The bar was like hole cracked tiles, rust stains running like tears down the walls, air thick with old sweat and spilled spirits. Cassian hunched over his tin mug, thumb idly tracing dents that had been there longer than most patrons. The rahzvod tasted like something scraped off a forge floor, but it burned, and burn was enough.
Around him, the usual mix: off duty guardsmen, local militia, a few scarred voidhands. Conversation low, tired. The sort of place you went to forget, not to talk.
Above the bar, the hololith flickered, voice rasping propaganda through a speaker that buzzed at the edges:
"Stand firm, loyal citizens your faith holds back the darkness!"
"Glory to Lord Commander Dante, whose blade guards the Imperium's heart!"
"Trust in the Emperor, for His light is eternal!"
Cassian barely heard it. He'd spent years under banners bigger than city blocks screaming the same slogans. They stopped meaning anything after the first thousand times.
The door creaked open. Cassian saw him as he entered, a man built like an old Navy petty officer, coat worn thin at the cuffs, grey at the temples, eyes that had seen too much void. And half-hidden on the inner lapel: the quiet mark of the Illuminati.
"Cassian Vale?" the man asked, voice like gravel.
Cassian lifted his head, didn't bother turning fully. "Yeah. Sit."
Chair scraped metal as the man dropped into it. He smelled of recaf, oil, and something older like dust.
"Name's Sevrik," the man offered. His gaze flicked over the bar. "Can't say you pick the prettiest places."
Cassian grunted. "I'm not here for the view."
Sevrik barked a laugh, short and empty. "Fair." He tapped the table. "You drink the local swill, or just punish yourself out of habit?"
"Doesn't matter," Cassian said, lifting the mug. "They taste the same."
The hololith droned on:
"Praise be to the Black Templars, scourge of the witch and the heretic!"
"Obedience is purity! Purity is salvation!"
Neither man looked at it.
Sevrik's tone shifted, dropped lower. "I'm here from Admiral Spire."
Cassian's brow lifted, but he didn't speak. Just waited for him to continue.
Sevrik glanced around, making sure nobody was listening. "The warp's storms are starting to cover around the Gothic Sector. Astropaths are going blind trying to read it. Some routes cut off completely. Communications patchy at best."
Cassian drummed his fingers on the mug, once, twice. "Go on."
"Chaos raids," Sevrik said. "Two big ones. Reports came in ten days ago, Purgatory and Ornsworld. They have been hit hard. Local defenders overrun. Millions dead. We got the News one year later when everything was over. A merchant ship reported it."
Cassian's jaw worked, but he kept his voice level. "And?"
"Hive rebellions have been sparking across half the sector," Sevrik continued. "Some new, some brewing for years. Enough to keep Arbites and PDFs running in circles. Meanwhile, the Astra Militarum has began a sector wide muster. Every breathing man and every rusted ship that can be recruited will be enlisted, the announcement will take place in coming days." Sevrik pointed at the hololith that was spreading imperium propaganda.
Cassian frowned, thumb drumming against his mug. "Militarum's recruiting everyone, you said. Gothic Sector that desperate?"
Sevrik's expression darkened, gaze dropping. "Yeah. Desperate's about right."
Cassian stayed silent, letting him talk.
Sevrik let out a breath, voice dropping lower. "Fleet strength's gutted. A lot of ships were sent to reinforce Cadia months back against the Eye of Terror. Then the warp storms cut them off. Can't come back, even if they wanted to."
"So we're wide open," Cassian muttered.
Sevrik nodded. "Short on ships, short on men, short on everything."
Then he hesitated, glancing around, voice dropping further. "And there's more. Admiral Spire's own suspicion, but keep this to yourself. He thinks it's not all chance. That over the past four, five years… someone's been bleeding the Gothic Sector dry."
Cassian's brow creased. "Bleeding? You mean—?"
"Yeah," Sevrik rasped. "Resources drained to other sectors, key officers shuffled out or quietly 'retired,' supply lines choked. Slowly, methodically. Spire believes someone orchestrated it a long game to weaken the sector from within. But he has no definitive proof, just speculations and some papers which are useless for our current predicament."
Cassian was quiet for a moment, as he rubbed his forehead. "And now we're left wide open, right when the warp's going to hell."
"Exactly." Sevrik's voice was flat. "Admiral Spire told me to tell you and no one else. We're not just understaffed by bad luck. We are not that incompetent."
Cassian had some thoughts about that but he kept quiet. The hololith overhead kept barking empty slogans,
Sevrik then started slowly. "Spire doesn't want you swept up in that net. He wants you and your people under him, before the recruiters come knocking."
Cassian's gaze lifted, sharp. "To do what?"
Sevrik's lips twitched, not quite a smile. "Something more useful than standing in a trench waiting to catch a las bolt, I'd wager. Better serve the Imperium from what he said after all no one can run from the enlistment and your talent can be useful."
Cassian leaned back. "You think that's tempting?"
Sevrik didn't blink. "I think you're not an idiot. And Spire knows talent when he sees it. Better his leash than someone else's."
The hololith cracked and stuttered, then spat another slogan:
"Faith without question! Loyalty without limit!"
Cassian exhaled through his nose. "You've got a point," he admitted. "But why now? Why not after the enlistment is announced."
Sevrik's voice was flat. "Because it's getting worse by the day. And we are all from the same group, we have to watch our backs after all, particularly you. There are not many people who can survive after daemon possession after all." He gestured to his illuminati insignia.
Cassian's hand curled around the mug. "He's not wrong."
Sevrik tilted his head. "So you'll hear him out?"
Cassian drained the last of the rahzvod, the burn sharp but dull compared to the fire behind his eyes. "Yeah," he said. "Tell Spire I'll listen."
Sevrik stood, coat brushing the table. "Good. You won't regret it. Things are moving fast, Vale. Faster than even Spire likes."
Cassian didn't answer. Just watched as the man walked away, boots echoing on the iron floor.
For a moment, the noise of the bar came back. Laughter too loud, the clink of mugs, someone coughing up old smoker's lungs. The hololith rasped on:
"The Emperor protects. Those who fail Him will burn."
Cassian set the mug down, empty now. He'd drunk enough. Thought enough.
Outside, the pilgrim quarter waited, restless, crowded, loud. He pushed off the table and stood, coat creaking at the shoulders.
The warp storms, the raids, the muster. A galaxy ready to burn, and men like Spire already laying plans to survive the fire.
Cassian stepped into the street, neon lamps buzzing overhead, the air sharp with forge waste and incense. He moved without hurry, but his mind was already turning.
---
Cassian stepped through the cracked archway into the House of Mercy.
Incense clung to the air like wet cloth. Pilgrims slept in corners, whispers of prayer mixing with coughing fits and tired sobs. He pushed past a pair of sisters moving a feverish old man and found Faevelith and Farron exactly where he'd left them: a makeshift "corner" claimed by stacking a few crates as benches.
"You're late," Farron rasped.
Cassian dropped onto a crate, the wood creaking under him. "Met a man."
Faevelith's eyebrow twitched, amusement flickering. "Did you now?"
"Not that kind," Cassian muttered, though his mouth twitched. "Illuminati. Name's Sevrik. Spire sent him."
Farron leaned forward, servo-joints in his arm hissing softly. "Spire himself?"
He dropped onto a crate, the wood creaking under him. Farron, arms folded, gave him a look halfway between concern and irritation. "Well? Speak. Don't keep the suspense."
"Yeah," Cassian said. "Told me warp storms have cut off half the sector. Chaos raids.two big ones, Purgatory and Ornsworld millions dead, whole planets overrun before news even made it out. Hive rebellions too. And the Militarum's going to call up every bastard who can walk and breathe."
Faevelith's lips pressed into a thin line. "And us?"
"He wants us before the enlistment net drops. Spire's offer: come under him, work for him. Safer than being dragged off to die in a trench," Cassian said. His voice had that clipped edge that meant he'd already made up his mind.
Farron's mechanical hand drummed on his knee, metal ticking quietly. "It makes sense," he admitted. "Even if it comes with its own leash."
Cassian shrugged. "Better the leash you know."
Cassian then turned to Farron, tone shifting.
"Any word from Barnum Doscentis ?"
Farron exhaled, a rasp of frustration. "Nothing yet. And don't expect it soon. What you're asking for trade writ, fleet, contact with Cawl those aren't signed off by one Magos, even an arrogant one like Doscentis . Needs the Fabricator's office, half a dozen councils. And now, with the sector falling apart, even slower."
Cassian made a small, humorless noise. "Another reason to kick Abaddon in the teeth and get this shit moving."
Faevelith tilted her head. "You're serious about Spire's offer?"
"I am," Cassian said. "It keeps us useful. And alive. And if the Mechanicus drags its feet, we'll have another patron to back us."
Faevelith folded her arms, voice cooling.
"And me? I'm still an Eldar, last I checked."
Cassian leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Your illusions. You'll need to keep them constant. Pilgrim world is one thing; Imperial Navy or Militarum HQ is another. Too many eyes, too many sensors."
She tilted her head, hair sliding like liquid. "You think I'm not used to that?"
Cassian's voice softened, barely. "I know you are. I also know what it costs you, love. I will make it up to you."
"That's a promise then." Faevilith says definitively.
Farron coughed, which sounded very fake as he had no biological voice box drawing annoyed look from both Cassian and Faevilith, "Back to planning, If we join Spire, do we go in blind? Or lay out what we can do?"
Cassian's gaze was flat. "We don't give him everything. Just enough to show we're worth keeping."
Farron nodded. "He'll want proof we're not deadweight."
"I'm counting on it," Cassian said. "We list what we've seen, what we know, what we can do. Better to bargain now than beg later."
Faevelith asked quietly, "And if he decides we're more useful dead? After all none of you two are clean individuals, you have committed enough heresies to be shot ten times over."
Cassian's answer was calm, almost cold. "Then we vanish. But until then, we keep close. Watch his moves. And while the galaxy burns, we make sure we walk out richer than we walked in."
Farron's mechadendrite curled, clicking against the floor. "It won't be easy."
Cassian's mouth twitched into something like a grin. "Never thought it was going to be easy. But opportunities and danger coexist after all."
They sat in silence for a moment, the noise of the House of Mercy pressing in around them: pilgrims coughing, guardsmen arguing softly over rations, the distant, endless chant of the Emperor's name.
---
Word Count: 1900
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