157. Left Behind

“I feel so stupid”, Saphane muttered a long while later. “Every time we deploy it might be the last. We all know it and I didn’t even manage to find a kind word for her.” The chaplain drew a ragged breath. “Can you tell me how she died?”, she begged.

Vox had dreaded this question more than anything else.

“I’m sorry”, she said quietly. “She was gone when I arrived. I can’t tell you anything.”

Saphane nodded.

“I understand that Gladius died along with her.”

“Yes”, Vox confirmed. “Only Arrick survived.”

“All in all we were fortunate”, Saphane said, pulling back from Vox’s embrace and hardening up as she did so. “But you should be careful about Meriar and Ducira.”

“Why?”, Vox enquired calmly. The way Saphane informed her about the captain of 3rd and 5th harboured unsettling prospects.

“Because I heard them talking about the death of fifth company’s librarian just now”, Saphane revealed. “Apparently, she had to be shot when she started to burn uncontrollably.”

Vox held the suddenly steel-hard gaze of her first chaplain steadily. A warp rift opening had all kinds of effects on people sensitive to it. The librarians of the other companies had been sent back to Thetis and Corven had withstood the strain even though he had been far closer to the rift.

Saphane was the one to lower her gaze first.

“You won’t even tell me if my lover died corrupted?”, she asked.

“Your what?”, Vox burst out, unable to stop herself.

Saphane looked up at her in surprise, blinked and finally managed:

“My lady, Celeste and I have been lovers for more than seventy years! How could you forget that?”

Vox stared at her friend open-mouthed and made several attempts to speak.

“I don’t remember ever knowing that”, she uttered in a stunned voice.

“What? We thought you knew!”

Vox shook her head meekly and tried not to drown in the sinking feelings crashing into her. Saphane had not only lost a dear friend but her lover. Vox was sorry. The sorrow almost choked her but the anger about the one important question marked her tone when she gasped: “And you noticed signs of corruption in her and didn’t tell me?”

Saphane shrank back from this.

“No!”, she exclaimed. “I mean… I’m not her confessor, I only…” Saphane closed her eyes and a shudder ran through her.

“You only?”, Vox demanded, rising from the couch. A few, red flames danced over her skin. They jumped between her fingers, rushed over her wings and stroked through her hair. Vox gritted her teeth.

“Saphane”, she called again for an answer and did her best to keep herself restrained.

Only recently had she been forced to deal with emotions as strong as this. In the bath, when they had almost killed Titus, it had been the fear of what any of them might lose. Now, it was the screaming pain of certainty about what they had lost that pushed her to the brink of losing control over her powers.

The sheen of warmth on her cheek alerted the chaplain to the immediate predicament. Her eyes snapped open and her gaze cleared. With deliberate slowness, the fully armed warrior rose from the couch.

There was a dangerous moment in which Sanguinius and Vox both tensed even more, bracing for an attack but Saphane surprised them. She relaxed her stance and became almost flowingly soft. Gently, she reached out open hands to her saint. They held no weapons. Vox could take them or not.

“I’m sorry, my lady”, Saphane said quietly. “I’m sorry. You can see, this is beyond me. Please forgive me!”

“Why didn’t you come?”, Vox demanded and felt herself calming a little. “Why did none of you come to me?”, she asked bitterly. “We could have worked this out, I’m sure. What considerations kept you away?”

Saphane lowered her head and hands.

“You didn’t call for us”, she said meekly. “We wanted to respect your status, your accomplishments…”

“And for things like that you rather stayed alone out there and let things fester?”, Vox asked icily.

Saphane lifted her gaze and her eyes were flooding with tears again.

“I don’t know”, she said and continued with a barely controlled voice. “We always thought it would be you. We always watched and waited for the day you would lose your fight against chaos. We didn’t reckon that it would be one of us.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Both upset and breathing heavily.

“It was you who had to kill her, wasn’t it?”, Saphane asked then and the quiet sympathy in her tones finally brought Vox into line again.

She looked at the ceiling as if there were answers to find there.

“Nothing left but white flames”, she whispered bitterly. “She killed Gladius and when I arrived, only Arrick was left…”

Saphane’s tears flowed freely now.

“Thank you”, the chaplain managed. “You avenged her. She had been dead when you arrived and all you could have done was to rain vengeance on the abomination and save what was left…” Saphane’s voice trailed off.

Unable to look away again, Vox met the chaplain’s gaze head-on, feeling the cold despair clamping her like a vice.

She could never tell Saphane how it had felt to be buried under another conscience. How she still had been inside herself somewhere even though Sanguinius had taken over. She could never share that she was certain that Celeste had still been somewhere too because, down there on Teliph, in the middle of the world unravelling, there had been no time to save both and Vox had decided to save Arrick. Maybe, had she sacrificed him, she would have gotten the chance to talk to Celeste. Maybe, she could have gotten her back. And then what? Suffer a murderer at her side? Take the risk of a daemon in her close staff? And it had been a slim chance in any case. No. Down there on Teliph it had been too late.

Maybe, if the friend had come to her earlier. Maybe, if Vox had managed to make time for her. Maybe, if Celeste had not been searching for apothecaries while Vox had declared that she needed all of them… Maybe. Or maybe not.

Vox was unable to decide which was the worse prospect. She also was hard put to stand the helpless plea in Saphane’s eyes. The friend desperately wanted her to confirm what she had said just now. That Celeste had been taken anyway already.

“Corruption can take anyone”, the angel said hoarsely, uncertain if she had remembered this phrase until the chaplain nodded.

“Even friends”, Saphane said quietly.

She sank onto the couch again and buried her face in her hands. Vox found nothing better to do than to sit beside her and pat her hair.

“She missed you so much”, Saphane mumbled hoarsely. “All she wanted was to have you back. All the time, when you were away she only spoke of you, longed for you, waited for you.” Vox closed her eyes. There was so much bitterness in these words. All the time, Saphane’s lover had longed for someone else. There was no accusation there exactly but she clearly remembered her words from earlier. Saphane had been forced to watch as Celeste put Vox first and Vox had not done the same for her. She felt guilty.

“I’m sorry it seemed that I put Titus first”, Vox said quietly. She felt absolution to be impossible but she needed to explain anyway. “He’s… Let’s say he’s a kind of necessity for me. Did you know that I can’t sleep during warp travel?”

“Yes”, Saphane confirmed. “You used to spend the first couple of nights reading for each jump. After that we took turns to keep you company.”

“When I touch Titus, I can sleep.”

Saphane looked at her.

“Is that what you meant by a spot of calm?”

“I’m not sure I knew the full extent of possibilities when I said this but, yes.”

A soft smile crept across the sad, beautiful features of the friend.

“I’m glad for you. It was always a great burden that you couldn’t sleep.” Saphane wiped a few tears away, new ones replacing them at once. “I’m also glad that it’s not all necessity I see between you.”

Vox smiled bashfully.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know about you two. I’m sorry about so much…”

“How is Sanguinius?”, Saphane suddenly asked shyly. “Is he like we were told? I never dared to ask.”

Vox sighed inwardly. One of the really difficult questions.

“He… started out like we were told. But then, he spent a few aeons lost in the warp and that… made him lose a few things. Patience for example. Or kindness. Or compassion. He doesn’t remember what they are for and he doesn’t see why being human matters. And I can’t explain it…”, she added meekly.

Saphane looked alarmed.

“But that’s what always mattered the most to you”, she stated in concern.

“I dimly remember that it did but I forgot why… Sometimes I fear that if I don’t remember soon, I’ll be just like him. He isn’t evil or something, he just forgot how to be a person.”

“That’s bad”, Saphane said with conviction.

“More sad.”

“No, that’s bad”, the chaplain insisted. “If a librarian loses her anchor to the world, she will let go. Your anchor has always been your compassion for those around you. You loved the small people and the small concerns of your sisters. You were able to feel and know what we are fighting for and that was what made you hold on through the most desperate of times. You carried us through the craziest hardships by the sheer power of your certainty that it was all worth it.”

Vox blushed. Such words of faith and trust. Even if she had deserved them once, she had not lived up to this recently. Never before had she seen so clearly how much she had lost than in the bright-blue eyes of Saphane. It hurt her and put her to shame that something like the friend described had dwindled into nothing. She felt she should have held on harder, struggled further but at the same time she knew that she had done all she had been able to do. When she had entered the cave, followed the call of her blood and found Sanguinius, almost nothing had been left of him. Little more than the desire to be heard and tell the world what was happening. She had travelled the realms of his memory – and Emperor hopefully did not know what else – to reassemble what both of them could still find. She had taken him into herself to warm and renew him, giving what she had in heat and will to live, so he could exist at all. What she had received in return was the cold certainty of how her world would end and after she had sacrificed herself to get her Primarch and his certainty back, the little strength she had left went into standing up to this certainty. Into finding the pathways around it by dropping the stones to change the stream of time.

Vox lowered her gaze.

“You speak of a person I don’t remember”, she confessed quietly.

Saphane smiled. The sadness in her eyes did not ease but she smiled nevertheless.

“You’re not all memory”, she said and gently grasped Vox’s hand. “There is something very solid about you we could recognize. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have followed you.”

They both looked down at their hands and then, without half of them even remembering what they were doing, linked them by their thumbs, encompassed the coil of fingers with their other hand and lifted them up to lay their forehead to them. For a moment, they breathed in unison.

“My lady Vox Sanguinius”, Saphane said solemnly when they let their hands sink and Vox could see how the friend hardened up. “In serving the Emperor we all make sacrifices”, the first chaplain and highest battle priestess of the Wings of War said. “It’s bitter that this time our sacrifice had to be a beloved soul but as long as the light shines, we will find our way through the darkness. I am certain of it.” Her voice dropped to a devoted whisper, almost carrying a prayer as she continued: “And you glow in this light, my lady. I put my trust in you to find our way where there is none yet. If you allow me, I will see to the necessary rites now.”

They both stood up but Vox had a last question: “Will you counsel me on the matter of succession?”

“I suggest Captain Hierouba of first company”, Saphane said after a moment’s thought. “She should have been chapter mistress when Arianne died already and Celeste was sure that you had tampered with her choice somehow. The situation between her and Hierouba has been difficult at best. You should take the chance to resolve this.”

“Thank you, Saphane.”

“I thank you, my lady. May I leave?”

“Of course.”“I feel so stupid”, Saphane muttered a long while later. “Every time we deploy it might be the last. We all know it and I didn’t even manage to find a kind word for her.” The chaplain drew a ragged breath. “Can you tell me how she died?”, she begged.
Vox had dreaded this question more than anything else.
“I’m sorry”, she said quietly. “She was gone when I arrived. I can’t tell you anything.”
Saphane nodded.
“I understand that Gladius died along with her.”
“Yes”, Vox confirmed. “Only Arrick survived.”
“All in all we were fortunate”, Saphane said, pulling back from Vox’s embrace and hardening up as she did so. “But you should be careful about Meriar and Ducira.”
“Why?”, Vox enquired calmly. The way Saphane informed her about the captain of 3rd and 5th harboured unsettling prospects.
“Because I heard them talking about the death of fifth company’s librarian just now”, Saphane revealed. “Apparently, she had to be shot when she started to burn uncontrollably.”
Vox held the suddenly steel-hard gaze of her first chaplain steadily. A warp rift opening had all kinds of effects on people sensitive to it. The librarians of the other companies had been sent back to Thetis and Corven had withstood the strain even though he had been far closer to the rift.
Saphane was the one to lower her gaze first.
“You won’t even tell me if my lover died corrupted?”, she asked.
“Your what?”, Vox burst out, unable to stop herself.
Saphane looked up at her in surprise, blinked and finally managed:
“My lady, Celeste and I have been lovers for more than seventy years! How could you forget that?”
Vox stared at her friend open-mouthed and made several attempts to speak.
“I don’t remember ever knowing that”, she uttered in a stunned voice.
“What? We thought you knew!”
Vox shook her head meekly and tried not to drown in the sinking feelings crashing into her. Saphane had not only lost a dear friend but her lover. Vox was sorry. The sorrow almost choked her but the anger about the one important question marked her tone when she gasped: “And you noticed signs of corruption in her and didn’t tell me?”
Saphane shrank back from this.
“No!”, she exclaimed. “I mean… I’m not her confessor, I only…” Saphane closed her eyes and a shudder ran through her.
“You only?”, Vox demanded, rising from the couch. A few, red flames danced over her skin. They jumped between her fingers, rushed over her wings and stroked through her hair. Vox gritted her teeth.
“Saphane”, she called again for an answer and did her best to keep herself restrained.
Only recently had she been forced to deal with emotions as strong as this. In the bath, when they had almost killed Titus, it had been the fear of what any of them might lose. Now, it was the screaming pain of certainty about what they had lost that pushed her to the brink of losing control over her powers.
The sheen of warmth on her cheek alerted the chaplain to the immediate predicament. Her eyes snapped open and her gaze cleared. With deliberate slowness, the fully armed warrior rose from the couch.
There was a dangerous moment in which Sanguinius and Vox both tensed even more, bracing for an attack but Saphane surprised them. She relaxed her stance and became almost flowingly soft. Gently, she reached out open hands to her saint. They held no weapons. Vox could take them or not.
“I’m sorry, my lady”, Saphane said quietly. “I’m sorry. You can see, this is beyond me. Please forgive me!”
“Why didn’t you come?”, Vox demanded and felt herself calming a little. “Why did none of you come to me?”, she asked bitterly. “We could have worked this out, I’m sure. What considerations kept you away?”
Saphane lowered her head and hands.
“You didn’t call for us”, she said meekly. “We wanted to respect your status, your accomplishments…”
“And for things like that you rather stayed alone out there and let things fester?”, Vox asked icily.
Saphane lifted her gaze and her eyes were flooding with tears again.
“I don’t know”, she said and continued with a barely controlled voice. “We always thought it would be you. We always watched and waited for the day you would lose your fight against chaos. We didn’t reckon that it would be one of us.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Both upset and breathing heavily.
“It was you who had to kill her, wasn’t it?”, Saphane asked then and the quiet sympathy in her tones finally brought Vox into line again.
She looked at the ceiling as if there were answers to find there.
“Nothing left but white flames”, she whispered bitterly. “She killed Gladius and when I arrived, only Arrick was left…”
Saphane’s tears flowed freely now.
“Thank you”, the chaplain managed. “You avenged her. She had been dead when you arrived and all you could have done was to rain vengeance on the abomination and save what was left…” Saphane’s voice trailed off.
Unable to look away again, Vox met the chaplain’s gaze head-on, feeling the cold despair clamping her like a vice.
She could never tell Saphane how it had felt to be buried under another conscience. How she still had been inside herself somewhere even though Sanguinius had taken over. She could never share that she was certain that Celeste had still been somewhere too because, down there on Teliph, in the middle of the world unravelling, there had been no time to save both and Vox had decided to save Arrick. Maybe, had she sacrificed him, she would have gotten the chance to talk to Celeste. Maybe, she could have gotten her back. And then what? Suffer a murderer at her side? Take the risk of a daemon in her close staff? And it had been a slim chance in any case. No. Down there on Teliph it had been too late.
Maybe, if the friend had come to her earlier. Maybe, if Vox had managed to make time for her. Maybe, if Celeste had not been searching for apothecaries while Vox had declared that she needed all of them… Maybe. Or maybe not.
Vox was unable to decide which was the worse prospect. She also was hard put to stand the helpless plea in Saphane’s eyes. The friend desperately wanted her to confirm what she had said just now. That Celeste had been taken anyway already.
“Corruption can take anyone”, the angel said hoarsely, uncertain if she had remembered this phrase until the chaplain nodded.
“Even friends”, Saphane said quietly.
She sank onto the couch again and buried her face in her hands. Vox found nothing better to do than to sit beside her and pat her hair.
“She missed you so much”, Saphane mumbled hoarsely. “All she wanted was to have you back. All the time, when you were away she only spoke of you, longed for you, waited for you.” Vox closed her eyes. There was so much bitterness in these words. All the time, Saphane’s lover had longed for someone else. There was no accusation there exactly but she clearly remembered her words from earlier. Saphane had been forced to watch as Celeste put Vox first and Vox had not done the same for her. She felt guilty.
“I’m sorry it seemed that I put Titus first”, Vox said quietly. She felt absolution to be impossible but she needed to explain anyway. “He’s… Let’s say he’s a kind of necessity for me. Did you know that I can’t sleep during warp travel?”
“Yes”, Saphane confirmed. “You used to spend the first couple of nights reading for each jump. After that we took turns to keep you company.”
“When I touch Titus, I can sleep.”
Saphane looked at her.
“Is that what you meant by a spot of calm?”
“I’m not sure I knew the full extent of possibilities when I said this but, yes.”
A soft smile crept across the sad, beautiful features of the friend.
“I’m glad for you. It was always a great burden that you couldn’t sleep.” Saphane wiped a few tears away, new ones replacing them at once. “I’m also glad that it’s not all necessity I see between you.”
Vox smiled bashfully.
“I’m sorry I didn’t know about you two. I’m sorry about so much…”
“How is Sanguinius?”, Saphane suddenly asked shyly. “Is he like we were told? I never dared to ask.”
Vox sighed inwardly. One of the really difficult questions.
“He… started out like we were told. But then, he spent a few aeons lost in the warp and that… made him lose a few things. Patience for example. Or kindness. Or compassion. He doesn’t remember what they are for and he doesn’t see why being human matters. And I can’t explain it…”, she added meekly.
Saphane looked alarmed.
“But that’s what always mattered the most to you”, she stated in concern.
“I dimly remember that it did but I forgot why… Sometimes I fear that if I don’t remember soon, I’ll be just like him. He isn’t evil or something, he just forgot how to be a person.”
“That’s bad”, Saphane said with conviction.
“More sad.”
“No, that’s bad”, the chaplain insisted. “If a librarian loses her anchor to the world, she will let go. Your anchor has always been your compassion for those around you. You loved the small people and the small concerns of your sisters. You were able to feel and know what we are fighting for and that was what made you hold on through the most desperate of times. You carried us through the craziest hardships by the sheer power of your certainty that it was all worth it.”
Vox blushed. Such words of faith and trust. Even if she had deserved them once, she had not lived up to this recently. Never before had she seen so clearly how much she had lost than in the bright-blue eyes of Saphane. It hurt her and put her to shame that something like the friend described had dwindled into nothing. She felt she should have held on harder, struggled further but at the same time she knew that she had done all she had been able to do. When she had entered the cave, followed the call of her blood and found Sanguinius, almost nothing had been left of him. Little more than the desire to be heard and tell the world what was happening. She had travelled the realms of his memory – and Emperor hopefully did not know what else – to reassemble what both of them could still find. She had taken him into herself to warm and renew him, giving what she had in heat and will to live, so he could exist at all. What she had received in return was the cold certainty of how her world would end and after she had sacrificed herself to get her Primarch and his certainty back, the little strength she had left went into standing up to this certainty. Into finding the pathways around it by dropping the stones to change the stream of time.
Vox lowered her gaze.
“You speak of a person I don’t remember”, she confessed quietly.
Saphane smiled. The sadness in her eyes did not ease but she smiled nevertheless.
“You’re not all memory”, she said and gently grasped Vox’s hand. “There is something very solid about you we could recognize. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have followed you.”
They both looked down at their hands and then, without half of them even remembering what they were doing, linked them by their thumbs, encompassed the coil of fingers with their other hand and lifted them up to lay their forehead to them. For a moment, they breathed in unison.
“My lady Vox Sanguinius”, Saphane said solemnly when they let their hands sink and Vox could see how the friend hardened up. “In serving the Emperor we all make sacrifices”, the first chaplain and highest battle priestess of the Wings of War said. “It’s bitter that this time our sacrifice had to be a beloved soul but as long as the light shines, we will find our way through the darkness. I am certain of it.” Her voice dropped to a devoted whisper, almost carrying a prayer as she continued: “And you glow in this light, my lady. I put my trust in you to find our way where there is none yet. If you allow me, I will see to the necessary rites now.”
They both stood up but Vox had a last question: “Will you counsel me on the matter of succession?”
“I suggest Captain Hierouba of first company”, Saphane said after a moment’s thought. “She should have been chapter mistress when Arianne died already and Celeste was sure that you had tampered with her choice somehow. The situation between her and Hierouba has been difficult at best. You should take the chance to resolve this.”
“Thank you, Saphane.”
“I thank you, my lady. May I leave?”
“Of course.”

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Guide Me Through the Darkness by Julia M. V. Warren is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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