"Enough!"
A dangerous glint flashed in Erda's eyes as she raised her hand and pointed at Axis. "You understand nothing, mortal. You have no place to speak here. What are you, to dare accuse me?"
If it had been Malcador who accused her, if it had been the Emperor, or even her children, the Primarchs, who questioned their mother, she could have accepted it. But who was he?
Even if today the Emperor had named him a Primarch, he was not her and the Emperor's son.
Every word of his implied that she had been made a fool of, a pawn to be used.
"Am I wrong? What kind of mother would do such things to her own children?" Axis asked.
He spoke deliberately vague, for only the Emperor, Kasha, and Malcador knew the truth of what had happened.
Even the two Primarchs present, as well as the Custodians, did not know.
Yet now, the mind of the two Primarchs had been stirred.
What exactly had their mother done?
The Custodians, realizing they should not remain, withdrew.
The Emperor cast a meaningful glance at Kasha, assuming she had told Axis.
But Kasha looked utterly bewildered.
Of all matters, this was the one secret she had guarded most closely. She had never spoken of it.
So how did Axis know? Could it have been Malcador?
Malcador's thoughts were the same as the Emperor's, he suspected Kasha.
Yet neither he nor the Emperor intended to keep this secret from Axis forever. He would learn the truth in time, and knowing it a little earlier mattered little.
Axis's future was vital to the Imperium.
"You think you know something? He is a child created by you and another woman, is he not?" Erda said coldly, casting a displeased look at the Emperor.
Creating a Primarch was no simple matter.
First, the Emperor had to enter the Immaterium and seek out lesser warp gods, divinities so to speak. Then he had to craft vessels for those essences to inhabit.
And such vessels could only be forged from the gene-matter of Perpetuals, and powerful ones at that.
Among humanity, other female Perpetuals did exist. For example, there was the woman within the Labyrinth on Mars.
So, after she left, had he immediately sought out a replacement?
"Axis was modified by my own hand, but he is a naturally born human. You need not make baseless guesses," the Emperor said.
"What I did, I did for the sake of my children," Erda said, pointing toward the Emperor, "I sought to prevent them from becoming prisoners of this tyrant."
Standing nearby, Horus and Rogal Dorn began to piece it together.
The Primarchs had been created as the sons of the Emperor. Why, then, had they not grown at his side? Long ago, an accident had cast them across the galaxy.
It seemed that their mother had been involved in that accident.
Dorn snorted coldly. He felt no attachment to this so-called mother, no sentiment at all.
His purpose in existence, his sole goal, was to aid the Emperor in the Great Crusade and restore humanity's glory.
At a single command from his father, he would draw his power weapon without hesitation and strike this so-called mother down.
For Rogal Dorn was the Unyielding One.
"Mother! Why did you do this? Why did you cast us across the stars?" Horus understood, and asked.
"Clever child," Erda said, "Just from fragments, you understood. But think carefully. If you had remained at your father's side, you would never have known freedom. Look at your brother, he has already become nothing but your father's tool."
"And did you ever ask them what they wanted? Horus's childhood was far from idyllic, and his fate, among the Primarchs, was among the better ones," Axis said.
At that, Rogal Dorn gave a sharp nod. Consider Mortarion, who had grown up on Barbarus.
If not for their superhuman resilience, many of the Primarchs would have perished. How could an infant possibly survive alone on a hostile alien world?
"You survived, and that makes you the finest of my children. I believe you were all capable of taking care of yourselves," Erda said.
"Hypocrisy," Rogal Dorn muttered.
"Mother, what you did was wrong," Horus was no fool, and he didn't rush to defend, "Many of our brothers endured cruel conditions. Some barely escaped death itself."
But why had their mother never tried to speak with their father? Horus could see that the Emperor truly cared for her. Otherwise, knowing his father's temperament, he would already have unleashed a psychic storm and torn her apart.
"So that's why you committed such a foolish act so bravely?" Axis shook his head.
"You have no right to speak to me! Say another word, and I will kill you where you stand!" Erda spat, her hostility toward this child, which she still believed to be the Emperor's and another woman's child, plain for all to see.
"I just want to speak some truth," Axis replied coldly, "You were deceived, and you never even realized it. You thought yourself clever, but you were being used all along."
Crossing his arms, Axis let a deprecating smile curl across his lips. "Let me ask you something. Tell me, great Mother of the Primarchs, when you plotted to scatter the primachs, did you ever hear whispers in your ear? When you stood against the Emperor, did you dream strange and vivid dreams?"
Erda's face drained of color, her fingers trembling.
Memories she that had been buried at the deepest croners of her mind now surgeon into his mind from Axis' prompt, whispers she had dismissed as hallucinations, dreams she had thought were born of stress.
"You… nonsense. I did not," she said, but her voice faltered for the first time.
Malcador's gaze sharpened like a blade, sensing the break in her composure.
A shadow of pain flickered across the Emperor's golden eyes. His deepest fear was being confirmed.
In his heart, he had hoped that Erda's act had been of her own free will, misguided though it was, rather than manipulation.
"Is it true that a voice always told you that the Emperor would become a tyrant? That your sons were tools, without freedom, and that their very birth violated moral ethics?
"Was there some kind of intuition guiding you to resist him?
"Well, now, is that a coincidence?".
Horus stared at his mother, he didn't know what to feel at this moment, and his Mother's silence and hesitation wasn't helping, "Mother… is what he says true?"
What kind of force could possibly sway her? He understood that her psychic power was immense, second only to the Emperor, Magnus, Malcador, and his sister Kasha.
What kind of being could have influenced her? Another human Perpetual?
"No! It was my will alone!" Erda shouted desperately, but the strength had left her voice.
That boy, did he truly know of the Chaos Gods?
Axis's smile vanished.
"Those bastards love to stir shit like this." "They're too afraid to confront the Emperor directly, so they strike at those closest to him to wear him down."
He looked at Erda with pity, "And you, proud Mother of the Primarchs, became their puppet with such ease."
"No! Lies!!" Erda cried. Psychic power rippled violently from her body, violet light flickering in arcs around her, "I am no one's puppet!"
"Father-in-law," Axis said gravely, "something is wrong with her. I can sense potent taint within her psychic power."
The Emperor finally saw it too, corruption woven into her very essence, subtle enough that even he had overlooked it until now.
His hand rose, and a golden psychic barrier enveloped her.
Within it, all present saw tendrils of violet-blue energy forced from her body, writhing like living things.
"No… no, this cannot be…" Erda staggered back, staring at the tendrils of energy being drawn from her.
"Now do you see?" Axis's voice was solemn as he looked at the tendrils of energy, "The free will you preached was not even yours to begin with. You thought you were protecting your sons. In truth, you nearly destroyed them."
The Emperor now spoke, and is was heavy with sorrow, "This is why I had to reclaim the Primarchs. Why I had to forge an Imperium. Humanity has never been the master of the galaxy.
"There are powers in the Chaos, waiting for us to falter, eager to enslave our species.
"I fought for humanity. My conscience is clear."
Erda collapsed to her knees, tears streaming. Decades of defiance and hatred she had held close to her heart….only to be shown that it wasn't her own.
She had truly been deceived.
Manipulated by powers she had thought she resisted.
Axis couldn't overlap the images of the Erda who had spat on the face of Erebus to the women who was now weeping on the ground.
Something just wasn't right.\
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