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https://archiveofourown.org/works/58344985

Celestine felt rather than saw Katarinya stop in the archway when she bumped full into her, a quiet grunt forcing its way past her lips.

“What is it?” she asked once she’d recovered.

Katarinya did not answer. One second she was there, the next she had drawn Tyrantslayer and rushed into the room. Years of battle instincts compelled Celestine to follow her.

What she saw when she entered the dark communication nexus was a ghastly sight. Antonius was dead on the floor, Kyrillos cowering against the corner. His look of terror was stark in the light of the failing screen that took up half the wall—light that illuminated another, darker figure a few few feet away. It was a thing that was half there and even that half looked like it shouldn’t be, half-hunched over Antonius’ corpse and softly hummimh.

“Inquisitor!” Kyrillos said, as the monster turned to him. “Inquisitor, please!”

“Stop mewling, Kyrillos,” Greyfax snapped, and the thing was thrown against the screen, shattering the crystal and plunging the room into darkness. Celestine’s hand moved of its own accord, drawing her Ardent Blade and setting it alight at the same time as Katarinya activated her power sword. The red flames and the bluish, crackling energy combined at just the right time to reveal the monster leaping at them, like a humanoid canine drawn straight from the nightmares of the most vilely creative magos biologis.

Celestine’s arm shot out to shield Katarinya, only to find she needn’t have bothered. The inquisitor had rolled away with all the trained instincts of a professional witch-killer, leaving Celestine free to instead grab her sword with both hands and cleave the creature in twain. Its halves wiggled on the floors and hissed, purplish vapors rising from the wounds. Katarinya put an end to that by drawing her bolter and shooting twice, the blessed rounds echoing in the enclosed space. Then, she finished the job by raising her boot and bringing it down in a merciless stomp. There was nothing left by the time she withdrew it.

“T-T-T-That was-” Kyrillos tried, the poor man clearly scared witless by the creature even after its death.

“A daemon,” Katarinya finished grimly, turning to the shattered screen.

“In… in the heart of the Fortress of the Inquisition?” Kyrillos gasped.

“It appears that way.” Greyfax tapped a rune. The mechanisms behind it flared red with emergency light. She sighed with clear relief. “Thank the Emperor, it is still functional. Kyrillos, bring the Scions. Quickly.”

Kyrillos just stared at her back, shell-shocked. “Inquisitor, I… I owe you my life.”

“You owe me more than that. You owe me your service,” Katarinya snapped. “Bring them, Kyrillos. Now.”

Kyrillos shook off his bewilderment and went to do as she ordered. Celestine turned to Katarinya with a frown.

“Do you believe we’re in further danger?”

“No. I simply did not want undue witnesses for this conversation,” Katarinya said, tapping a series of runes on the console. Celestine didn’t know if she should be flattered or insulted Katarinya didn’t consider her to be part of that group.

“Are you sure that was a daemon, Katarinya?” Celestine asked instead. “It looked like no creature of the Warp I had ever seen before.”

“Because you are such an expert in these matters?”

“I’ve faced the manifestations of the Great Enemy more times than you or I could count,” Celestine replied testily.

“Yes. And you must have had the opportunity to study their esoteric nature closely in these encounters,” Katarinya remarked with a venom Celestine felt was unearned. Perhaps she was more unsettled than she appeared. “Enough to dismiss my experience out of hand, clearly.”

Celestine rolled her eyes. “I only meant-”

It didn’t matter what she meant, for a moment later the cracked screen changed colors to display the glitching, unfocused image of the Lord Inquisitorial Representative for the seventeenth non-consecutive term, the man Celestine knew only as Lord Inquisitor Trevaine.

“Greyfax? What is this? I’ve been trying to reach you for the past hour,” the man said, sounding faintly annoyed.

“I always knew you were a failure, Trevaine, I just never anticipated how much of one,” Katarinya said in response.

“Always so pleasant, hearing from the finest of our order,” the man drawled, unimpressed. “And what have I done as of late to warrant this all too familiar scorn?”

“Enough to warrant that formal investigation into your affairs I promised you ten years ago.”

“Hah! Have you ever heard the one about the girl who cried Conclave?”

Celestine stepped forward. “Lord Inquisitor, a daemon has just manifested on the-” She searched her memory, scrambling to remember where exactly Greyfax’s sanctum was located- “Sixty thousandth five hundred and twelfth level.”

The Inquisitorial Representative looked at her like a cyber-poodle that had interrupted an important business between two hive-lords by standing up and pissing on the carpet. “Lady Celestine, I assure you, that is impossible.”

“She speaks true, Trevaine,” Katarinya said stiffly.

“Inquisitor Greyfax, I indulged you your companion because I believed, after the debacle on Ophelia VII, that her closeness made you a more efficient agent of the Ordo,” the Lord Inquisitor sniffed. “But if you are going to start using her to undermine the Fortress with baseless accusations…”

“They are not baseless, Trevaine.” This was said before Celestine found time to process her apparent status as Katarinya’s ‘companion’. “No fortress is completely safe from the Great Enemy, no matter how protected. And this is not some political ploy against your authority,” Katarinya spat the last word with a particularly vicious sneer. She seemed to consider something for a moment. “Can you see me clearly?”

“No, the feed appears damaged. Why?”

Katarinya walked over to the corner of the room and activated a dormant servo skull sitting on a shelf among dozens of others. “Transfer viewing feed to servo-unit ninety seven eighty two IGK. Access code Alpha Beta Gamma Lictus Noxis five five seven nine fifty seven.”

Trevaine looked bemused, but the machine spirit did as it was asked. Katarinya pointed the servo-skull at Antonius’ mangled corpse.

“Emperor on Terra,” Trevaine breathed, and his tone changed immediately. “Very well, Greyfax. I don’t believe even you are capable of disemboweling your own Acolyte to act against me, so I will act accordingly. I am locking down the Fortress and instituting Dominatus Protocol. Stormtroopers will be dispatched to your location.”

“I have my own forces,” Greyfax said tersely. “Focus on the Fortress.”

Trevaine didn’t argue, he simply nodded. “The wards will be checked and rechecked, I assure you. But, Greyfax, I believe it goes without saying that the fact my vox-box is not being hailed with other requests for transmission means that either every other Inquisitor residing in the Fortress is dead, or that only you were attacked. Which means…”

“I’m aware of what it means,” Katarinya interrupted. “I’ll take the necessary precautions.”

“I am not,” Celestine protested, shooting Greyfax a glance. “Please, finish your thought, Lord Inquisitor.”

“It means that one of my distinguished colleagues has gone to great lengths to kill either you or your… comrade, Lady Celestine,” the Lord Inquisitor revealed, then more airily, “and given your supposed immortality, it would be a safe assumption it’s the latter.”

“An Inquisitor killing another Inquisitor?” Celestine asked. “For what purpose?”

Both Katarinya and Trevaine snorted, then glared at each other, as if irritated to be caught in accord.

“For a million reasons, sister,” the Lord Inquisitor said, after he’d torn his gaze away from Greyfax. “Envy, differences in dogma, petty rivalries… sheer boredom.” He paused. “I’ve known inquisitors who’ve sent assassins after another merely to get their attention, or against their own acolytes to test their aptitude. I might have done the same in my youth. I truly cannot recall.”

“Related, in all likelihood, to the illegal narcotics you consume on a daily basis,” Katarinya muttered so low only Celestine could hear her. Then, louder. “I appreciate the warning, Lord Trevaine. I will conduct my own investigations… before I conduct another on you.”

“Now, Greyfax-” Trevaine began, before Katarinya pressed another rune, cutting off the feed.

“Was that wise, Katarinya?” Celestine asked. “Speaking to the Inquisitorial Representative so brazenly?”

“Believe it or not, that passes for a courtesy call in the Inquisition,” Katarinya replied, crouching down to inspect Antonius’ body. Her augmetic psyocculum began to whirr, cycling through a thousand different ranges of detection. “And I only extended it because I do not suspect him of anything more sinister than incompetence.”

Celestine peered over her shoulder. A symbol had been carved onto Antonius’ body, likely by the claws or teeth of the supposed daemon. Her eyes widened.

“Eight,” Celestine said breathlessly, as if muttering a prayer between each syllable. “The unholy number of the Ruinous Powers.”

“A misconception,” Katarinya murmured, still scanning Antonius’ body with her implanted lense. Her voice had that odd inflection it always did when she was correcting someone on something to do with her work, like she was a Schola student reciting from a textbook. Katarinya must have been a very bright pupil, Celestine thought distantly. “All the different manifestations of chaos have a different sacred number. Eight is the number of the Blood God, though it also holds significance within the ideology of Chaos Undivided, due in large part to the eight-pointed Star that is its symbol.”

“You should not refer to them as such,” Celestine said disapprovingly. “There is nothing ‘sacred’ about the workings of the Ruinous Powers.”

“That is what they are called. I was not the one who named them.” Katarinya stood. “I find the concept of ‘sacred numbers’ ludicrous myself. If you prefer it, I will refer to them as numbers of power.”

“I would prefer it,” said Celestine, surprised by Katarinya’s easy acquiescence, even though she suspected it had more to do with her skepticism of the very concept of sacredness than her objection. “Is this term used often?”

“No, though I made a point of trying to push for its standardization within the Ordo, before…” Katarinya trailed off, a far-off look in her eye.

“Before you were captured,” Celestine finished.

Katarinya shot her a glance that was at the same time part amused, part irritated, and part grateful. “I do not think now is the time to be arguing about the accurate terminology of heretical numerology, sister.”

Celestine let her have the mercy of deflection. “Of course. My apologies.”

“I am surprised by your curiosity for such things,” Katarinya continued. “I often find the pious are too small-minded for the concept.”

“To know your enemy, you must, at times, know your enemy,” Celestine allowed, struck a moment after by how un-Ecclesiarchal her words sounded.

Katarinya caught it first, if the twitch of her scarred cheek was any indication. “Very inquisitorial. Perhaps I am having more of an effect on you than I thought.”

“Perhaps.” Celestine looked away, oddly discomforted by the thought. She’d thought to change Katarinya, not be changed by her in turn. “We should make haste to warn your comrades.”

“They are hardly comrades. And I see no need; Trevaine was correct. A daemon in the Fortress of the Inquisition is an improbability, but more than one is an impossibility.”

“Are you certain of that, Katarinya?”

“More than certain, thanks to various esoteric processes you would not have the capability to grasp and I not the time to explain, if I were so inclined. All the same, you can be sure my report on Trevaine will be excessively thorough.”

“You are taking this with remarkable levity.”

“Levity? Quite the opposite, Celestine. I am simply thinking.”

“Do you often do this while thinking?”

“Speak? Yes. I deliver all my reports aloud to a servo-skull in my sanctum, often drawing conclusions only as I speak them. It is how I do my best work.”

“I see.” She noticed Kyrillos and the Scions entering the room quietly, spreading out and inspecting Antonius’ body as Greyfax has done. “Should I stay here and wait for you to be done, then?

Katarinya voice-deactivated the skull Trevaine had connected to—three times, which Celestine thought was paranoid even for her—and then handed it to a Scion. “Destroy this one.” To Celestine: “You may come. You were there for all I will report on, after all. There is no sense in keeping my thoughts away from your ears.”

The helmed soldier bowed his head quietly. Celestine and Greyfax left the room and retreated back into her private sanctum.

Celestine was struck by how cold and lonely the laboratorium felt without Kyrillos scurrying about searching for tomes and data-slates. Abruptly, she said, “I will pray the Emperor accepts your Acolyte into his embrace, Katarinya. He died valiantly.”

“No. He died pointlessly. There is a reason I despise the rest of my order as much as I do.” Katarinya shook her head. “To disable the wards of an entire level of the Fortress, to summon a creature of the Warp to attack me and my associates… we are not dealing with some acquaintance with a grudge, but a true Radical… and what’s worse, a cowardly one. There is no telling when they may strike next… or how.”

“How?”

“Inquisitors have almost limitless power,” Katarinya explained, walking over to a shelf and activating what looked like a personal servo-scribe. She then began pacing the room, the skull floating after her expectantly with its instruments raised on the data parchment. It was a little comical, and she struggled not to smile. “That goes as much as it does for myself as it does for my would-be assassin. On Terra, it would be trivial for an inquisitor with enough power to contact the Officio Assassinorum and have an agent assigned to them with no real understanding of the nature of their target.”

“You are heading off-world,” Celestine concluded. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. I will draw my prey out and confront them on my terms, and impose my own judgement, without the eyes of the Ordo making my movements more difficult than they would be otherwise,” Katarinya agreed. “Killing another Inquisitor is a grave matter, even if they were attempting to kill you first. I’ve already been subjected to the whims of a Conclave for the death of a delusional heretic once. I’m not eager to repeat the experience.”

Celestine sensed a story there, but reneged to pursue it. This conversation was heading in a direction she didn’t want it to. “This is where we part ways, then.”

“Yes. You will go off to inspire the soldiery of some distant battlefield with your supposed holy presence, and I will continue my work elsewhere,” Katarinya confirmed, sounding almost relieved by that fact. “As has been the nature of our meetings for the past decade.”

“A fact I’ve resented,” Celestine said quietly.

Katarinya gave her a warning look. “Celestine.”

“Of course. My apologies. You have no more interest in me than you do for your so-called comrades,” Celestine said, trying not to sound… well, trying not to sound affected in any way. “All the same, we will meet again, Katarinya.”

“Perhaps,” she said, like she said every time. At least that hadn’t changed. Celestine had feared her new answer would be a simple ‘no’ this time. “If chance fates it.”

“If the Emperor wills it,” Celestine corrected placidly. “As he has in the past.”

“As it please you. I prefer to think we simply walk in the same circles,” Katarinya said, then recited a string of numbers at the servo-scribe. It began recording on the data-parchment it bore, instruments moving in tandem to Katarinya’s voice. Celestine let herself ignore the words and simply observe Katarinya as she paced back and forth, recording a private log of the day that she would in all likelihood never glance at again. She thought about stopping her mid-step, putting her armored arms around her, and silencing her with her lips. In the next life, maybe, she thought sadly. There were too many burdens on Katarinya’s shoulders in this one.

Oh, Kindly God-Emperor, see this most beloved one to your Table, and seat her high, she prayed in her head, her lips curling into a smile. Do you not see how she labors for you? Grant her the peace she will never have in life when your use for her is through.

If Celestine had been more concentrated on Katarinya’s words instead of her movements, she might have heard how Katarinya’s voice halted momentarily when she thought this. Instead, distantly, she noticed something else.

“You are bleeding,” Celestine said softly.

Katarinya’s voice did not stop, but she did shoot her a glance. Celestine waited patiently for her to finish the log before Katarinya finally turned to her.

“What?”

“Your face. I’ve only just noticed,” Celestine said, stepping closer.

Katarinya brought a gauntleted hand to her face, touching the small wounds for the first time. “So I am. It must have happened when the daemon broke the screen.”

“We should be thankful to the Emperor the shards spared your remaining eye,” Celestine laughed. “Given your hatred of redundancy.”

Katarinya rolled said eye in its socket. On an impulse, Celestine stepped closer, taking the synthetic rag she used to wipe blood off her sword on the battlefield from a pocket in her armor. “May I?”

Katarinya looked at her as if she was insane. “You decidedly may not.” She took the rag from Celestine’s preoffered hand anyway, wiped the blood away, and handed it back without comment. “What is your opinion on the conclusion I drew in my log?”

Celestine tried to not look sheepish. “Your conclusion, Katarinya?”

“Yes. The conclusion I drew about the attack,” Katarinya said, a little frigidly. Celestine couldn’t see why; it’s not like Katarinya asked her to listen to her report. In fact, she’d gotten the impression she decidedly didn’t want her to, despite there being no point in keeping it from her. “You were listening, weren’t you?”

“Ah, yes. Your conclusion. It was, as always, an advanced and well-thought out summation of events. I am always impressed by the ease with which you draw out your thoughts into the realm of the tangible and actionable. It is, no doubt, why you make such a fine Inquisitor, blessed by His Guidance,” Celestine tried, hoping that last part would draw Katarinya into a terse rant about how simple logic didn’t always have to be a vision from the Emperor.

Katarinya did no such thing. An eyebrow rose, testily.

“Er, that is of course, I believe you are correct,” Celestine said, deciding that was usually a safe course of action; in matters such as these, Katarinya was only very rarely wrong. “The attack appeared… suspicious to me as well.”

“Did it now?” Katarinya crossed her arms. “Suspicious how, Celestine?”

“Well…”

Katarinya sighed. “At least I can be reassured you have no interest in my private thought process.” The way she thought that made it clear she knew what was of interest to Celestine, which made the saint’s cheeks turn pink. “I concluded that the attack was very likely a feint.”

“A feint?”

“Yes. You noticed, surely, that the daemon who attacked us was little more than weak Warp-spawn.” Katarinya was back to pacing. “If the intent was to kill Antonius, an old man in robes, then such a monster would suffice. As I can only conclude it was not, then I can’t help but question it as a choice of weapon. Heretical implications aside, anyone who’d have enough of a care of me to want me dead would know I spend most of my time in power armor, armed.”

“Meaning?”

“This was meant to get my attention.” Katarinya shook her head. “In that, it has succeeded. I am scrambling to come up with a suspect for an attack such as this; none come to mind.”

A foolish blush of hope seized Celestine’s heart. “If this attack was meant to put you on your guard, Katarinya, would it not be safer to diverge from the usual actions you would take for an intrusion such as this?”

Katarinya stopped pacing. “Meaning?”

“They will not expect you to stay on Terra,” Celestine said, and then, a little more brazenly, “or be accompanied by a Sister of Our Martyred Lady, least so one such as I.”

Katarinya’s scarred cheeks twitched in a way that made it hard to tell whether she was smiling or scowling: “Don’t you have duties to attend to on Terra, Celestine?”

“Nothing more important than… how did you put it? Inspiring the riotous masses with holy light.” Celestine smiled wider. “And I would hardly place that duty over the preservation of one of the most esteemed of the Emperor’s Most Holy Inquisition. Or the woman sho saved the Ecclesiarchy itself after the incident on Ophelia VII, not to mention the countless billions on Terra and beyond who would have perished had a Lord of Change seized hold of my body.”

Katarinya’s smile-scowl deepened. “This does not make us permanent allies,” she warned. “This is a pact born of convenience, nothing more.”

“Of course,” Celestine said graciously, then, smirking, “As it has been for all the other occasions.”

“Celestine.”

“I apologize. You are an inquisitor. It is not for me to antagonize you.” Celestine laughed. “If you say we are allies of convenience, Katarinya, then that is what we are.”

“And don’t presume otherwise.”

“I understand.”

“Celestine.”

“I said, I understand, Katarinya,” Celestine replied, laughing again: “We are allies of convenience. Just like all the other times.”

“Sometimes, I wonder why I put up with you,” Katarinya muttered, and for perhaps the first time in her life, Celestine could hear the fondness in her voice clear as day.

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