V3 Chapter 23: You No Longer Have to Live in Disguise. Shed the Black.
By the time Duvette finished his conversation with Guilliman, the sky beyond the Fortress of Hera had already begun to lighten.
He pushed open the door, stepped out of the Primarch's quarters, and let out a long, slow breath. The Honour Guard outside turned to look at him simultaneously, their gaze settling on the mortal officer.
They all knew. This mortal had spent the entire night in that room with their gene-sire.
The conversation had not been quiet. Raised voices had come through the door, and the low, pressed weight of Guilliman's questioning. But in the end, Duvette had walked out intact.
Duvette looked at them and gave a slight bow.
The Honour Guard did not return it. They simply watched him turn and walk away. He could feel it in their eyes: wariness, and something that had not quite resolved into any single thing.
The night-long conversation with Guilliman had not produced any true consensus.
Guilliman still did not trust him. The Primarch's willingness to hear him out had more to do with Cawl's presence than anything else, and with the fact that Duvette was the only mortal who had been standing in that shrine when Guilliman woke.
But that was enough.
The most significant outcome was this: Guilliman had agreed to let him demonstrate.
Duvette had been willing to lay the Soul of the Legion entirely before Guilliman not because he felt safe, but because he believed that once Guilliman's anger had passed, reason would reassert itself. That was the foundation of the gamble.
This newly awakened Primarch needed to understand what the Imperium truly looked like now.
He needed someone who was not afraid of the High Lords, who did not follow orders blindly, and who was not yet under the control of any existing Imperial political institution. Everything Duvette had shown over the course of his career fit that description.
There was also a more practical consideration.
Duvette had no line of retreat left.
His capabilities, the Men of Iron purification, the Shadow Wolves, the cooperation with Cawl, the contact with the Emissary of Death: these things had almost certainly drawn attention already. Without Guilliman's endorsement behind them, the consequences that followed could cripple him.
So he had chosen to put everything on the table.
He trusted that Guilliman would, for the sake of humanity's future, set aside his wariness of an unknown power long enough to evaluate it directly.
Now, the first thing he needed to arrange was letting Guilliman meet someone from his own era.
On the bridge of the Ark Mechanicus, Duvette walked at Cawl's side.
The Archmagos's vast mechanical frame moved across the deck, multiple mechaoptic lenses tracking Duvette from different angles. Skitarii and Mechanicus priests cleared the way as they passed, binary murmuring dropping lower for a moment as they went by.
"What did you discuss with Guilliman?" Cawl asked.
"My past," Duvette said.
"Only that?" Cawl's mechaoptic lenses rotated slightly. "Based on my modelling of your behavioural patterns, the probability of that being the complete answer is low."
Duvette did not elaborate.
He looked up at Cawl. "What is the status of the thirteen Shadow Wolves?"
"All thirteen have awakened," Cawl said. "They are currently undergoing post-Primaris adaptation drills. Neural response, musculature load tolerance, and skeletal reinforcement stability are all within acceptable parameters."
Duvette gave a nod.
"Good timing."
"Good timing for what?" Cawl asked.
Duvette allowed himself a thin smile.
"To let them demonstrate your Primaris conversion," he said. "And my power."
Cawl paused for a fraction of a second.
"Your phrasing suggests a dangerous plan," Cawl said. "That observation does not prevent me from concluding the proposal has experimental value."
Duvette did not wait for further commentary. He walked directly toward the training deck.
Inside the training deck, the thirteen Shadow Wolves were working through their adaptation drills.
They had their upper bodies bare, and the marks of the surgery were still visible on their skin. Servitors moved around the perimeter of the training area, continuously logging heart rates, neural responses, and strength output.
They were not fighting in any true sense.
Each strike, each block, each short-distance burst of acceleration was being held within the bounds Cawl had set. Even so, the impacts landing on the deck were heavy enough to carry through the floor.
The Primaris conversion had made them larger than before.
Markus stood at the centre of the training deck, his height now close to two metres seventy. Without power armour, that frame alone was enough to make most people feel the weight of his presence.
When Duvette and Cawl stepped onto the training deck, all thirteen Shadow Wolves stopped.
They turned. Markus came forward first, and the other twelve closed in behind him.
"Commissar," Markus said.
Duvette did not wait for him to continue.
"I need to bring you all to meet someone."
Markus's brow came together.
"Who?"
Duvette looked at him, his voice even.
"Someone from your era."
Markus went quiet for a moment.
He did not press further. He turned and looked at the twelve warriors behind him. Those men, who had come from the Sixteenth Legion, understood quickly that this was not an ordinary meeting.
They put their armour back on.
Black paint covered the Legion markings beneath, concealing the white that had once belonged to another age. All thirteen Black Shields followed Duvette off the Ark Mechanicus, the rumble of the transport filling the air as they crossed to the Fortress of Hera.
When Markus actually stood before Guilliman, what he felt was beyond his ability to put into words.
A Primarch.
The Lord of the Thirteenth Legion.
The gene-sire of the Ultramarines.
One of the great figures of their era, standing before them in the flesh.
And they, Shadow Wolves returned from ten thousand years ago, still wearing black paint, still concealing who they were, still choosing their words with care.
In the years since Markus had begun to find his footing in this age, he had come to believe that they might already be the last witnesses to that time. Captain Loken was dead. The Warmaster had fallen. The name of the Sixteenth Legion was despised across the galaxy, and everything from before had been pressed under the weight of time into darkness.
He had almost made his peace with that.
Then Roboute Guilliman had returned to the Imperium.
By the time Markus registered what was happening, he was already on one knee.
The twelve warriors behind him went down at the same moment, rendering their salute to the gene-sire.
Guilliman looked at them. Something complex moved through his expression.
He did not speak immediately. He simply looked at the thirteen warriors in black armour. After a moment, he raised one hand.
"Rise."
Markus stood.
Guilliman's gaze moved to his helmet, then to the black paint covering the pauldron markings.
"Your identities."
Markus did not hesitate.
"Tenth Company Sergeant of the Shadow Wolves, remnants of the Sixteenth Legion. Markus Sevian."
He raised his head, his voice low and steady.
"I served under Warmaster Horus. Until he betrayed the Emperor."
The room went quiet.
Markus continued. "Since that day, I have served only the Emperor."
Guilliman was silent.
Hearing the name of the Shadow Wolves again was not easy for him. Horus's betrayal was not ancient legend. It was a wound still clear in his memory.
After a long moment, he looked at the thirteen warriors in black armour who had come from his own time.
"Speak of your experience in the Great Heresy."
Markus gave a nod.
Duvette stood to one side of the room and said nothing, simply listening as they told their story.
Markus began with Isstvan III.
He described the viral bombardment, the first clash of Astartes against Astartes, how the Loyalists of the Sixteenth Legion had woken to the betrayal in the middle of it. The names and places came from his mouth carrying something that still felt like the dust of ten thousand years ago.
Then he spoke of the survivors' flight.
They had lost the Legion. They had lost the Warmaster.
Then came the loss of direction in the Warp.
Swept into transit corridors they could not understand, they had lost their bearings between time and reality. Until the Word Bearers' Dark Apostles used a desecration ritual to draw them out, intending to turn these warriors of an older age into sacrificial offerings.
"We killed them," Markus said.
His voice remained level.
"But without Commissar Duvette, we would have died on that planet in the end. He used his power to help us, and to help us find ourselves again."
Guilliman turned and looked at Duvette, who stood nearby with a composed expression, then looked back at the thirteen Shadow Wolves.
He did not offer an immediate assessment. He did not ask whether they still carried hatred for Horus. The answer to that was already written in the black paint on their armour and in the loyalty they had not stopped naming.
After a long silence, Guilliman rose.
He walked to stand before Markus and reached out, taking hold of his pauldron.
"You have not dishonoured the name Shadow Wolves."
Markus's frame went slightly rigid.
Guilliman's hand rested on the pauldron, on the place where the Legion markings lay hidden beneath the black paint. He gave a single, measured tap.
"You no longer have to live in disguise."
His voice was steady.
"Shed the black."
Markus looked up. The surprise on his face was impossible to conceal, and for a moment he had no words to offer the Primarch in front of him.
Guilliman did not appear troubled by that. He simply continued.
"I want you to submit to inspection under the name Shadow Wolves, and to prove yourselves under that name."
He paused, his gaze moving across all thirteen warriors from the old era.
"If you can do that, I will restore your honour."