‘No,’ says Saturnalia. ‘We are a kill team.’

TWENTY-ONE

Catharsis

I Might Kill You

The Thunder Lord

ROXANNE THREW HERSELF into Kai’s arms with the passion of a long lost lover, wrapping him so tightly that he thought he might break. He returned her embrace, relishing the closeness of another human body and the sight of someone familiar. He and Roxanne had worked together on the Argofor many years, though the strict code of conduct enforced upon all Ultramarines vessels had prevented them from becoming truly close.

‘You’re going to break my ribs,’ said Kai, though he didn’t want her to let go.

‘They’ll heal,’ said Roxanne, pressing even tighter. ‘I never thought I’d see you again.’

‘Nor I you,’ he said, as she finally released him and took a step back, though she kept a grip on his shoulders.

‘You look terrible,’ said Roxanne. ‘What happened to your eyes? After they separated us on the Lemuryan plate, they wouldn’t tell me where you were.’

‘Castana’s armsmen picked me up and took me to the medicae facilities on Kyprios then left me in the care of an idiot,’ said Kai with a sneer. ‘But when the Patriarch realised they might be held liable for the loss of the Argo, they threw me back to the City of Sight.’

‘Bastards,’ said Roxanne. ‘They took me back to our estates in Galicia and tried to hide me away like I didn’t even exist.’

‘Why?’

‘I was an embarrassment to them,’ said Roxanne with a dismissive shrug. ‘A Navigator who can’t even guide a ship home in the same system as the Astronomican isn’t much of a Navigator.’

‘That’s insane,’ he said. ‘You can’t guide a ship when it’s in the middle of a warp storm.’

‘I told them that,’ she said with an exaggerated gesture, ‘but it doesn’t look good when a ship is lost. The Navigator’s always the first one people want to blame.’

‘Or the astropath,’ whispered Kai.

He felt her scrutiny, and returned it. The last time Kai had seen Roxanne, she had been a physical and emotional wreck, as haunted by the unending screams of their dead crew as he had been, but her aura showed little sign of that trauma.

Roxanne guided him from the aisle to find a seat in the pews, taking his arm as though he were blind or infirm.

‘I cansee you know,’ he said. ‘Probably better than you.’

‘Typical,’ said Roxanne. ‘It takes losing your eyes to make you see things clearly.’

He smiled as Roxanne took hold of Kai’s skeletally thin hands. He felt the warmth of her friendship, but instead of recoiling, he let it wash over him like a cleansing balm. Ever since he had been evacuated from the wreck of the Argo, Kai had been treated like a leper or an invalid, and to be viewed as an equal was just about the most wonderful thing anyone had done for him.

‘So what are you doing here?’ asked Kai, hoping to steer the conversation away from the Argo. ‘This doesn’t seem like your kind of place.’

‘I suppose not, but it turns out it’s justmy kind of place.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m Castana,’ said Roxanne. ‘I’ve never wanted for anything in my life, and that meant I didn’t appreciate anything I was ever given. If I broke something or lost something, it would be instantly replaced. Being with the people of the XIII Legion taught me how selfish I’d been. When I returned to our estates I couldn’t face going back to the person I was. So I left.’

‘And you came here?’ said Kai. ‘Seems like a bit of an extreme reaction.’

‘I know, but, like I said, I’m Castana, we don’t do things in half measures. At first I was just going to run off to teach my family that they couldn’t treat me like a child. Then, when they realised how much they needed me, they’d come for me and I’d have earned their respect.’

‘But they didn’t come, did they?’

‘No, they didn’t,’ said Roxanne, but there was no sadness to her at the idea of being abandoned by her family. ‘I found a place to stay, but I still had nightmares about the Argo, and it was eating me up inside. I knew what happened wasn’t my fault, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. One day I heard about a place in the Petitioner’s City where anyone could lay their dead to rest and find peace. So I made my way here and volunteered to help in whatever way I could.’

‘Did it help? With the nightmares, I mean?’

Roxanne nodded. ‘It did. I thought I’d stay a few days, just to clear my head, but the more I helped people, the more I knew I couldn’t leave. When you’re surrounded by death every day it gives you perspective. I’ve heard hundreds of stories that would break your heart, but it showed me that what I’d gone through wasn’t any worse than what these people live with every day.’

‘And what about Palladis Novandio, what’s his story?’

He sensed reluctance in Roxanne’s aura, and immediately regretted the question.

‘He suffered a great loss,’ she said. ‘He lost people he loved, and he blames himself for their deaths.’

Kai turned to watch Palladis Novandio as he spoke in a low voice with the people of his temple, now understanding a measure of the man’s enveloping grief. He recognised the all-consuming guilt and desire for punishment as the mirror of his own.

‘Then we’re very similar,’ whispered Kai.

‘You blame yourself for what happened on the Argo, don’t you?’ said Roxanne.

Kai tried to give a glib answer, to deflect her question, but the words wouldn’t come. He could read auras or use his psychic abilities to understand emotions without effort, yet he would not turn that insight upon himself for fear of what he might learn.

‘It was my fault,’ he said softly. ‘I was in a nunciotrance when the shields collapsed. I was the way in for the monsters. I was the crack in the defences. It’s the only explanation.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Roxanne. ‘How can you think like that?’

‘Because it’s true.’

‘No,’ said Roxanne firmly. ‘It’s not. You didn’t see what was happening beyond the ship. I saw what hit us, and anyship would have been overwhelmed. A squall of warp cyclones blew up out of nowhere and hit a vortex of high-energy currents coming in from the rimward storms. No one saw it coming, not the Nobilite Watcher Guild, not the Gate Sentinels, no one. It was a one in a million, one in a billion, freak confluence. Given what’s happening here on Terra and out in the galaxy, I’m surprised there aren’t more of them surging to life. It’s a mess out there in the warp, and you’re lucky you don’t see it.’

‘You might have seen it, but I heard it,’ said Kai. ‘I heard them die.’

‘Who?’

‘All of them. Every man and woman on the ship, I heard them die. All their terrors, all their lost dreams, all their last thoughts. I heard them all, screaming at me. I can still hear them whenever I let my guard down.’

Roxanne gripped his hand fiercely and he felt the power of her stare, though he had no eyes with which to return it. The force of her personality blazed like a solar corona, and only now did Kai realise how strong she was. Roxanne was Castana, and there were few of that clan who lacked for self-assuredness.

‘They tried to blame us both for the loss of the Argo, so what does that tell you about how little they know about whose fault it was? Someone had to be responsible. Something terrible had happened, and it’s human nature to want someone else to pay for it. They told me, day and night, that it was my fault, that I’d done something wrong, that I had to retrain. But I said no, I told them I knew it wasn’t my fault. I knewthere was nothing I or anyone else could have done to save that ship. It was lost no matter what I did. It was lost no matter what youor anyone else did.’

Kai listened to her words, feeling each one slip past his armour of certainty like poniards aimed at his heart. He had told himself the same things over and over again, but the mind has no greater accuser than itself. The Castanas told him he caused the death of the Argo, and he had believed them because, deep down, he wanted to be punished for surviving.