“We suggest nothing, admiral. We merely wish to forewarn you of the repercussions of such... entrapment. His eminence’s failure to return to the Or’es Tash’var will, of course, result in immediate retaliation.”

“Of course,” the admiral hissed with poor grace, knowing he was beaten.

“The question,” El’Yis’ten continued, “remains pertinent.” She sounded like she was enjoying herself. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

Kais watched the admiral’s face closely, trying to decipher the strange emotions playing across it. A sidelong glance at Ko’vash told him the ethereal was doing the same — penetrative glare fixed firmly on the old gue’la’s features. The admiral looked up directly at the window. Kais swivelled in his spot, confused.

The Marine nodded once, almost imperceptibly.

“We have a problem,” the admiral said, “that requires us to... reprioritise.”

“Go on...”

Another glance at Ardias. Another half nod.

“A secondary threat. Already aboard this ship.”

The admiral’s decorum left him in a long drawn-out sigh. He seemed to deflate, suddenly seeming old and tired. El’Yis’ten shared an alarmed glance with the ethereal. “You know as well as I,” the admiral growled, “that under normal circumstances we’d rather die than consort with fr— with your kind. But we have reason to believe these circumstances are far from normal, and until we’re certain of what we’re—”

The boardroom doors opened with a fierce clang, eliciting a wave of instinctive head twists. The figure that stalked in had donned a vast fur coat since Kais had last seen him, an impressive mantle of tawny and blood red markings that widened his already substantial frame. His face was unchanged, twisted in a petulant sneer.

It was the man from the viewing gallery in the prison torture chamber, and Ko’vash watched him enter with admirable calm.

The shas’las lowered their guns slowly, satisfied that the unarmed figure was no threat. Kais’s quick impressions of the situation were manifold: the Space Marine grunting angrily, the admiral hissing in fury, the newcomer grinning hungrily...

“What’s the meaning of this, Severus?” the admiral roared.

“Admiral — so good to see you again. I feared you lost in the invasion.”

“You’re not supposed to b—”

“And, look...” the newcomer bowed to Ko’vash sarcastically, feral grin widening further. “My old friend Ko-vaj. How are you? It’s been so long.”

“Severu—!”

“Oh, hush, Benedil — do. You know I have all the authority I need to be here.”

Ardias shook his head, muttering under his breath.

Down in the chamber, El’Yis’ten recovered from her shock superbly.

“His eminence extends his greetings to — I assume you to be — Governor Severus, and hopes his late arrival will not disturb these proceedings further.”

Severus fixed the por’el with an amused grin and nodded cheerfully. “Ah yes... One breed to fight, one breed to labour, one breed to talk...” He returned his stare to the Aun. “...and one breed to stand about looking smug. How’s the head, old chap? Not too sore, I hope.”

Ko’vash ignored him.

“If we might return to the subject in hand?” El’Yis’ten persisted doggedly, looking pointedly at Admiral Constantine. The grey-haired man was glaring at the preening new arrival with barely restrained hatred. The por’el coughed politely; another subtle gue’la mannerism. “Admiral?”

“Yes.” Constantine turned back to the conference. “Yes, of course. As I was say—”

“This is a sham,” Severus declared, crossing his arms. “In all my years I’ve never seen anything so shameful.”

“Severus!” Constantine’s face was bright red, like an unplucked greh’li-berry. “You will be silent or you will get o—”

“Humans greetings xenogens aboard like old friends? For an admiral to have sunk so low...” He spat on the floor, face creased with disgust. “You should be ashamed, Constantine.”

“There are circumstances you’re not famil—”

“No circumstance warrants infection, admiral. Isn’t that what they say?”

“I will not tolera—”

“Noble sirs...” El’Yis’ten sung, voice somehow conspiring to be soft and penetrative at once. “His eminence grows impatient. We have attended this meeting in good faith with the aim of preventing further hostilities. We did not come to watch you argue amongst yourselves.”

Constantine was about to speak, Kais could see, pompous apologies forming behind his ruddy face. But Severus got there first, eyebrows arching disdainfully.

“You will hold your tongue, alien!” he growled, talking over the admiral’s garbled protests. “How dare you speak to us in that manner?”

“His eminence has de—”

“His eminence is not worthy to even share our air. There will be no resolution here. This conflict will be resolved in blood, not in words!”

Kais frowned. Something was changing in the tall gue’la’s manner, a deeper resonance in his voice, a certain... enlargement. Without appearing to grow at all somehow he was looming, radiating a sense of presence and importance impossible to ignore. There was a whispering at the back of Kais’s mind, just beyond his ability to discern. The air was thick suddenly, greasy with a hidden charge.

“Emperor’s blood...” the Marine growled, fingers curling around the weapon in its holster.

And Governor Severus spoke three words: ugly syllables that made no sense to Kais’s ears but somehow inflamed his thoughts, crackling in the air with vile potency and appearing to cast a shadow across the world. If they could have been given form, Kais thought, the words would be maggots, coated in a slick of blood and writhing from the man’s mouth in a haze of crimson power.

Severus smiled and slipped a manicured hand into his coat pocket, withdrawing something with a flicker of light.

The insanity began.

Trooper Moyles was an uncomplicated individual.

When the brightly garbed commissars had toured the cities of his homeworld, Gilreh, he hadn’t even paused for thought, so taken was he by the plush uniforms, the rousing tales of heroism and bravery and the prospect of promotion and sliding scales of payment. He’d signed up without hesitation.

The uniform, upon reflection, had been a poor reason to join the Imperial Guard. It had changed, since then, five times.

On the Adeptus Munitorium standard enrolment forms, his IQ was marked down as 75. He had never, ever succeeded in anything in his life.

But the Guard accepted him, showed him which direction to point his gun, trained him until his muscles showed through the flesh on his arms and chest and made him worth something. He had never been so happy in his entire life.

And then quite out of the blue, during a routine guard duty in the boardroom of the Enduring Blade (during which he’d seen his first real xenogen), a tall man from the planet below pulled a knife out of his fur coat pocket and opened up Trooper Moyles’s jugular vein like a ration pack of synth-et being punctured.

He wondered, vaguely, why everything was going dark.

The Marine ran, drawing its weapon in a fluid arc of articulating armour.

Kais swivelled at the sound of its clattering steps, mind spinning, breath short. The memory of the trooper’s blood, thrashing into the air, was fresh in his eyes. The audio speaker hooked to the other room exploded in a cacophony of shouts and exclamations. Kais called out to the hurrying Marine.

“Ardias! What’s—?”

“Your gear’s through there,” the hulk roared, not slowing, massive fingers pointing to one side. “Stay out of my way.”

The sapphire figure vanished through a door. An alarm began to ring, hurting Kais’s ears. He turned back to the boardroom to be confronted with a scene of riotous reactions: the gue’la shouting all at once, the tau backing away in confusion, the nameless trooper at the centre of the hubbub sinking to his knees, fingers clutching at his throat.