Caelan slowly opened his eyes. The cold touch of a stone wall pressed against his back.
He squinted, adjusting to the darkness. The smell of mold mixed with decay filled his nose.
This was a prison.
But it was clearly inhabited; traces of life were everywhere.
Soft pelts were piled on a low stool. An unlit oil lamp hung on the wall, its petrified tar giving off a faint stench.
In a shadowy corner of the cell, stacks of books were neatly arranged. Most were bound in aged leather or animal hide, their covers mottled with mold.
The edges of the pages were curled, worn from frequent handling.
At the top of the stack lay a newer book. Its bleached paper pages stood in stark contrast to the surrounding tomes, making it especially eye-catching.
Caelan carefully picked it up. As he opened the title page, his fingers paused.
Two neatly written characters stared back at him: "Diary."
Though the script was unfamiliar, he had no trouble reading it.
Snap!
Caelan shut the book abruptly.
Whoever the diary belonged to, he had no right to pry into someone's private thoughts.
He set the diary down and turned his gaze to another unfamiliar book.
This one was filled with blood and brutality, an exhaustive catalog of killing techniques, each line reeking with violence and gore.
Creak!
The wooden door of the cell groaned sharply. The rusted hinges screeched in the silence.
Caelan turned. A tall, shadowy figure stood silently in the doorway.
Backlit, only his gaunt silhouette was visible, like a statue peeled from the stone wall.
Caelan nodded politely. "Hello. May I come in?"
Bang!
The figure suddenly swung the door shut behind him with a deafening crash, as if trying to shatter the frame.
"You're already in. That's trespassing."
His movements were violent, but his voice was soft, so soft it was like a feather landing on water.
Caelan replied, "If you permit it, then it's not trespassing."
"You may." The man nodded slightly, answering Caelan's request.
"Thank you." Caelan leaned forward slightly. "May I look at your books?"
The man's gaze lingered on the diary. "You… already read it?"
"You might not believe me, but I closed it the moment I saw the word 'Diary' on the title page."
"I believe you. You may read."
He walked slowly to the wall and lit the oil lamp. The acrid smell of burning tar spread through the air.
The blue-yellow flame flickered before his eyes, casting a wavering halo around the stranger's outline, slowly peeling his face from the shadows.
He didn't need the light; darkness had never been an obstacle for him.
But he needed the flame, not to dispel the dark, but to confirm that the man before him wasn't a phantom.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Caelan Worp."
His voice was low and clear. "But I'm not asking for your name. Tell me where you're from."
"I'm from Terra. I live near the Imperial Palace, just outside the construction yards. I consider myself a mortal man. I enjoy teaching, guiding others, and I've taught some remarkable children."
"You were captured, too?"
"I don't know how I got here. But I know who I came for."
"Who?"
"You."
That answer clearly caught him off guard. He froze, silent for a long time.
Caelan stepped forward, tilting his head up slightly. "May I hug you?"
A flicker of confusion crossed the man's eyes, but he didn't ask anything. He simply nodded in silence.
Caelan leaned in gently, wrapping his arms around him in a careful embrace, resting his face lightly against the man's chest.
"I'm sorry I came late. I should've been by your side much earlier."
The embrace made the man's muscles tense instantly. He instinctively raised a hand to push Caelan away, but froze when his hand touched Caelan's back.
Caelan looked up, his eyes meeting the man's in the flickering firelight.
"I… I'm not used to this."
His voice squeezed out between clenched teeth, each syllable laced with awkward resistance, yet it lingered in the air, uncertain.
No one had ever embraced him like this. No one had ever made him feel this strange… warmth.
He lowered his eyes. In the end, he didn't push Caelan away.
He could feel Caelan's body heat through the fabric. The unguarded contact made his back stiffen, but slowly, in the sincerity of the embrace, he softened. That unfamiliar warmth spread across his chest.
He didn't want to admit it, but that warmth was seeping into his cold shell, like a beam of light piercing endless night. And he was almost greedily soaking in that fleeting comfort.
Caelan slowly released him and asked softly, "What's your name?"
"You came for me."
"Yes."
"Then you should know my name."
"I do. But I want to hear you say it."
He fell silent.
To him, this kind of name exchange was meaningless, especially when both parties already knew. It felt like a waste of time.
But when he met Caelan's eyes, so full of sincerity, he saw no false courtesy, only a quiet, earnest hope.
That gaze was like dawn breaking through stone, cracking the ice of his resistance.
His throat bobbed. Finally, he exhaled a barely audible sigh. "Mortarion."
Mortarion's voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping stone. "You're lying to me."
Caelan replied calmly, "I haven't lied to you, not a single word."
"No," Mortarion insisted, his voice laced with suffocating stubbornness, "You are lying."
Caelan's lips curled into a faint, almost indulgent smile. "Then let's say I am. Do you still want to hear it?"
"I'll never fully trust you."
"That's the first lesson I want to teach you: never fully trust anyone, especially gods."
In the original history, among the nine traitor Primarchs, Mortarion's fall was second only to Horus in tragedy.
His upbringing was arguably the harshest of all the Primarchs; only Angron's gladiatorial torment could compare.
Angron had landed in the snowy mountains of Nuceria, hunted by Aeldars, was drugged, and sold into the arena.
Mortarion, from the moment of his arrival, was adopted by the xeno tyrant Necare, raised in a tower shrouded in toxic fog and subjected to twisted torment.
His childhood was filled with the burning pain of poison gas corroding his lungs, and the dual abuse, physical and psychological, inflicted by his alien foster father.
Yet neither Angron nor Mortarion ever truly surrendered to their suffering.
Angron roared through blood and sand, clinging to the dignity of a warrior.
Mortarion struggled through the poisonous towers, never giving up his yearning for redemption.
Their pain shaped them, but did not destroy them, until fate's gears dragged them deeper into the abyss.
Angron was branded with the Butcher's Nails, turning a defiant rebel into a puppet of rage.
Mortarion liberated the people enslaved by the xeno tyrants, but the scars of his twisted childhood festered into a pathological hatred of psykers.
His compassion for his sons ultimately led to his fall. The rebel who once refused to bow to tyrants on Barbarus eventually knelt before a "benevolent" god, for the sake of his corrupted sons.
Caelan had arrived too late. Mortarion had already been adopted by Necare.
In Mortarion's childhood, the words "truth," "goodness," and "beauty" were nothing but fairy tales.
His world was filled with slavery, pain, and torment, never touched by the light of humanity.
Necare tortured his body with poison and pain, and corroded his will with loneliness and despair.
The Death Lord endured unimaginable suffering, yet in his corruption, he revealed astonishing resilience.
Deep within his soul, he stubbornly guarded a patch of untainted ground. He was human.
The light of Mortarion's humanity shone brighter than many of his brothers. Even after falling to Chaos, the Emperor still believed his lost son could be redeemed.
Caelan believed it, too. But Mortarion's education required a delicate touch.
Caelan said, "Mortarion, let's make a pact. We'll never lie to each other. We'll always treat each other with sincerity."
"Why?" Mortarion asked.
"That's how I've taught your brothers. I made the same vow to each of them."
"Brothers?" Mortarion's chest surged with a nameless fire. "How many?"
"Twenty, including you."
Mortarion's voice hissed through clenched teeth. "I asked how many you've actually taught."
"Five. You're the sixth."
"No wonder you're so practiced," Mortarion said coldly.
"I've always been consistent." Caelan met Mortarion's eyes. "I've never lied to any of your brothers. I won't lie to you either."
"What if I refuse?"
"I still won't lie to you. That would only mean you're wary of me. But that's okay, I can wait."
"Wait for what?"
"Wait until I prove, with actions, that you can trust me."
"You told me not to trust anyone completely."
"Yes."
"Then how am I supposed to trust you?"
"You don't have to trust me completely. Just trust that I won't lie to you."
Mortarion was like a stubborn child, determined to tear apart Caelan's words.
His gaze sliced across Caelan's face like a blade, searching for any flicker of deceit.
But he failed. Caelan met his scrutiny with unwavering calm. His eyes were terrifyingly sincere.
"I will never fully trust you," Mortarion said, his voice like ice.
He slowly extended his hand in the dim light, like a withered leaf waiting to catch the rain.
Caelan smiled gently and reached out without hesitation.
"I promise, you don't have to fully trust me."
Compared to a Primarch, Caelan's hand was slender, completely enveloped by Mortarion's large palm, like a feather falling into a heavy shadow.
But the warmth in Caelan's hand seeped through the skin, just like his earlier embrace, gentle, comforting.
Mortarion slowly withdrew his hand, his fingers tensing slightly in the shadows.
He stared at his palm, as if it still held a dangerous warmth.
Only the weak crave warmth, but he was strong enough.
He would treat this as a trial. And he believed he could overcome it.
When that day came, he would no longer need Caelan.
"I am a psyker," Caelan confessed to Mortarion. "Just like your foster father. Just like every tyrant who ruled this world."
Mortarion's eyes narrowed. "Why are you telling me this?"
"I'm honoring our pact. No lies. Only truth."
Mortarion's gaze turned cold. "Then I need an explanation."
Caelan smiled gently. "I'm glad you didn't crush my skull with a punch. That's what I'm glad about."
"Don't push your luck. I will, if you lie."
Caelan chuckled softly. "To understand psykers, we must go back to the origins of human civilization."
"Thousands of years ago, in ancient Terra, humanity had not yet left its homeworld. Back then, humans were not a psychic species. Psykers were extremely rare. As far as I know, perhaps only one true psyker truly existed."
"Who?"
"Your father. Not your foster father. Your biological father, the Master of Mankind, the Emperor."
Mortarion remained silent, but his eyes flickered faintly. He was listening.
"About eight thousand years ago, during the Dark Age of Technology, M22, the first recorded psyker appeared in human history."
"Before that, psykers were only myths and rumors. Scientific institutions couldn't prove their existence."
"The records are hazy, but this first psyker was likely a product of genetic experimentation. Humanity, in that era, used advanced gene-tech to create him."
"From that experience, they developed the Navigator gene."
Caelan paused. "But here, historical records diverge."
"Some sources claim Navigators first appeared in M19. But we're not here to debate history, so I won't go into that."
"The point is: both the Navigator gene and the psyker gene originated from genetic engineering during the Dark Age of Technology."
"Back then, psykers were a positive force."
"The Navigator gene allowed humanity to cross the stars and spread colonies across the galaxy."
"And perhaps the goal of creating psykers was to elevate humanity into a psychic species."
"But in late M23, the Men of Iron rebellion erupted. By M25, warp storms swept the galaxy. Human civilization began to collapse."
"During the Dark Age, psychic talent was limited to a few individuals."
"But in the Age of Strife, psykers began appearing like mushrooms after rain. And they were the main reason civilization fell."
"Most couldn't control their powers. They were corrupted and possessed by warp entities, wreaking havoc on their worlds."
"Many planets were destroyed by rogue psykers and the daemons they summoned. The survivors lived among ruins, struggling to keep the flame of civilization alive."
"Humanity once had a glorious interstellar empire. Now, only fragments remain."
Mortarion asked, "Barbarus too?"
"Terra is the cradle of all human civilization. But during the Age of Strife, tragedies like Barbarus happened across the galaxy. Barbarus is unique, though. Most worlds attracted daemons. Barbarus attracted gods."
"Why?" Mortarion's voice trembled with confusion. "Why was Barbarus so special?"
"Because of you."
Mortarion froze. Caelan's words hit him like a hammer. They sounded absurd.
He had only lived on this world for a few years. Barbarus had been shrouded in toxic fog for millennia. What did its suffering have to do with him?
"I came for you. So did the gods."
"To claim you, they began laying their plans thousands of years ago, perhaps even before humanity existed. Because in the warp, time has no meaning."
Mortarion's voice was hoarse, trembling with disbelief. "My foster father… the tyrants… this world's suffering… was all for me?"
"Yes."
Mortarion's knuckles cracked like dry bone. His voice was a low growl. "Then they failed. I will never give them what they want."
He lowered his head, eyes burning with danger. "And you? What are you scheming?"
Caelan shook his head. "I came to this world alone. I have nothing but myself."
"I don't believe you!" Mortarion's roar rumbled like thunder.
"Even if you refuse to believe, my trust will remain, a one-way mirror, open for you to inspect my sincerity."
Caelan's voice was soft, like a feather brushing a wound. Like comforting a child clutching a broken toy.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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