Waiting is always the worst part. Barring whatever new things we'd find once in Kiava Gamma orbit, I had enough of a strategy to be satisfied: we'd drop three fighting groups on strategic targets, while the fourth — me and my retinue — would get to wherever the Fabricator-Sensor would be most likely to hide. What I wouldn't do to lessen the chances of my shuttle being shot down by orbital defences! Although Pasqal promises that, given enough time, he and his brethren would be able to inundate those defences with enough scrap-code to down whatever it is tech-priests use for such superlative comparisons, we may not have that kind of time. Perhaps the corrupted Final Dawn battleship will still be in orbit, in which case we'll abort the whole operation and run blind in the Warp until we reach Dargonus. The Emperor's Mercy may be loaded with archeotech, but I'm not taking on that kind of enemy with only a frigate. Not that I have an extensive experience about naval combat, but even Abelard thinks we shouldn't try it, and the man would take on a Chaos Marine with a teaspoon. And win.

Of course, I had a disagreeable conversation with Heinrix about the possibility of calling an Exterminatus over Kiava Gamma. It was, thankfully, short. I cannot afford to lose the infrastructure over there, and therefore cracking the planet open like an egg is not an option. I swear, those Inquisition types have the same hard-on for Exterminatus as some Commissars have for decimating a regiment.

'I thought you envied my ability to show mercy,' I said, as he's not the only one who remembers past conversations.

'I do,' he replied. 'Because I cannot afford that luxury.'

'So you will push me to show the same brutality that has been beaten into you, just because misery loves company?'

We were standing in the observation deck, which had as usual cleared little by little when Heinrix had joined me for a regicide match. The mural glowed over us, the Imperial Palace on Terra now a familiar background, and I pushed forward a Knight that would threaten Heinrix's own. We had played a few times in my quarters, but I think we both liked the more theatrical settings of the observatorium. Now that we were at Warp, the shutters were closed, and they were painted to match the Palace mural: in huge swathes of green and blue and grey, it was an artist's impression of what Terra had once been, wild and fair. I'm fairly sure it was meant to show the improvements made by the Emperor when He levelled mountains, filled out oceans, and etc, but it reminded me of Parinus where I had been born and lived for nineteen years, and I liked it.

'While I may love company,' countered Heinrix, eyeing the board with suspicion, 'I am not miserable, by all means — and you know just as well as I do that brutality is, sometimes, an unfortunate necessity.'

'Brutality is lazy,' I said. He moved a Primarch forward; it didn't change much, except that ten turns from now it would threaten my rear. 'I hold you in high enough esteem, Heinrix, to know this is a fault you do not have. So it means it has been ingrained in you for reasons I am sure to find distasteful.'

'Never did I think the Inquisition would be criticised by a Schola brat.'

My options were limited. I pushed my Knight forward again, trying to goad him into the opening. 'Gosh, you flatter me. You do know the Inquisition would commit serious crimes to get their lackeys in the Tempestus Scions Schola training programs, right?'

'Scholae have to be good for something.'

'They're excellent at getting fourteen year olds to punch the smirk from a forty-something idiot's face with delusions of grandeur, I'm telling you that.'

Heinrix laughed — a laugh that was short and hearty, and I grinned back like a fool.

'Why do I feel that you speak from experience?' His tone was a deeper, richer one; one that he seldom used and that did unspeakable things to my ability to concentrate. A ploy, certainly, to give himself an edge to victory. I drank some of the cold brew I had brought along before I replied.

'No,' I said. 'One of my classmates did. As I was at the time, I wouldn't have dared: believe it or not, but I was the most dutiful, the most timid and by-the-book student to ever walk the floors of the Schola. No one with an ounce of common sense would have sent me on the Tempestus Scion path.'

Almost as an afterthought, Heinrix decided to pass his turn and signed for me to continue, wondering aloud about my classmate. 'I surmise they weren't quite as timid as you were, then?'

'Oh, he certainly wasn't. He…' Gosh, I hadn't properly thought about him for years. His memory had been locked away and I had thrown away the key. 'Vielky was his name. I think he broke the man's nose for insinuating we were all worthless mouths to feed and that the care and cost of raising us would be better invested in training people like him.' I moved my next piece. It was cool and heavy, and projected two shadows on the chequered board. Why did I want to tell Heinrix about Vielky? 'The drill abbott gave him a week of latrine duty for that, but he said even two weeks would have been worth it.' He had said more, too, and while I had forgotten the words I still remembered the passion behind them. How young we had been; younger that Cassia.

Bending, Heinrix pushed his Primarch forward still. Was it a distraction? A way to force me to cull my advance, or to give away valuable pieces? 'What did he become?' he asked.

'He died about a year later.' I tried to make my tone flat. It had been twenty-five years ago, or more, I wasn't in the mood for math. There is, however, no deceiving an Interrogator of the Most Holy Inquisition. Instead of pulling back to his seat, Heinrix leaned on his edge of the table and looked at me with something akin to concern.

'I am sorry to hear that,' he said. 'What happened?'

How could I answer this question? How could I tell someone of my greatest shame, of the nightmares that haunted me for years, of the tears and the rage that fuelled my self-hatred until I was kicked out of the Commissariat and realised I would never have to do this again? I could have made an excuse, found a turn around, or lied to Heinrix's face. For some reason, I didn't want to. I reached to the vox-box at my hip and gave an order that the observatorium was out of bounds to everyone for the next half-hour. And then I was silent.

Here, this high up the decks, the perpetual noise of machinery was reduced to the very faint hum of environmental controls. Lights were dim outside of the few game tables, each an island of warmth in the vast empty room. Heinrix… The lamp drew shadows on his face, lines of worry on his brow, in the crease of his lips, and reflected like the dawn in his eyes. Oh, I had hinted at the story at Jae when she had helped me snap out of that attack of sorts on the bridge, but I had hidden the most of it, because it would have required so much explaining, and also because I didn't trust her not to use it against me at some point.

Pushing the pieces away from the board, Heinrix took one of my hands into his. He always removed his gloves when playing. The pressure on my fingers was an encouragement and a reassurance.

'You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to.' A slight pause. 'Or feel unable to.'

'There was a live fire exercise that went wrong,' I said, and that was as good a beginning as any. 'You know what these are, right? Usually, the targets are prisoners, criminals sentenced to death.'

'I know,' he said.

'When you're ten, they're bound and trussed up so it's easy, it's just so that you get accustomed to get a clean shot and aren't afraid of the blood and stuff anymore. It's always headshots with a laspistol. And you're never told what they did, but you're told how, what to say before, so it's an execution and not, not murder. Because they have sinned against the Imperium and it's up to you to bring them the Emperor's justice and, and everything.'

I was babbling, and I hate babbling, so I stopped. I pressed Heinrix's hand, feeling his strength. 'Once you're fourteen, you get drafted in a career path. You have no say in it, it's the teachers who know you who say oh, that one'll go to the Commissariat, that one to the, to the Tempestus Scions, that one to the Ecclesiarchy, that one to the Sororitas… And expectations, well, they increase. You're not merely following the class. You have to excel. The Imperium has no uses for the weak, or the unruly, or, I don't know.' I ran my thumb over his, noticing every little crease. Heinrix's silence bothered me, so I asked: 'You, what do you know about Scholae?'

'Next to nothing, I am afraid. In the brief time I served in the Militarum, I didn't befriend anyone who had been through one.'

Frowning, I looked up to his face. 'You served? You never told me. And you had such a terrible posture when I first met you!'

'Now you know,' he smiled. 'It was short, and the Commissar of my regiment only ever gave heartfelt speeches or got drunk. Sometimes both simultaneously. But please, don't let me interrupt you.'

It was only in the time after I became a civilian and met more or less normal people that I had realised how utterly cruel it had all been. Deep down, I had always known, somehow, but I didn't have the tools to understand truly how. Thankfully, this was Heinrix I was confiding into, and there was no need to beat around the bush.

'Sometimes,' I said, 'when you are set on a path, the live fire targets are other students who fucked up. For years, they're your comrades, your brothers and sisters, and solidarity, esprit de corps, is encouraged. It is together that we advance, together that we shall be the future of the Imperium, this is drilled into us. We live together, we eat together, we study together… We are one in our service. And then, sometimes, one morning, a few students are pulled away from the rest. They're not given any armour, their shoes are taken from them, but they're given a shitty rifle with shitty sights and they're sent to face the Tempestus Scions cadets.'

'And Vielky?'

'Oh no, he wasn't sent into the field.' I swallowed. 'But he refused a direct order.'

'Why? What sort of order?' Truly, no one else could have cajoled that story from me. Despite the years, despite my change in feelings, I still felt that second-handed shame of Vielky, of all people, rebelling against those who knew better, or were meant to. And the worry, too, and the cold fear that had gripped me at the time, when we had met as usual behind the library and he had told me of it. His anger, too, and he had been more angry I hadn't had shared in it, because I was panicked and feared how it would end for him.

'His older brother was sent out to the field,' I said. 'Vielky refused to pick up his weapons.'

'Ah,' said Heinrix, and there was so much nuance in that single syllable. More understanding that I could have believed possible.

'I found it weird that the drill abbot didn't take him down there and then. But he was allowed to go and told…'

I closed my eyes, and I was fifteen again. I saw Vielky's brown eyes, his crooked nose, his lips that were so soft when we dared to kiss. The way we had fantasised about getting assigned to the same regiment and accomplish military miracles together, while keeping our love secret like the characters of a sentimental novel. Bound by a common duty, we would have travelled the stars together, defending the Imperium against all manners of threats — becoming heroes. And I heard his voice again, still a bit shrill, as he said the drill abbott had just sent him back to quarters. He also said a stormtrooper needed to use his judgement, that he knew his brother had been unfairly treated, and that he was sure this had been some sort of trap that his comrades had failed to spot. I never knew if he had understood his brother's body, right then, had already been brought to the mortuary alongside the few others sent out to die with him. I didn't remember his brother's name.

Heinrix covered our entwined hands with his other one, and I noticed how tight my grip was. 'It doesn't matter what he was told,' I said. 'In the evening, I was called to Commissar Jaekard's office.'

That office — cramped, filled to the ceiling with files, files on everyone to go through the Schola for the last decade or more. We were sometimes given the paddle there, for offences too minor to require public lashes. The man himself was always sat behind his desk when we came in, a small man in too-big a hat that concealed his baldness. Medals lined his chest. So many of them! He had seen it all, it seemed, and done it all, and his favour was both a blessing and a curse. I licked my lips, now, as I had done then. The smell of old paper and tobacco was in my nose again.

'Did he…' Heinrix hesitated. 'Did he know you had feelings for Vielky?'

I chuckled and asked if it was that obvious.

'A normal classmate's death wouldn't have impacted you so,' he just said.

'Well, old Jaekard knew, too.' I shrugged in discomfort. I was cold. Cadet Leifnir, he had said in his grating voice, what is the penalty for a soldier who lays down his weapon before the enemy? I stood at parade rest, plunged in icy water, feeling the blow and needing everything not to run away screaming. It was surreal. Death, sir, I had replied, in a voice that didn't belong to me. It was the only reply. Abbot Losdela gave me a worrying report, he had said, and I knew I was in a waking nightmare. There was no saving Vielky.

'I wasn't even given an order,' I croaked. 'The old bastard knew, and he had picked me because a Commissar needs to be able to take down anyone. And do you know the worst? I was so scared, so bloody scared for my own life, the only thing I asked was when he needed it done. Emperor, I bet he knew Vielky had snuck out to meet me in the afternoon, and I was terrified he'd take me down for not shooting him then.'

I was hunched over the table, reliving my shame. The boy — we had exchanged I love yous, the only time in my life — it had been against regulations. I had thought nobody knew, or cared. But sentiment, at the Schola Progenium, is only tolerated as long as people behave themselves.

'I did it in the morning. He loved mornings, he loved the piss-poor recaf we got and to see the sun rise over the hills. I did it in the yard, in front of everyone, when he came back from their morning run. I didn't even say that I was sorry. Just the formal words.'

'The words that made it not murder?'

'Those ones.'

Years. For years, I had told myself that I never even had a choice. That dying with him would have been idiotic — the kind of silliness that seems great in novels but that real life disproves. That at least I had done it cleanly, and swiftly, where others might have botched the work. Once again, I was trembling with the effort to keep myself together. A Commissar doesn't walk to the restroom after doing her duty, and doesn't lock herself there to sob and cry voiceless screams for fear of attracting attention. A Commissar isn't late for her history lesson and she accepts praise with good grace, not the stiff demeanour of someone who feels dead inside. A Commissar doesn't skip lunch to go cry a bit more, nor does she bites her nails to the blood because she can only feel pain, and she wants to feel something, anything. Four years later, I was given the sash on a battlefield for leading a hopeless charge and, not only taking the enemy position, but getting most of my soldiers back alive. I had volunteered for that charge. I had wanted to die, and only the realisation — halfway through — that those grunts depended on me for their survival had snapped me back into the realm of the living. Over that regicide board, I was trembling and everything hurt again.

More cold, when Heinrix removed his hands from my grasp. Behind the black theatre of my closed eyes, bright spots appeared where I shoved my fists so hard it hurt. And then, warmth again when Heinrix wrapped his cloak over my shoulders, brought his chair close to mine and pulled me in a strong embrace. His hand, over the nape of my neck. His cheek, against my temple. My fists relaxed against his chest. If he had said that I had done my duty, I would have hit him. Instead, he said: 'What was done to you was uselessly harsh.'

A great weight lifted from my shoulders. I breathed out, for so long it made me shudder. Breathed in, threw back my head, and opened my eyes again. Heinrix was so close I could feel his warmth, despite all the layers of clothing between us (and that cape of his is thick).

'I can't imagine to ask this sort of thing of anyone,' I said, very low. 'Of anyone, never mind a barely grown child left under my care. Imagine putting Cassia in that position.'

With a smile, Heinrix appeared to think about it. 'She would probably thank the lord-captain very much,' he replied, 'and then drive the ship into the biggest Warp storm she could find, just to teach you a lesson. And she'd make it out alive with her sweetheart, of course, to live a life of daring adventure like in those stories she devours.'

'She would,' I agreed. 'She is a force to be reckoned with… although for now she still needs guidance and protection.'

'That she does. I would hate for anything bad to happen to her, particularly as long as I am in a position to shield her from it.'

The board was a mess. I rose and, giving Heinrix back his cape, waved to the table. 'I concede you tonight's game. May I offer a rematch tomorrow in my quarters? Everything is so quiet while we are at Warp.'

'There was no winner tonight, Katov,' he replied as he fastened his cape again. 'But I will gladly answer to your invitation.'