.

His gaze was full of other rooms, other worlds, other chains.

His other hand lifted, and Anvitha’s body understood death approaching her, well before her mind did.

A single blow was all it would take. A careless strike from that hand could break her skull, rip her throat open, rend her chest apart. She would become another human thing ruined in this chamber while others watched from a threshold and then later call it tragedy.

Fear rose in her like floodwater. And for one wild moment, she wanted her mother… she wanted her sister.

She wanted to be back in the Still Lake at dawn with her father’s books and the scent of rain through carved windows. She wanted to be a girl again, irritated by a braid pulling too tight, laughing with her sister, thinking the world’s cruelties were distant things that happened in stories.

Angron’s hand stilled above her trembled as he let out another growl.

Anvitha waited for the killing blow. She knew none waiting outside could reach her in time.

So, she reached Angron first.

She caught his face in both her hands and willed his mind open to hers.

Her palms struck the sides of his jaw with more force than tenderness. Her fingers spread along the hard line of his cheekbones; thumbs braced below the furious wet shine of his eyes. His skin burned beneath her touch. His breath poured over her face, hot and ragged, and full of blood’s copper tang.

With another push from her mind, she barged into his thoughts and his nightmare.

And Angron froze… only for a fraction. But that was enough.

“Breathe,” she whispered, as she felt her thoughts coalescing around his.

Angron’s raised hand hung above her, as his eyes widened, as though something had touched the storm raging within him and given it a shape it had not expected.

Anvitha tightened her hold on his face as she felt the hairs stand on her forearm and her nape.

Her ribs screamed, her shoulder throbbed and that animalistic feeling of fear clawed at the inside of her throat.

She forced herself to breathe where he could see it.

“In,” she muttered, as her chest rose slowly.

Angron’s breath came in as a snarl, broken and too fast.

“No,” she whispered. “With me.”

She did it again.

“In.”

This time she exaggerated the breath, forcing her body to obey despite pain.

His eyes locked onto hers and for a moment, the chamber held on a knife edge.

Then his chest rose; it was violent, uneven… too sharp.

Yet, it was still a breath.

“Hold,” she murmured.

Angron’s whole body shook. The hand above her dipped, then jerked as if the muscles had forgotten which command to follow. The skin around the nails on his scalp twitched, and a raw sound grated from his throat, low and murderous.

Anvitha refused to let go.

“Hold,” she repeated, softer. “Just here.”

She wasn’t even sure if he understood the words. Perhaps words were meaningless in the state he was in. Perhaps tone and breath mattered more. Perhaps the hands on his face did, guiding, holding, showing, instead of shoving, striking, hurting.

“Out.” She whispered and then exhaled slowly.

Angron’s breath that tore out of him came over her in a ragged rush like the air leaving a furnace.

Anvitha willed herself to focus on him as she repeated the exercise.

“In.”

His chest hitched.

“In,” she insisted, her voice turning slightly firmer.

His breath dragged inward.

“Hold.”

The tendons in his neck stood out, his jaw flexed beneath her palms and his eyes flickered, still wild, yet now fastened on her as if she were the only fixed point in a room seemingly full of knives.

“Out.”

He exhaled.

His hand lowered by another inch.

Anvitha felt her hands shaking and yet she pressed her fingers into his skin.

“You are here,” she said, and his eyes narrowed.

“You are in this room.”

A growl moved through him, weakened by exhaustion, sharpened by pain.

She continued before fear could steal her voice.

“You are breathing.”

The nails clicked once more and his lips peeled back from his teeth once more.

For one terrible instant, she thought she had lost him. His face contorted, his shoulders bunched and the hand beside her head dug into the platform, splintering the edge of the metal frame. A crack shot through one support with a shriek.

Anvitha did not flinch.

But she wanted to…. The Gods of her mother, she wanted to!

Instead, she leaned up as far as her pinned body allowed and forced his gaze back into hers.

“In,” she said, more firmly now. The command in her voice surprised even her. Angron’s breath stopped momentarily.

Anvitha’s voice dropped once more, steady as a stream flowing over pebbles.

“In, my lord.”

Anvitha willed herself to not close her eyes. Then, something shifted.

Images flooded her mind.

A little boy, alone in an arena, surrounded by cheering people…. Alone… scared… confused…

Tears threatened to spill down her face as she pressed her fingers even more firmly into his skin.

“Please… Hold.”

His eyes shuddered closed for half a breath.

“Out.”

His exhale broke with a sound that almost sounded like a something strangled and caught between a growl and a sob, too wounded to belong to the monster everyone had prepared her to fear. It slipped out of him like something that had been trapped behind his teeth for years.

Her eyes stung.

No… No tears. Not now… Later, if there ever was a later to turn towards.

“In.”

He followed more readily now.

“Hold.”

His raised hand lowered further.

“Out.”

The hand dropped and landed beside her head with a dull, heavy thud. The platform shuddered beneath the impact. Anvitha’s braid shifted against her shoulder. A tiny blue bead snapped loose and rolled away into the wreckage.

Angron’s weight sagged.

His arms, braced on either side of her, shook now with exhaustion rather than attack. His head dipped. The fury in his eyes faltered, not fading fully, never that, but losing its edge as the body beneath it began to realize how tired it was.

Anvitha kept her hands on his face.

“You are here,” she whispered again. “No one is asking you to rise. No one is asking you to fight. You are breathing. That is all.”

Angron’s brow furrowed. For the first time, something like confusion entered his gaze.

Perhaps he saw her then, if only a little; a woman beneath him. Small, mortal, frightened, holding his face as though the whole chamber would splinter apart if she let go.

His mouth moved, yet no word came.

The Nails twitched again, but weakly now. His eyes fluttered, rage dragged backward by exhaustion’s heavy tide.

“In,” Anvitha whispered.

He breathed in.

“Hold.”

He held.

“Out.”

He breathed out.

His forehead dipped toward hers, and Anvitha’s entire body tensed. She expected teeth, or another roar. She expected the storm to return with renewed force because surely, breath could not stand against such engineered torment. Surely, one woman’s hands could not simply hold back a lifetime of indescribably pain!

Angron’s head sank to her shoulder, his cheek came to est against the pale blue fabric of her drape. His breath spilled hot through the cloth, One of the cables from his scalp brushed against a loose strand of her hair, cold metal against dark silk.

He exhaled once in a long, shuddering movement and then went still, with Anvitha lying frozen beneath him.

Her hands remained cupped around his face, though his weight had shifted enough that she no longer held him so much as cradled what part of him had collapsed within reach. His body covered her like a fallen wall, immense and terrible, yet no longer moving to strike. One arm braced near her head. The other lay heavy across the bedding, fingers half curled.

She waited and he took another breath, then another. The rhythm of his breathing changed a little, deepening.

Angron slept. The Red Angel had fallen asleep with his head on her shoulder!

At the threshold, Lorgar stood utterly still. His face that had held kindness, grief, even reverence at times along with a scholarly wonder along with hope… now it held awe.

And it frightened her.

Lorgar regarded the scene in front of him as though he saw more behind the woman trapped beneath a sleeping giant and for some reason. Anvitha could not bear it!

She looked away from him.

It was Lotara who spoke first. The shipmistress stood there, with her lips slightly parted, shocked in a way her pride would later resent.

“What,” the shipmistress breathed, so quietly that the word barely crossed the room, “did you do?”

Anvitha could not answer. Her arms had begun to ache violently; pain flared from her ribs everytime she breathed. Her shoulder still burned where Angron’s unsteady swipe had struck her. Sweat cooled at the back of her neck where the waterlily now lay twisted sideways across her collarbone, trapped between her body and his.

Maia stood behind Lorgar, with one hand pressed to her mouth.

Her eyes were huge and wet, and that undid Anvitha more than anything else.

She wanted to tell the one person who still regarded her as human enough that she was alive. That she ought not to cry, to be dignified and stead and useful, because that was what one did when everyone else was looking.

Instead, she lay beneath Angron and tried to keep breathing.

In.

Hold.

Out.

His breath, she realized, was mirroring hers now. And that realization struck her with fresh fear.

Would he wake up if she stopped? Would the storm return if she dared move?

Her fingers trembled where they rested against his jaw, one of his scars ran beneath her thumb, raised and uneven. Without thinking, she shifted her touch slightly to avoid pressing into it.

When she next turned towards those standing at the threshold, she saw Khârn regard her with an unknowable expression from behind his helm. And then, he entered the chamber… slowly, carefully.

Anvitha found it so strange how a man of such enormous stature, with so much armour on could move so silently. He came no closer than necessary before stopping beside the platform.

Lorgar moved as well, until Khârn lifted one hand without looking towards him.

It was a small gesture, but it stopped Lorgar on his tracks.

For a breath, something passed between them that Anvitha could not name: command, warning, experience, grief. Lorgar seemed to recognize that Khârn knew this room, the danger, that Khârn knew his gene father better than Lorgar could claim to.

Khârn’s voice came through his vox, low enough that the helm’s machinery almost swallowed it.

“No sudden movements.”

Nobody moved.

Lotara moved in next, her eyes moving over Angron, then Anvitha, then the dead servitor on the wall.

“We need to get her out from under him,” she said.

“Carefully,” Khârn replied.

“Why, thank you, equerry! I had planned to wake him by kicking the bed.” Lotara whispered, furiously.

The sarcasm should have been absurd given the circumstances but, it helped. If only a little!

Anvitha almost laughed, the sound that left her was a mix of breath and a whimper.

Angron stirred slightly at that, and everyone froze.

She felt his brow tighten against her shoulder, his fingers flexed once, crushing fabric in his grip, and a faint growl moved through his chest.

Anvitha tightened her grip at his temples a little.

“In,” she whispered before panic could take her.

His breath hitched.

“Hold.”

The growl faded.

“Out.”

He settled again.

This time, nobody moved for three full breaths.

Then, Khârn looked at her.

“Can you keep doing that?”

Anvitha swallowed before she answered, “Yes.”

It was possibly a lie, because she didn’t know if she could.

But it would have to be enough, as Khârn moved to study the angle of Angron’s body. This was no courtly rescue; no tale of a wife soothed beneath her sleeping husband. This was more a bomb defusal.

Angron’s arm lay partly across the drape near Anvitha’s waist, pinning her cloth rather than flesh. His shoulder and head trapped her upper body. His weight was immense, but unevenly braced. If shifted wrong, he could crush her without waking.

Khârn looked to Lorgar.

“His weight is on her shoulder,” he said softly. “We should lift carefully. I will give you the signal when. Do not do it before.”

Lorgar’s jaw tightened, and for a moment, Anvitha thought he might protest.

He was a Primarch, a son of the Emperor. A being made for command, and war, and impossible feats. Yet, in this room, before his slumbering brother, he had to lower his pride before a lesser man who knew his brother’s habits.

He nodded before stepping closer.

Angron stirred again, perhaps sensing the nearness of another presence like his own. His face tightened against Anvitha’s shoulder. His breath went rough.

Anvitha cupped his jaw.

“In,” she whispered.

Angron inhaled.

“Hold.”

Lorgar froze where he stood, one hand hovering inches from his brother’s shoulder.

“Out.”

Angron exhaled.

Khârn’s helm angled toward Lorgar.

“Now.”

Lorgar moved; his hands settled with impossible gentleness beneath Angron’s shoulder and upper arm. For all his size, for all the strength that could crush stone and bend metal, he touched his brother as though touching a wound.

Slowly, as though every movement had to be calculated to the micron, they gently shifted Angron.

Lorgar lifted his brother barely, causing the pressure to ease from her shoulder by a hair’s breath.

As she kept repeating the mantra, ‘In. Hold. Out.’ over and over again, Khârn stepped in, slipping his gauntleted hand beneath Angron’s wrist, taking the weight of the arm pinning the drape. Lotara stepped closer and gathered the freed fabric in both hands, drawing it away from beneath Angron’s forearm without a sound.

The pressure eased another fraction, causing the pain to flare along Anvitha’s ribs as she tried to shift. The blow he had dealt her now returned in full, hot and deep. Her breath caught before she could stop it.

Angron stirred once more, his head now pressed harder into her shoulder as his nails clicked.

Everyone froze as Anvitha gingerly placed her fingers onto his temples once more.

“In….”

Her voice shook a little even as Angron’s breath dragged inward once more, obediently.

“Hold…”

His face turned slightly into her palm, the gesture was small, unconscious and devastating… like a child seeking comfort.

“Out…”

He settled once more, and the others breathed out with him.

Once more, Khârn and Lorgar moved to lift Angron off her as Lotara pulled the last of the pinned drape clear.

Anvitha slid an inch more, the movement sent pain snapping through her side, but she kept her mouth closed. Then, another inch… and another.

“Keep him lifted.” Khârn’s voice cut low through the silence.

“I am… I have him, Khârn.” Lorgar said.

Anvitha slid free by degrees, her braid catching once beneath Angron’s cheek. She reached back with her shaking hand and freed it slowly. One blue bead snapped loose and rolled across the platform, falling to the deck with a sound too small for anyone but her to notice.

At last, her trapped shoulder was free. The absence of Angron’s weight now felt like a mountain had been lifted off her. Khârn waited until she was fully in the clear before nodding once to Lorgar.

“Down.”

They lowered the slumbering man with excruciating care, watching Angron’s head settle against the ruined bedding. His breathing roughened at the act just enough for Anvitha, now half-sitting with lotara’s hand braced at her elbow to lean forward before anyone could stop her.

“In,” she whispered.

Angron’s breath caught.

“Hold.”

The chamber held its breath with him.

“Out.”

Angron exhaled once more and sank again into the sleep she had conjured around his mind.

Anvitha caught Lorgar’s gaze shift to her as he gently withdrew his hands from his now sleeping brother.

There it was… that awe again. She lowered her gaze, unable to meet his.

“Can you stand?” came Lotara’s voice from her side.

“I… I think so.”

Anvitha tried to rise before her knees betrayed her. Thankfully, Maia was there before she fell.

Somehow, the older woman had crossed the room silently enough to have missed everyone’s attention. Maia’s arm came around her back, strong despite its gentleness, and her other hand caught Anvitha’s forearm.

“My Lady.”

Anvitha wanted to lean into her, to collapse against Maia’s shoulder and weep like a child who had barely made it out of a burning house.

Instead, she stood… or tried to.

Her knees trembled violently once more, and Maia immediately tightened her hold, disguising the support as assistance with her drape. Clever, loyal Maia. Even now, she sought to protect her mistress’ dignity in a room where things had gone beyond the need to pretend strength.

Anvitha tried to take a step forward and swayed.

Lorgar took a step forward, his hand eager to support her.

“Anvitha… are you hurt?”

Yes, she wanted to say.

Everywhere! In places your apothecaries cannot see.

Instead, she gave him a wane smile as she breathed, “I am fine, my lord. Alive…”

Lorgar’s face shifted with pain.

Behind him, at the threshold, the Word Bearers remained motionless. Further beyond, World Eaters stood like figures carved into the corridor shadows. Anvitha realized there were more of them now than before. Drawn by the noise. Held back by Khârn’s presence or Lotara’s command or fear of their own father.

A murmur moved faintly among them. No words she could catch. Only breath and armour and the beginning of something that might become rumour before the hour ended.

Khârn turned his helm toward them, and the murmur died.

Then he looked at Anvitha.

For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, his voice came low through the vox.

“You should not have survived that.”

Anvitha’s throat worked at the statement that almost felt accusatory.

“No,” she said. She then, lifted her chin, and looked him straight in the eye lenses.

“I know. And yet, here I am.”

Khârn regarded her silently for a moment before he inclined his head. It wasn’t total deference but there was respect in the act.

“Well,” came Lotara’s voice from the side. “That complicates things nicely, princess.”

Anvitha almost smiled as she turned to look at a sleeping Angron lying half on the bed and half on the floor.

Did she just put a Primarch to sleep?

No… that would be ridiculous. He slept because his body was exhausted beyond even what a Primarch could endure. Because the nails had spent him. He slept because his body and breath had found a rhythm and had followed it for one fragile moment.

Then, as though unbidden, she saw that little boy in the pits once more. On how the crowds had roared around him. How everyone had wanted him to be hurt, to fight, to kill…

She shuddered at the though and shook her head as though to clear away the stray images from that thought.

“Please…” she said at last, before anyone could speak anymore.

“I must rest. Please take me to my chambers.”

For a moment, no one moved.

Then, Lotara straightened.

“Of course.” Her voice resumed some of its iron. It sounded almost like mercy pretending to be procedure. “The lady has had a long welcome.”

Khârn moved first, returning to the threshold. With one glance, one subtle turn of his helm, he cleared the gathered World Eaters from the corridor. They obeyed slowly, reluctantly, eyes lingering on Anvitha until Khârn’s silence sharpened enough to cut.

Lorgar stepped aside, allowing Maia to guide Anvitha toward the door.

Every step hurt, her ribs protested, her shoulder throbbed, and her palms still burned with the shape of Angron’s face. She could still feel the phantom heat of his skin there, the hard line of his jaw, the tremor that moved through him when breath finally overtook violence.

As she passed Khârn, he spoke without looking at her,

“He will wake angry.”

Anvitha stopped, causing Maia’s arm to tighten around her in anticipation. She turned to face Khârn.

“Why? Because I touched him?”

Khârn did not turn to look at her and stood there silent, for a moment before speaking,

“He does not like those with psychic abilities. He would consider you a witch. This will complicate things, princess.”

Anvitha stood silent for a moment before proceeding to move towards the door once more.

The corridor air felt colder, cleaner. It felt like she had left the orbit of a blazing sun and now stood barely able to stand.

Without looking back at any of them, Anvitha and Maia moved as one until one of the serfs who had now materialized as though out of thin air, gently guided them both towards her chambers.

One step in front of the other. A deep breath. And then, repeat.

Anvitha was aware that she was walking through the many corridors of the ship, guided by the serf and seemingly by Lotara as well, who now walked beside her.

The entirety of the Conqueror was watching them.

Maia stayed by her side, with her arm arranged so neatly behind her that any watching eye might mistake it for an attendant guiding her lady through unfamiliar passageways. Anvitha knew better. Without Maia’s strength, quiet and unremarked, she would have folded before they reached the first turn.

The World Eaters who stood along the walls in clusters of white, blue, brass and dried red, seemed to regard her with a sort of curiosity that tired her even more. Some had come from the corridor outside Angron’s chambers, while others had followed the commotion, or the rumour of that which was already spreading faster than any footsteps that might carry it. It dawned on Anvitha, with a distant and dreadful clarity, that her first walk through her husband’s ship would be remembered.

All she wanted at that moment was to become small, and ordinary and preferably very far away.

Lotara walked ahead of the two women, her mere presence cut through the ship’s attention like a blade through silk. Her back remained straight, her officer’s coat immaculate, the enormous red handprint notwithstanding. Whenever a serf lingered too long or a World Eater failed to clear the passage quickly enough, the shipmistress turned her head by the smallest amount, and the way opened.

No one asked her twice.

Lorgar followed at a measured distance, flanked by his sons. Anvitha did not look back at him. She could feel him there, vast and troubled. She could almost hear the words he had not spoken in his brother’s chamber, and she feared them more in the silence that enveloped them now.

Father was right… She has a purpose… This is a miracle…

No.

Anvitha’s fingers tightened in Maia’s sleeve, and the older woman responded by shifting her hold, making the support firmer without making it obvious.

“Just a little farther, my lady,” Maia murmured.

Anvitha nodded because speaking seemed too arduous a task at the moment.

She whimpered a little when another step shifted her shoulder awkwardly, making the pain shoot through her body. Something was torn if not broken. And all this from a strike that wasn’t even aimed at her. A reflexive sweep of his arm had thrown her like a doll. A deliberate blow would have ended her very life.

The corridor curved and the air changed subtly, losing some of the burned-metal stink of Angron’s chambers and gaining the stale dryness of the habitation decks. The walls here had been patched more recently.

Lotara stopped before a sealed door guarded by two human arms men who looked as though they would rather be anywhere else.

“These are the chambers prepared for you, princess.” She said, turning to look at Anvitha.

Prepared… Anvitha almost let out a chuckle as she wondered what sort of preparation went into a room meant for the wife of a man such as Angron.

Did it have locks on the inside? Unbreakable furniture, perhaps? It was clearly set far enough from his own quarters that everyone could pretend she wasn’t there at all.

Lotara glanced at the guards. “Leave.”

They obeyed gladly and then; the door opened with a heavy slide.

The room beyond was larger than Anvitha expected and harsher than anything Lorgar would have arranged. It had been cleaned, or someone had tried. The deck had been scrubbed, the bedding changed, the walls cleared of whatever marks had been there before. A broad bed stood against one wall, too angular to be beautiful. A washbasin and water canister had been set nearby. A narrow writing desk waited beneath a lumen strip that hummed faintly. Her trunk from Veylorn’s Crown sat at the foot of the bed, looking impossibly gentle in that iron room.

Someone had placed the Shakespeare tome on the desk.

Lotara stepped inside first and looked around the room as though she expected someone to jump from the corners and attack. Anvitha wondered if something similar had happened before.

“I will leave you to settle in, princess,” she said. “If something is needed, inform the serfs assigned to this corridor. And if they fail, tell me.”

Anvitha tried to answer, but her mouth had gone dry.

Maia bowed in her place. “Thank you, Shipmistress.”

Lotara’s gaze shifted to her, then to Anvitha.

“You should have a chirurgeon look at her.”

Anvitha forced herself to speak. “No.”

The word came out too quickly, too sharply.

Lotara’s eyes narrowed.

Anvitha drew one slow breath, though it scraped. “Forgive me. I meant, not yet.”

Lotara studied her long enough that Anvitha wondered how much the woman could see. The shaking beneath Maia’s careful support. The way Anvitha held herself too stiffly around her ribs.

“Suit yourself,” Lotara said at last. “Though if you collapse dead in chambers assigned under my command, I’ll be irritated.”

Despite herself, Anvitha felt the ghost of a smile move through her exhaustion.

“I will endeavour not to inconvenience you.”

“See that you don’t.”

For a moment, neither woman looked away.

There was no affection there. No trust. Yet something had shifted between the docking bay and now. Lotara no longer looked at her as silk-wrapped paperwork. She looked at her as a complication with a pulse, which on the Conqueror might have been a promotion.

Then, Lorgar appeared at the threshold.

“Anvitha,” he said softly.

She looked at him because even now, courtesy demanded she show him the respect due a Primarch.

His face bore a tenderness that nearly undid her. “Rest. Allow me to handle things outside your chambers.”

She inclined her head in gratitude. “Thank you, my lord.”

Lorgar nodded once. Then, he turned and withdrew with his sons.

Lotara remained behind a moment longer.

“if he wakes before I return to the bridge, I will be very cross,” she said to no one in particular.

Then, she left too, with the door sealing behind her.

Once Anvitha was truly alone, she stood there, exactly where Maia had guided her, with a hand still caught in the older woman’s sleeve, her body held upright by habit, pride, and the remnant vestiges of terror.

And then, Maia pressed her hand gently.

“My lady?”

Anvitha opened her mouth as if to speak, but no sound left her.

Maia, through the years of service she had endured before Anvitha, understood what went through her mistress’ mind. She guided her toward the bed, slow enough to not harm her already bruised ribs, but steady enough that Anvitha could walk without fear of falling.

When Anvitha sat, the mattress dipped beneath her, and the sudden release of weight from her legs made the entire room sway.

Maia knelt before her at once.

“Breathe, my lady.”

Anvitha nodded mutely as she tried and failed.

“In…Hold…Out.”

Hearing her own words from Maia made something within Anvitha break, and she let out what might have been a chuckle in kinder climes. Maia’s eyes softened as she gently pressed Anvitha’s hands.

“There… that’s a good start.”

The tenderness in it made it so much better… and so much worse!

Anvitha looked down at her own hands. They were shaking… violently.

Her palms were marked faintly with sweat, dust, and something darker near the base of one thumb. Blood, perhaps. His? Hers? The servitor’s? She did not know.

She stared at it.

The memory returned with savage clarity: her hands on Angron’s face, his skin burning beneath her palms, the scar under her thumb, the heat of his breath….

And then, the little child in the red sand pit, the way his small hands trembled when they held a gladius too big for him, the way the crowd around had cheered….

And then…. The way his face had turned towards her touch, that one moment where he had been at peace, the sound of a sob that left that giant ‘monster’ as he fell into slumber.

“I need to wash my hands.” She said, trying to get up.

Maia’s face changed.

“My lady…”

“I need water, Maia.”

“But my lady…”

“Give it to me!”

The command came too sharp, too unlike her. Maia didn’t flinch, but Anvitha saw the flicker in her eyes and shame rose like bile within.

“I am sorry…”

“There is nothing to forgive, my lady.”

Anvitha shook her head as she clutched her hands together tightly. She was too spent for words now.

Maia stood, poured water out of the canister into the basin, and dipped a cloth into it. She then came back and knelt again, holding the cloth between her two hands.

Anvitha reached for it, but Maia did not let go.

“My lady,” she said softly, “look at me.”

Anvitha raised her head slowly to regard the kneeling woman in front of her.

Maia’s face was lined with fear she had not permitted herself outside. Her eyes were wet, though no tears had fallen. She looked older than she had that morning. Or perhaps Anvitha had not understood until now what it cost Maia to remain steady.

“If you wash because you wish to be clean, I will help you,” Maia said. “If you wash because you believe you can scrub away what happened, I cannot let you hurt yourself again.”

Again.

Tomas.

The cloudy pink water in the basin aboard the Fidelitas Lex. Her reddened hands. Maia taking the towel from her before she could abrade her skin raw.

Anvitha closed her eyes.

“I can still feel him.”

“Lord Angron?”

His name uttered into the room made Anvitha’s breath hitch.

“I can feel his anguish… his rage… his pain…” She swallowed hard, even as Maia started to gently clean her hands, making sure not to cause pain to her shoulder.

“By the gods of the old ways, Maia… I saw his memories… he was… he was so little… and they… they…”

She let out a whimper as Maia continued to wipe the dust, sweat and blood off her fingers.

“And I thought he would kill me.” She took another gulp of air before continuing, “Even after he slept, I was so afraid!”

Two drops fell on her palms that lay in Maia’s gentle hold.

“My lady…”

“I think it would have been easier if he had just killed me… but now, I live, having glimpsed at his pain… it was too much… oh gods, too much!”

Anvitha broke down crying, letting all the pent up grief, terror and anger drain out of her as she sobbed into Maia’s embrace.

“My lady, I cannot fathom what you must endure everytime you soothe another’s pain and fear away. But this… you must never do this again.”

Anvitha looked up at Maia, tears now gleaming down her face.

“But that is what they want of me, is it not? That I ease his suffering?”

Maia’s jaw tightened a little as she continued to clean her mistress’ hands.

“Not to your detriment, my lady. You must find another way… I cannot see you like this.”

She continued to clean her hands in slow, careful strokes.

“I need my mother…”

The confession was so small, so meek, Anvitha felt Maia’s hands stop for a moment.

And then, she gently rose to sit beside her on the bed, careful of her shoulder or anything that might hurt. She guided Anvitha against her, and this time, she went to the older woman like a child, face turning into Maia’s shoulder, fingers clutching at the older woman’s sleeve.

And she wept.

“There,” Maia whispered. “There, my lady. I may be a poor substitute for your mother but, I am by your side. For however long you need me.”

The sobs came rough and uneven, dragged from places she had sealed since the day the imperial envoys came to Veylorn’s Crown. She cried for the wedding that had not been a wedding, for her sister’s trembling voice, for her mother’s silent hands in her hair, for Tomas screaming in the lower decks, for the dead servitor chained after death, for Lorgar’s kind eyes and Kor Phaeron’s hungry ones, for Lotara’s handprint, for Khârn almost stepping forward, for Angron’s raised hand, for Angron’s face turning helplessly into her palm.

She cried because she had lived.

She cried because he had slept.

She cried because some small, treacherous part of her already feared what would happen when he woke.

When the worst of the sobbing passed, she was hollowed by it. Her breath came in uneven pulls. Her face was wet. Her throat ached. Her ribs hurt with every inhale.

“I cannot do this,” she whispered.

Maia’s hand moved slowly over her braided hair.

“You already did.”

“No.” Anvitha pulled back enough to look at her. “Once. I did it once. I survived a moment. That is all. Tomorrow, he will wake. Tomorrow, everyone will know. Tomorrow, they will come with their meanings and their orders and their expectations, and I will be asked to walk back toward him because it worked once.”

Maia’s face did not soften into false comfort.

“Yes,” she said.

The honesty steadied her more than reassurance might have.

Anvitha stared at her.

Maia wiped one tear from Anvitha’s cheek with her thumb. The gesture was almost maternal.

“Yes,” she repeated. “They may ask. They may command. They may dress it in gratitude or destiny. But tonight, inside this room, you do not have to answer them.”

Anvitha looked toward the door.

It seemed very solid.

She knew better than to trust doors.

“And if they enter?”

Maia’s chin lifted.

“Then they will have to pass me first.”

A laugh escaped Anvitha before she could stop it. It broke through tears and turned into something painful, almost bright.

“Maia, he is a Primarch.”

“I did not specify that I would succeed.”

The laugh came again, fuller this time, though it ended in a wince as Anvitha pressed a hand to her side.

Maia’s brows drew together at once.

“I will call for the chirurgeon.”

Anvitha tightened her grasp on Maia’s sleeve.

“No…”

“My lady! You are hurt.”

“Tomorrow… Please… Not now.”

“If something is broken, waiting will make it worse.”

The firmness in Maia’s voice would have made an imperial officer proud. Anvitha stared at her, too exhausted to be offended, and then let her head fall back slightly.

“You are becoming tyrannical.”

“One must be to survive aboard this vessel.”

Anvitha chuckled before she winced again.

“Don’t let Lotara hear you. The shipmistress might consider you a direct threat to her position.”

Maia smiled as she gently patted her hands and moved to stand, only for Anvitha to pull at her hands.

“Please,” she said, and hated how small it sounded. “Not yet. Sit with me, please…”

Maia’s expression softened as she nodded and gently helped Anvitha to lie back against the pillows, arranging them so her ribs were supported and her shoulder did not bear much of her weight. Then she removed Anvitha’s slippers, loosened the drape, and unpinned the places where the fabric pulled too tightly. Each movement was unhurried. Each asked permission without making Anvitha answer aloud.

When Maia reached for the waterlily pendant, Anvitha caught her wrist.

“No.”

Maia stopped. “I was only going to set it straight.”

Anvitha looked down.

The pendant was twisted from where it had been trapped between her body and Angron’s. She had not noticed how tightly it pressed into her skin until Maia touched it. A small red mark had formed beneath the chain.

Anvitha released Maia’s wrist.

“Forgive me.”

Maia adjusted the pendant gently, letting the waterlily settle at the hollow of Anvitha’s throat.

“There,” she said. “Still yours.”

Anvitha closed her eyes.

Still yours.

Such a little phrase. Such a defiance.

Maia returned to the basin, changed the water, and came back with a clean cloth. She wiped Anvitha’s face, then her neck, then the place where sweat had dried at the edge of her hairline. The care was almost unbearable. Anvitha kept her eyes closed because if she looked at Maia too long, she would cry again.

And as her exhaustion landed upon her fully, Anvitha felt herself drift off to sleep.

Outside the chamber, the Conqueror carried its lord’s unnatural sleep like a secret too large for its walls. Somewhere beyond decks and doors, Angron lay amid wreckage, blood, and broken chains, breathing in a rhythm a mortal woman had given him. The ship would speak of it. The warriors would measure it. Lorgar would pray over it, perhaps, or worse, understand it.

Inside, for one night at least, Anvitha slept, with the only friend in her life at the moment, keeping watch over her.

There you go! It wasn't too bad as far as first meetings go, eh? Also, this would be one heck of a tale to tell their children, if they ever got there! Also, we just had a pretty big earthquake here as I was posting this!! Big E doesn't want me making Angron happy!! It's an IMPERIAL CONSPIRACY!!!! (/jk)

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