A child stood upon the balcony of a spire, overlooking City's Edge as the rain fell around him—fell through him. He shivered and trembled as he grasped the railing and watched the distant lights of the sunless world's hive. The boy was normally entranced by the downpours that frequented Nostramo, and tonight he relied upon that. He enjoyed the way the falling lances bit into his nerves and froze his skin. The sensation heightened his awareness, forced him to live in the real world, urged him to seek shelter, to remain alive. They also helped mask his tears.

The child studied the long drop down from his family's lofty tower and wondered what it would feel like to let go. The brief experience of freedom and untethered flight—something new and never felt before by the boy—before nothingness. Would it hurt when he landed? The boy wasn't sure. Was that a bad thing? The child didn't think so. The other children whispered and told stories that the Night Haunter had never actually left the world, only stopped his nightly romps to see what the people would do before punishing them for falling back into their old ways. They said these things to scare one another. And it had worked on all nights except this one for the boy. On this night, he found himself wishing that the stories had been true.

The sound of heels clicking against the stone floor in the same rhythm as the rainfall came from behind the boy. Soon, he felt a presence standing behind him.

"Pyotr," a woman's voice said.

"Yes, mother?" he whispered.

"You saw, didn't you?"

"Yes, mother."

Pyotr closed his eyes, and immediately regretted it. For in that darkness he saw them. Three men, bound to their chairs, arms having been positioned to catch their own heads as they were cut free of their bodies.

"Why?" Pyotr asked, his voice barely audible over the rain.

"Hm?"

"Why did you do that to those men?"

Pyotr's mother sighed. "Oh, Pyotr. If only I had known your tutor would release you early tonight. I would not have laid this curse upon you." A chill gust of wind forced the boy's jaw to begin chattering. "You're a smart boy, aren't you, my dear?"

Pyotr nodded.

"Then you've surely noticed that our family does not… work like the people down below do. We are not slaves to jobs and masters. We are the masters."

He nodded again.

"And, sometimes, to maintain our station, we must do things that are… unpleasant. Does that make sense?"

The child nodded for a third time, but his shoulders began to convulse as his sobs escalated in strength.

"Oh, my poor boy." Pyotr felt fingers begin to caress the wet strands of his hair and smooth out the knots and furls within them. Then their grip tightened as his face was smashed against the railing of the balcony. Pain blossomed from his mouth and Pyotr gasped in shock and agony. The metallic taste of blood spread across his tongue.

"Tell me, child, which hurts more? The memories of the past or the pain of the now?" her tone was no less compassionate and maternal despite the words she spoke and actions she'd done.

"T-the pain!" Pyotr mumbled, touching his mouth. His lip was horribly split and one of his teeth had been chipped and cracked. He turned to face his mother in horror, but could only see her tall, imperious silhouette in the darkness, her face shadowed by eternal nightfall.

"Remember this lesson, Pyotr. You're in the family business now—and I will not tolerate weakness."

Without waiting for a response, Pyotr's mother turned on her heels and clicked her way back inside, leaving her son shivering and alone out in the rain.

Pyotr grabbed the vambrace of the man crouched over him as he began to cut away at the Night Lord's ruined armor with the instruments upon his Narthecium gauntlet.

"Wh… what are you doing?" Pyotr wheezed. Blood had begun to fill his throat and trickle out the corner of his mouth. His body convulsed against his will.

"Your armor is badly damaged and forcing your lungs to collapse. I am removing your chest piece so that you may breathe freely," the mad apothecary said, battering Pyotr's hand out of the way.

"No," Pyotr whispered. "Stop." He weakly tried to grab at the heretic's armor again, but was rebuffed once more with additional force.

"No, cousin," a rumbling came from deep within the apothecary's throat. "We can't be having that. You're not done yet."

Pyotr's spine abruptly arched so violently that he thought it would snap. Pain flooded him in a thousand needling white stabs and all went black again.

The hunter prowled through the darkness, the servos of his armor joints whirring like that of a growling predator. The room he stood in was a museum of the past. An exhibit of a fallen empire. The hunter remembered this place—though not fondly—but it seemed that it wanted itself to become a memory more than the hunter did.

Dust particles floated in the air and fine sheets of the powder coated nearly every surface of the lodging. Once fine silk curtains now hung as tattered rags coated in grime. Cracks had begun to form on the walls, their sterling pearlescence now a sooty beige. Furniture and tables had collapsed from havoc wrought by vermin. The hunter passed by a fallen portrait as he continued on his way. He did not bother to look at it, he knew what he would see: A lie.

"Preysight," the hunter said. His retinal display changed, becoming bathed in the blue hues of absent heat signatures. A single red shape scurried along the floor out of the hunter's way. He looked deeper into the dead kingdom, ignoring the cobwebs and broken glass that became sand once more under the pressure of his bootfalls.

Deeper within he saw a new signature—pale yellow and huddled on a chair in the den that was three rooms down the hall. The hunter's quarry was weak, barely alive. Good. He continued on his way towards it, pushing on the door without hurry. He allowed it to slowly creak open, revealing himself standing at the threshold, red eye lenses glinting in the darkness, skull-painted faceplate with its sweeping bat wings serving as an omen of what was to come.

The hunter saw his prey sitting before an empty fireplace, an ancient, moth-eaten quilt wrapped around its shoulders. She was much older than the last time the hunter had seen her. All that authoritative regality was gone. Now, she was just an old woman, staring out onto the balcony as the rain fell. She eventually looked at him, and the hunter heard no change in her heartbeat, did not smell the musk of fear-sweat. The woman was not scared, only tired.

"I," the hunter began, "have come for–"

"Take that thing off," the old woman sighed.

The hunter did not move. The old woman fixed him with a scowl that she had reserved only for when her child refused to finish his dinner—or hesitated too long to kill a man that had not paid off his debts.

"I want to see my son's face before he kills me." Her expression grew weary again. "Let me see your face, Pyotr. Please."

Pyotr did nothing for a long moment. Then the sound of venting air filled the room as he removed his helm.

"Come closer," she said. Pyotr entered the room and stepped up to the chair. The old woman reached up, as if to caress his cheek, but seemed to realize he was far too tall for such a gesture and laid her hand on his chest piece instead. "Look at you. Powerful and strong, just like I always wanted for you."

Pyotr said nothing.

"How is it that you're here?" the old woman asked.

"I petitioned for this opportunity. For this desire. My father granted it"

"The desire to kill your mother?"

"I have no mother."

The old woman pulled her hand away, but her expression remained unchanged. "I see. Then why are you doing this?"

"You are a criminal. It is what you deserve."

The woman leaned her head back in her chair and closed her eyes. "Our enterprise fell years ago, Pyotr. There are dozens, hundreds of gangs and syndicates on this world for you to hunt down and purge. A single old woman will make no difference."

Pyotr remained silent at first. He turned his head and looked out the windowed doors to the balcony that he spent so many nights standing on, overlooking the city. The railing was still dented with teeth marks.

"I don't care," he rasped.

The woman scoffed and opened her eyes. "You would not be what you are if it were not for me. Do you think they let the sons of whores and killers be Astartes?"

"Yes," Pyotr drawled, slowly turning his attention back to the feeble woman in her rotten throne. "They do."

"I gave you everything and this is how you repay me?"

Pyotr snarled and gripped the top of the chair, the wood cracking under his grip as he leaned his face close to the woman's. "I did not want everything. I wanted more."

Reality seemed to flutter for a moment, skipping a beat, like a dying man's heart. Something felt wrong, off, misplaced. The dull shapes and muted colors around Pyotr became half a shade off, as if the scene were replicated by a master counterfeit who had a fetish for vibrancy. Before Pyotr could piece together why this was, the woman met his gaze.

"And so you will have it, child," the woman said in a voice that was not her own.

No, Pyotr thought. No, this is wrong.

The old crone in the seat began to change, growing and becoming something otherworldly, profane in a beauty that exceeded all metrics of perfection. Pyotr stumbled back and averted his gaze before it was too late.

"Such a deep thirst within you, my chosen. You will have more and more still, just as you wish."

"No," Pyotr gasped. "You twist my words, you filth." He felt… afraid. It was a sensation Pyotr thought impossible for his kind, but here, in the presence of something he dared not even think the name of, he felt it well and true.

Just as soon as he felt the emotion, it was snuffed out like a candle. Alongside everything else within him.

Pyotr continued to whisper his disbelief as he stumbled through the den and out onto the balcony, the doors exploding out of their frames as Pyotr burst through them. He fell to his knees in the darkness and breathed heavily as he felt… nothing.

"No…" he said again with futility. Rain so cold should have burned his skin—electrified his nerves and spread rime across his skull. Instead, it was just wet.

The presence followed Pyotr and approached him on the stones. "Hmmm."

Suddenly something flared to life again inside of Pyotr. Desperate, he reached for it and clung to it as a lifeline. He regretted it immediately.

Grief. So much grief and guilt flooded through him, seeping into his veins like poison, spider-webbing across and restricting his chest like a vice. Pyotr gasped. All the things he'd done, all the horrors he committed, they hit him like a bolter round to the skull. Normally these feelings were practically nonexistent in his waking life, but, without the companionship of any other sensation, mere droplets became oceans.

"Stop it!" Pyotr screamed. "Release me from your game!"

"Oh, child," the thing said. "I am not your enemy. I can save you from this."

Pyotr continued to roar into the night. He waited for the pain to grow familiar, bearable, but it did not. It kept building and warping upon itself, becoming new flavors of agony that he could never quite adapt to. He pressed his forehead to the stone, slammed his fist onto the balcony floor until the ceramite cracked, he begged… he even begged for his claw to come and help him. But nothing. Nothing changed. It didn't become any easier.

The skulls hanging from his waist suddenly felt so much heavier. The screams from the past haunted him and filled his eardrums without mercy. A mother, crying out for the baby that Pyotr crushed in his hands in front of her. A soldier, pleading to just be killed already as the skin was peeled from his face centimeter by centimeter. A woman in the bowels of a ship trying in vain to stuff her own entrails back into her body as Pyotr watched, blade dripping with her blood. And more. So, so many more.

"Let me help you so that you can help yourself," it said. Pyotr felt a taloned hand begin to stroke his hair and caress his cheek. The feeling was warm and gentle—as were the rivers of blood that were left behind by the gesture. "You still have so much to learn, so much room yet to grow. I need you to hollow yourself out so that I may fill the vacancy with something wonderful. Then, you will be perfect."

Pyotr tried to shake his head in defiance, but he was too numb. Numb of everything except the guilt that he should not have felt—that was anathema to his being and purpose. He wanted it gone. He wanted it gone so, so badly.

"Give it to me, child. Let me have these sensations and you will never have to feel them again. Never have to deal with the pain caused by them. Not until you're ready."

The wretched thing that should have been Pyotr Kravis of the VIIIth Legion squeezed his eyes shut and bit down on his lip until the flesh split and blood pooled beneath him onto the stones. A better marine would have endured, would have fought back. But Pyotr was weak. He knew he always had been.

"Take it," he croaked.

"Good, child. Very good." He could hear the presence smiling at his defeat. At his further slide into degeneracy.

The pain vanished. Pyotr stood up and felt only numbness once again, but that was preferable over the alternative. The guilt was gone and the world was a little bit duller for it.

Pyotr awoke in an apothecarion, his memories blurred and his soul shriveled. Several other figures lay amongst the operating tables around him. Some in midnight clad, others in mechanical gray. A man in crimson armor, wires and cabling engulfing his scalp and temples quietly inspected one of the marines. He glanced Pyotr's way as he began to stir.

"The marked of Slaaneth awakens," Zasharr said.

"Where am I?" Pyotr said, ignoring the comment.

"The Savory Wound." A twinge of annoyance bit into the berzerker surgeon's words.

"Mm. Why not your ship?"

Zasharr made an incision along his subject's throat. The cut was delicate and precise, the patient would not bleed out for a considerable period of time. "I intended for it, but you were restless. You screamed out for your… claw in your unconscious state and they refused to let me take you from your warband. I had to make do with lesser facilities."

Pyotr let the silence hang in the air for some time.

"One of them, the loud one, watched over you until he was forced elsewhere. One would suspect that your brothers don't trust me despite all I've done for you in the past."

Pyotr grunted. "Should they?"

Zasharr stabbed at the throat of his patient. The marine spasmed once then fell still. "I would hope so."

Pyotr glanced around the room once again, noting the number of Night Lords in comparison to the Ferric Sentries collected. There were less, but not by much. "Why?" he asked.

"Mm?"

"Why am I never like them? Why am I not an experiment for your amusement?"

"There are many presumptions within that statement," Zasharr said, beginning the process of harvesting his dead patient's geneseed. "None of this is for my amusement. Mm, no, I leave such matters to you Sons of Curze. And who is to say that you're not an experiment?"

Pyotr rose to his feet, his body felt stiff and weak, the port on his back intended for his now-missing mechadendrite throbbed with the pain of absence. He stepped across the room to meet his cousin on the opposite side of the operating table. The surgeon was inspecting the marine's organs and augmetics with a critical eye. "Speak plainly with me, Zasharr."

The berzerker surgeon let out a rumbling grunt, like cascading boulders. "I do not subject you to this because you are not like your ilk. You do not draw out the pain, even with your curse. As far as your legion goes, you are honorable. Your force is always balanced, never excessive. That is deserving of my respect… So long as you maintain a grip upon yourself." He gave Pyotr a pointed glare. The Night Lord saw no reason as to provide additional context as to why he behaved as he did.

It simply doesn't matter how they die. It all feels the same, he thought, then looked away. The room was dark beyond the single lamp pack that Zasharr worked by the light of. He would assume Pyotr's black eyes of Nostramo simply could not handle the glare.

"What occurred during my absence?"

Zasharr scoffed. "You mean your comatose state wrought on by yet another duel with that iron whore?"

Pyotr said nothing.

"You were unconscious for two weeks, your armor was damaged beyond repair according to the artificers, a total of thirteen members of your warband have been confirmed dead, and…" There was a pregnant pause. "And the Gorgon's Manacles is still in pursuit of us through the void."

Pyotr turned back to face the warlord of the Carnage Stitchers. "What of your ship? We would be able to outmaneuver and overpower them with the aid of the Heart of the Warp."

Zasharr did not look at Pyotr, seemingly now more focused on the careful sanitation of his tools. "My vessel… did not survive. It was destroyed shortly after I was forced to escort you here."

The corner of Pyotr's lip twitched upwards. "That's the fifth ship this decade, cousin. You do not have a good record for these sorts of things."

Zasharr's nostrils flared and he glared at Pyotr. "Careful, cousin. I am currently still your physician and the nails are beginning to bite."

Pyotr stifled a chuckle and changed the topic. "What of my daemon engine?"

"The unholy machine lives, though it killed three serfs that tried to conduct repairs on it. It would seem it refuses to see anyone but you."

Pyotr gave a grunt of acknowledgement. "Anything else?"

Medical servitors were instructed to harvest the bionics and burn the corpse of the space marine before Zasharr turned to answer. "Plenty, but it would be better if you hear it from your own legion."

"Then we are done here."

"Wait. Your servo-arm is still in need of replacement. I will need to continue minor surgeries on the surrounding flesh before a tech adept is able to–"

"Leave it," Pyotr growled. Zasharr looked at him with interest, but said nothing of the request. "Is there anything else?"

"Medically? Nothing that needs my intervention."

"Good." Pyotr stepped towards the exit, but paused near the doorway, glancing at one of the Ferric Sentries lying on the table. "What do you plan to do with them?"

Zasharr followed his gaze. "Mm. Whatever I find… amusing at the time." The sound of collapsing temples filled the berzerker surgeon's throat.

"Will you need this one's armor?"

"No."

Pyotr turned to one of the servitors. "Have this set sent to the artificers and prepared on my behalf."

"Compliance," the servitor said.

Pyotr nodded and made to leave the room.

"Pyotr," Zasharr said, stopping him. The Night Lord glanced over his shoulder. The surgeon looked at him with a meaningful expression. "You still have a part to play in the long war. That is also why I continue to save you."

Pyotr sighed and turned away from his cousin as he walked out of the apothecarion. "The only part I play in anything, Zasharr, is the fool."