Vilmogurr, Second Primarch of The Devout, walked toward an earthen throne at the centre of a verdant garden of tamed flower and fruit trees. On its rightful spot incumbent on the wide throne, and on a pad of woven cushions and fine sand, was a figure of bare skin and barely evident strands of hair that had faded from thick fur in a far-off past life. Though not as large as Vilmogurr himself, the being was a presence that percolated throughout the courtyard, and even still, out into the world of Kesish and into every expanse and every recess of the united empire. The being before him was The Devout, the crux that the empire sprang from, and it was his influence that actualized on all worlds that a quisabar might walk; Arenor.

  Vilmogurr came to a stop at the foot of Arenor’s throne, lowering his heavy bulk to the floor and removing his upper plate of his brilliant silver armour, resting it on the ground beside him. He knelt and placed both fists closed on the dirt and bowed. Beside Vilmogurr, his soul pair Pilobarr did the same, kneeling and removing his own breastplate in solidarity.

  “Devout one, my primarch.” Vilmogurr said in his native tongue, “Heed us and know that I have brought tidings.”

  Arenor raised its weary head and stared toward him. Vilmogurr didn’t look up. Instead, keeping his gaze at the floor in reverence.

  “Second Primarch,” Arenor said, his voice ragged and ancient, “Vilmogurr. Tidings are but good and evil. To which do you bring– do you spoil the peace of the garden on this day?”

  “We bring both, my primarch. If you would suffer my presence, I will explain,” said Vilmogurr, sensitive to the plight wrought on The Devout being in proximity of the connection between himself and Pilobarr, a distasteful thing.

  Arenor concealed a wince and nodded.

  “So be it.”

  Vilmogurr raised himself up from the dirt and gestured to one of his personal guard that wait by the courtyard exit. The guard disappeared and reappeared a moment later with something in tow. In the guard’s grip was a fistful of human hair that happened to be attached to a man that struggled for his life.

  After them entered three other guards, each gripping a human of their own; two female and one smaller male. They were bound, their eyes covered, their mouths silenced, to not risk offending The Devout and the tranquillity of his garden.

  “What have you brought me, Vilmogurr– pets?” asked Arenor in bemusement. Vilmogurr made eye contact with The Devout, a frightening honour.

  “These are humans, my primarch. This one is Captain Saul Calmos, the heretic that dared wake what is best left asleep in the void. The others– his son and their accomplices.”

  Saul struggled against the guard’s tight grip, ripping at his own head as he tried in vain to break free.

  “Heretic? Yes,” said Arenor, recognizing the man as human, a creature of strange proportions. “But why does he fight you so– does he not know his ways are wicked?”

  “He fights us even still. He does not see the seriousness of his own heresy as we do,” said Vilmogurr.

  “He mocks the gods?” Arenor asked.

  Vilmogurr nodded.

  The guards that held each of the humans removed their eye coverings, and one by one, they stopped struggling as each stood in awe, all but one. Saul turned his attention immediately to Cole. Vilmogurr sensed the fear in the man for his son.

  “Dispatch him, then. Rid us of this aversion. I know of no case that a heretic, as you say, should be allowed to continue to affront our empire, our gods. Why indeed did you bring him before us?”

  “It is for the other reason that I find myself in your garden, that I have stayed his end. It is in what he found in the dark, led by this ill-gotten ship, that you may understand my actions.”

  Vilmogurr gestured to Pilobarr, who up until this moment had remained in a silent bow. Pilobarr rose and retrieved a glass vial from within his armour. He moved over to Arenor, not speaking, not looking up, and placed the vial at his primarch’s feet.

  “What is this?” asked Arenor, straining to retrieve the vial with creaking joints.

  “We found this in the humans’ possession as we boarded the ship, a curiosity that I alone recognized,” said Vilmogurr.

  As Arenor more closely examined the contents of the vial, the truth became clear. Arenor knew what this was, what it meant. He could feel it, like a calling into his very kulm organ, a long-dormant vestige that had fallen silent since he was forced to end the life of his own soul pair to ascend to the seat of The Devout. From the recesses of his mind, a voice woke, echoing throughout the black.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Do you know what this means, Vilmogurr?” Arenor said, sifting through the pleasure that rushed through his heart.

  “I know of caution, of calamity, and of salvation that such an object might mean,” said Vilmogurr, “though I know not what the future holds should the past repeat itself.”

  “You are wise beyond your long years, my friend. Within this shard, within this prison, lies a presence not seen in two thousand years. The past, bygone. The future… the future can be written through the strength of our empire.”

  “And through the strength of its leader, its primarch!” roared Vilmogurr, a call that was met by each of the quisabar in the courtyard. Arenor’s kulm swelled with a sweeping warmth that lifted him to his feet. He stepped down from the throne and onto the loam of the courtyard. Walking towards the humans, he looked down on each of them.

  Arenor walked down the line, sniffing the humans. Each subtly recoiled as he did, and Arenor could smell the fear within them.

  “My primarch–” said Vilmogurr, “what then of these humans?”

  “They brought me a gift,” Arenor admitted, “Though that does not excuse their heresy. Stay their deaths, but for their indiscretions, they will work. Send them to the shipyards of Barrintor. It might be that for the disruption of such a tainted ship that they might find purpose in the creation of another, and so I will be relieved.”

  “I will see to it,” said Vilmogurr. “They will work.”

  The one called Saul looked to Arenor sharply, the back at his son.

  “This one,” Arenor looked into Saul’s character, “this one has something to say.”

  Arenor could see plainly the love and fear that Saul held for his ilk, a trifle that Arenor could only distantly understand, yet dare not overlook. He gestured to Vilmogurr, who instructed the guard to release its grip on Saul, allowing the man to crumple to the floor. Arenor knelt beside Saul and carefully removed his mouth covering.

  “Thank– thank you,” Saul said, “What do you want with us?”

  “With you–? I want nothing of you. The cosmos will extract its price from you in due time,” said Arenor. “Tell me, Saul Calmos, what is it that you would ask of me?”

  Saul looked back and forth again from Cole, to the other humans, to Vilmogurr, and back to Arenor. He flashed the two women that came with him a sullen look. A look Arenor understood to mean sorrow– sorrow for something that was about to cause him great guilt that would echo with him throughout the rest of time.

  “I don’t know what you really want with us,” Saul said, “but I ask you to spare my son. Spare Cole.”

  Arenor smiled, having already intuited what a father would ask for in his most dire of moments.

  “You ask me to save this one–” Arenor pointed to Cole who’s eyes shot to his father, “this one you have already soiled through his inclusion in your heretical acts? Why should I spare one which you have already sentenced to sin?”

  Saul looked nervous, unsure what to say. He struggled through the fear to only utter a simple entreaty; “please.”

  Arenor palmed the vial with the dark shard. He considered relinquishing the man and his son and sparing them of the torment. If only he might offer a weight to tip the gods’ balance in his own favour.

  “Where did you find it?” Arenor asked.

  “We found The Betty in the depth of space,” the man said with a gulp, “We meant no disrespect. We would have died if not for the ship”

  Arenor held the shard up to the man’s face who suddenly looked confused.

  “Where did you find this?” he asked again.

  “In the black, much like the ship. I– I can show you,” Saul insisted.

  Arenor thought for a long moment. Had this been the sign he had been waiting for, he knew what must be done. And for the man that brought it to fruition, he would see to some measure of humility.

  “So be it,” Arenor said with a nod, “–for the empire is just.”

  “Thank you. Thank you,” Saul said.

  “Primarch, what then of the small one?” asked Vilmogurr.

  “The son of Saul… will be spared the labours of the shipyards,” Arenor decreed, “send him instead to the prisons of Asintorr.”

  Arenor could see the sudden shock in the humans’ eyes. A revel he took no pleasure in.

  “No!” Saul cried, “No, you can’t do that!”

  “I do nothing,” said Arenor, “I only waylay the wrath of the gods, lest they strike down the righteous with the wicked.”

  “No, have mercy!” Saul cried again, as Arenor gestured. The three humans of lesser status were dragged out by their hair in the same manner they arrived. The son of Saul was weeping in a display of emotion that disgusted Arenor.

  Saul, unrestrained by any guard, lunged at Arenor. Arenor stepped backwards. Misplacing a foot, he tripped on the throne steps and fell backwards into the throne.

  Vilmogurr roared and rewarded the human’s insolence with a fist, knocking the man into the dirt unconscious.

  “Are you alright, primarch,” Vilmogurr asked with concern.

  “Yes… yes. I am fine,” Arenor said, wiping a touch of blood from the side of his head where it had impacted the throne, unperturbed by the human’s slight. For he had other matters on the forefront of his mind.

  Vilmogurr helped Arenor back into the throne before waving to Pilobarr, who then dragged Saul out by his feet, creating a trail with his face in the soft soil.

  Arenor let out an exhausted sigh.

  “I will see to their deliverance unto Barrintor and Assintor immediately, primarch,” said Vilmogurr

  Arenor reopened his palm which had cradled the vial in his fall only to notice the vial had shattered. Bits of glass now jutted out of his hand, drawing out trickles of viscous blood that moved down his arm. Another distraction he blocked out, for at the centre of the gore was the exposed shard resting peacefully atop his skin.

  “I will summon medical–” Vilmogurr began to bark.

  “Do you not hear it, Vilmogurr?” asked Arenor, suddenly more in tune with the shard. “Like a faint voice across open water.”

  “What is it– what does the shard speak?”

  Arenor looked to Vilmogurr. He could feel a roiling somewhere within him that echoed out into the cosmos. A particular emanating signal that Arenor knew as a sign; the sign.

  “At last,” Arenor said, “our Gods have come home.”