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"Ferrus," Fulgrim said, and there was an uncharacteristic urgency in his tone. "Ferrus, are you there?"
Ferrus had been taking a catnap in his frozen forge. Had it been anyone else, he would have continued sleeping. But it was Fulgrim and he had missed his brother's voice so he grudgingly pried his eyes open, whisping his fingers against the vox-bead.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Would you call me a gossip?" Fulgrim demanded, apropos of nothing.
"This is what you wake me up for?" Ferrus grumbled. He had half the mind to cut the connection and go back to sleep. And here he'd been worried that Fulgrim was going to ask him to model some of his latest designs!
"Please brother," Fulgrim pleaded, "This is important."
"A gossip," Ferrus repeated. He thought about it. He knew what the word meant, but to attribute it to any of his brothers was ridiculous. They were generals, not socialites! "How is gossip being defined?" he ended up asking.
"Well," Fulgrim heaved a sigh. Ferrus imagined him playing with a lock of hair, maybe even worrying his bottom lip. Ferrus rolled his eyes; his brothers had a habit of overreacting. He supposed he should consider it a boon, that Fulgrim wasn't calling to ask if he were theatrical. "I mean..." Fulgrim continued, "Do you think I'm bad at keeping secrets?"
"Oh, well," Ferrus cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well that's another matter entirely," he said.
On the other end of the vox, likely light-years away, the Primarch of the Third Legion gave an outraged squawk.
"What's that supposed to mean?!" he demanded, and Ferrus was suddenly glad of the distance between them.
Ferrus closed his eyes and spent half a second considering how he might best field this line of questioning.
"Only that you cannot keep secrets for shit, my best beloved brother," was what he ended up saying.
"You miserable little worm..." Fulgrim snarled. Ferrus imagined his brother trying to close the distance between them just to strangle him. "I can so keep secrets!"
"Then why bother asking me if you've already made up your mind?" Ferrus retorted.
Fulgrim huffed and let out a string of colourful Chemosian curses. Then the vox-bead beeped, signalling the end of the call. Ferrus raised an eyebrow at the sudden intrusion. Was it something important?, he wondered. And then he shrugged, because Fulgrim, like himself, hated to be second-guessed, and if he had to rank his brothers, Fulgrim would definitely be somewhere at the top, shit-tier secret keeping skills and all. So he let out a snort of irritation and was in the process of reorienting himself and continuing with his nap when the damn vox-bead lit up a second time.
"The thing is — " Fulgrim started, and one really had to know him (like Ferrus did) to catch the strain of apology in his tone (Ferrus reasoned that the fact Fulgrim had called back was proof enough of his lower ground, though he conceded his own fault in keeping score, a most unbrotherly thing to do), "I think I messed up with Konrad. Really bad."
"Konrad?" Ferrus felt a migraine blossom in the back of his skull. Konrad Curze was second only to Angron on the list of brothers he would prefer to have nothing to do with. "What happened to him?"
"Well, so the thing is..." Ferrus could hear his brother take a deep breath and he mentally steadied himself for one of Fulgrim's famous monologues. He wasn't wrong.
"As we were bringing the Cheraut System to compliance, Konrad took me aside and told me the content of his nightmares. He saw absolutely ghastly things, the likes of which you wouldn't believe, and what really scared me — and him — was that he was certain his dreams were predictions of the future."
Now, Ferrus was aware that the Primarch of the VIIIth Legion suffered from nightmares and had delusions of foresight, but he had never bothered asking for the content of his dreams.
"So what were his dreams about?" Ferrus pressed.
"See, that's the thing. He told me under the condition that I would keep his confidence."
"Alright then," Ferrus shrugged. "So don't tell me."
"The thing is, I already told Rogal."
"You what."
"The dreams were absolutely wretched brother," Fulgrim insisted. "You would've wanted to tell someone else if you knew of them!"
"Try me," Ferrus drawled, rolling his eyes.
"Wait, but it gets worse."
"Let me guess: Konrad overreacted?"
"How did you guess?!" Fulgrim demanded.
"Just a hunch." Ferrus rolled his eyes again. Between Fulgrim, Konrad, and Perturabo, it was a wonder every molehill in the galaxy hadn't been made into a mountain.
"Well, yes, he overreacted. He called me an oath-breaker and then he attacked Rogal."
"He what?"
"It was horrible," Fulgrim moaned, "Blood everywhere, none of us knew what was going on, I don't think Konrad even knew what was happening until Sigismund pulled him away..."
Ferrus groaned, reaching up to massage the bridge of his nose. "So how are they?" he asked, when it was clear Fulgrim needed prompting.
"Who?"
"Rogal! Konrad!"
"Oh, well," Fulgrim huffed again, "Rogal's still under a restorative coma. He's been under round-the-clock care from his apothecaries. And Konrad has been placed in house arrest."
"Are you guarding him yourself?"
"Hardly," Fulgrim scoffed, "Otherwise I'd — "
"Then you can rest assured he'll break free," Ferrus interrupted.
"He wouldn't."
"He would." Ferrus shrugged, "It's what I would've done."
"My dear Gorgon," Fulgrim rallied, "I know you're not the greatest fan of Rogal here, but — "
"Compared to Konrad?" Ferrus snorted, "We might as well be bosom buddies for all the lost love between the two of them."
Fulgrim was silent for some time after that. Just as Ferrus wondered whether his brother would terminate the connection a second time, the Pheonician spoke, this time with a voice as cold as the tundras of Ferrus' childhood.
"You would side with Konrad here then."
"Hardly," Ferrus sighed, "But you must see his side of things. He is right to call you an oath-breaker."
"He dreamt of our father's empire in flames!" Fulgrim screeched. "He prophesied Horus would turn against us all! He told me our father would order his death! How in the nine oceans am I to keep such a thing secret?!"
"By shrugging it off as the usual sort of nonsense the likes of Magnus and Lorgar will dream up," Ferrus snorted. His voice was dripping with dismissal but he couldn't help it. He thought of Perturabo's own confessions and how he had kept them at-hand, never sharing his brother's (inane, in his opinion) fears with another soul.
"You weren't there," Fulgrim snarled, "If you had seen him, if you had heard him — " he heaved another sigh, this one more pained than the first, "Brother, I swear on our father's throne, Konrad believed they were visions, not dreams."
From what Fulgrim had told him, Ferrus could already picture how everything went down and, more importantly, what the Night Haunter's next course of action would be. He would have preferred to relay this information to Sanguinius or Horus — those two seemed to have no problems dealing with Konrad, but unfortunately they were leagues away, crusading with the Emperor himself, and he highly doubted Roboute or Russ would help matters much.
"Brother," Ferrus said, interrupting Fulgrim's rant.
"What?" Fulgrim snapped.
"I will see you in two days."
"What!" Fulgrim said, except then it was Ferrus cutting the connection off. He got to his feet and looked about his forge. It would've been nice if he had been hit with inspiration since it wasn't often they finished their compliances with time to spare, but as things were, it wasn't like he'd be able to craft something knowing his brothers were fighting like lichens on the underside of an iceworm. He ignored the persistent beeping on his vox-bead and instead opened a connection with the Master of the Fleet.
"This is Ferrus," he said, "I want transport to the Sisypheum. Inform Clan Morragul they will be shipping out alongside me. Tell the astropaths to navigate to the Cheraut System."
"Understood," the voice on the other end said. "The Sisypheum will be ready to depart in seventeen minutes."
"And Clan Morragul?"
"They're already ready, milord."
"Good," Ferrus resisted smiling, instead cutting off the connection and making his way to his own arming chambers. While he was letting the serfs buff and polish his war-plate, he opened a link with the command centre on board the Nightfall. It was an experiment of sorts and he was taken aback when the brother in question actually responded to his hail.
"Ferrus Manus," the Night Haunter drawled, "To what do I owe this honour?"
Though Ferrus distrusted his more psychically-inclined brothers on principal, he realised he hadn't exchanged hostilities proper with Curze, which probably explained why the other had bothered receiving him at all.
"Konrad," Ferrus greeted, "My Legion is in the Odin System at the moment. I am setting out on a strike cruiser as we speak and will be translating into the Cheraut System within fourty-eight hours, please wait for me."
Curze's reaction was the same as Fulgrim's.
"What," he said.
"You have escaped the mockery of a prison Fulgrim and Rogal have thrown you into," Ferrus guessed, "Killing the half-dozen legionaries that were assigned to guard you."
"I'm surprised the Phoenician had the time to tell you, truly, I am envious of your closeness."
"Fulgrim has not informed me of this," Ferrus retorted.
"Lies."
"Alright then," Ferrus waved away the serfs, heaving Forgebreaker from its rack and grinning at its familiar weight, "Let me tell you something Fulgrim could not have told me: after this, you plan to raze your homeworld as punishment for their corrupting of the recruitment system."
This prediction was enough to give Curze pause. Ferrus almost wished he could see his brother's face then.
"Do you have the Sight too, then?" Curze immediately demanded.
"Hardly," Ferrus rolled his eyes a third time, "It is a matter of evaluating the situation and determining the most reasonable course of action."
"Then you understand," Curze pressed, and here, Ferrus could definitely make out the desperation in his voice, "The corner that I have been driven into."
"The corner is a figment of your imagination, brother," Ferrus stressed, "As are your visions."
"Has your best beloved brother shared my secrets with the rest of the galaxy?" — this, of course, was the most pressing matter for Curze. Ferrus quickly made his way to the hangar bay where transport to the Sisypheum was waiting, along with his ten-man honour guard. He nodded at them and at his equerry who informed him through the sign language of Medusa that Clan Morragul had already boarded the strike cruiser.
"I am hardly the whole galaxy," Ferrus retorted, "Though he is a terrible choice of secret-keeper, I'll give you that." He paused, surprised to hear something resembling a laugh from Curze's end. "And before we speak of your tussle with Rogal, I must know: what possessed you to think Fulgrim the sort to keep to himself?" As much as Ferrus loved his brother, he bemoaned how the other single-handedly introduced the Remembrancer Mandate to the Sigillite — and all because he felt there weren't enough picts of him and his men!
"It was a decision made in error, I see that now," Curze admitted.
"Will you wait the fourty-eight hours?" Ferrus asked.
"Brother, you are destined to die by the Phoenician's hand. With a sword of xenos origin, he will slice your head clean off and the act will drive him mad for the rest of his days," and there it was, that conviction that had Fulgrim up in such arms. Thankfully, Ferrus was not Fulgrim and he had to deal with Eldar prophesying day in and out and compared to Curze, the Eldars managed a far more convincing (but still fake) act.
"Be that as it may, I would speak to you. And Rogal too, assuming he hasn't yet left in a mop of ruffled feathers."
"Considering the state I left him and his ship in, I verymuch doubt that."
"Good." He paused, seating himself in the command throne of the strike cruiser. "Brother, I am minutes away from translating into the Warp, but I would have your word that you will not head to Nostramo until my arrival at Cheraut."
"Who is to say my word is any better than the Phoenician's?" Curze spat.
"His word means more in any other situation and you know it. He knows it, even," Ferrus conceded, "Do you know how he started his recounting? He asked me if he was a gossip."
"He is absolutely a gossip."
"Your word, brother," Ferrus pressed.
"Trade me a secret for it, Gorgon," Curze countered.
This request caught Ferrus off-guard. He didn't think himself a man of many (or, well, any) secrets. That was a key reason why he could be bosom buddies with Fulgrim, after all. And only Perturabo and Guilliman had bothered confiding in him before and it wasn't as if Fulgrim had been particularly interested in their secrets so...
"What sort of secret?" he asked, racking his brain for something Curze would be interested in.
"Anything, so long as it's incriminating," he could imagine the Night Haunter shrugging here, perhaps even examining his famous talons. It irked Ferrus, to be brought to a standstill in such a fashion, especially as the Chief Navigator was looking expectantly at him, to say nothing of the gazes from Clan Morragul.
A dozen half-baked ideas flashed through his mind. He chose the most absurd one, the one that had the largest grain of truth at the centre.
"Father once said he loved you the most," Ferrus whispered, cupping the vox-bead with his hand, lest his sons (or worse, the crew) overhear such information.
Curze said nothing for a long time. Ferrus wondered if the other had crushed his own vox-bead in response to the maddening statement. But then, right as he was about to end the connection and perhaps ask Fulgrim to try and keep the peace until the Sisypheum's arrival, he heard a sharp draw of breath.
"You're lying," Curze maintained, "Our father would never say such a thing."
"It is the necessity of being necessary," Ferrus shrugged. "Surely you've seen it reflected in our brothers?" From his own experience, the quality was most present in Horus, which made sense, as he had spent the most time with the Emperor.
"I don't need him," Curze snapped, "I don't need anyone or anything, so long as I have justice."
"And yet you do not hate him," Ferrus countered, "And it is his righteousness that flows through your veins."
"You are a cheat, brother," Curze snarled, "A cheat and a liar and a dirty no-good gossip."
Ferrus laughed, in familiar territory once more. Fulgrim, too, would lapse into similar diatribes whenever Ferrus bested him in their many competitions.
"I will see you at Cheraut," he said, cutting off the connection to a slew of Nostraman curses. He schooled his expression into one of cool disregard before turning to the Chief Navigator, motioning with his hand to show the Sisypheum was ready to depart. In his heart of hearts, Curze's prophecy had cut deep, for an Eldar priestess had said something to the same effect. But if that was to be his fate, than so be it. He could think of hundreds of worse ways to die.
-
True to form, the Gorgon arrived ahead of time. It had been twenty-seven hours and fourty-four minutes since their private vox-to-vox communication, thirty-two hours and eight minutes since Konrad had broken out of his mockery of a prison, and a full fourty hours (and some seconds) since he had thrown himself at Dorn before the commanding officers of their three legions.
In that time, Dorn remained in his sus-an coma and Fulgrim was growing increasingly certain that the Praetorian of Terra had been felled by the Night Haunter's claws. This was absurd, of course. Konrad had reassured him time and again that Dorn's fate was not to die by his hand and he knew at the end of the day the damage he had done to his brother would amount to scratches on his neck and chest and yet Sigismund had raised such a fuss.
Konrad snorted at the thought of Dorn's upstart First Captain. He was a good commander and a master swordsman, but he was also completely out of his league. How could a legionary seek to mete punishment against a Primarch? It would be the equivalent of mortals meddling with the affairs of Astartes.
He was a son of the Emperor. He was the Primarch of the VIIIth Legion. He was justice itself.
Konrad was surprised a second time in so many hours when Ferrus came to him alone. He thought for sure the Gorgon would arrive with the Pheonix in-tow, or at least an honour guard. Instead, he stepped off of the transport as a single man — a great hulking beast of a man in armour the same colour as the void — and it was Konrad who looked a prince of pomp and circumstance then.
"Brother," Ferrus greeted, crossing the length of the hangar bay and paying no attention to the full company of Night Lords whose armour had been hurriedly polished and buffed to IIIrd Legion standard lining the halls of the chamber.
"Gorgon," Konrad answered. He waited for Ferrus to reach him before extending his hand. Ferrus gripped it by the wrist and Konrad did the same. "You come without an honour guard?"
Ferrus appraised him with half-lidded eyes. "We are not children," he said as he swept his famous silver gaze across the children of Nostramo, "Though our sons coddle us so."
He lingered to stare at Konrad's equerry and First Captain between turning back to look at his brother.
"I would speak with you in private," he said and such was the force of his presence that Konrad could not help that traitorous little flutter that shook the edges of his heart.
He pursed his lips and thought to right his humours, turning away from the Gorgon and gesturing with his hand.
"This way," he said, and the words came out more curt and gruff than he would have liked.
"Gothic is fine," Ferrus said in Nostraman that was so terribly accented, Konrad had to choke back a laugh. Someone snickered behind them. Sevatar, no doubt.
"Gothic it is," Konrad conceded, falling back on the lingua franca as he led to the way to the viewing room on board the Nightfall. He dared not bring Ferrus into his own sanctum, filled as it was with defiled corpses in various states of decomposition, and the strategium was awash with plans of Nostramo's razing. The viewing room, on the other hand, while large enough to house two Primarchs with room to spare, really wasn't made with an audience in mind. The Atramentar called up a batch of serfs and within minutes, the throne from the strategium was hauled in.
"Leave us," he said and his men did as ordered. Only Shang lingered in the doorway, fretting over him as a parent might, and Konrad wondered again if Ferrus had some shred of the Sight. He cast a stern look at his equerry and the other left, dutifully closing the door behind him.
And then it was the two of them. The Night Haunter and the Gorgon. They were both standing a little ways from the thrones that were meant for them though they looked more like executioner's seats in the absence of company and the brutalist philosophy pursued by Nostraman interior design.
"Please," Konrad said, gesturing at the twin thrones, "Pick your poison."
The Gorgon's lips quirked at the edges and he walked forward, seating himself at the slightly-further throne, the one that was originally in the viewing room. Konrad took the throne opposite him and they sat like that, in absolute silence, for a long while.
If it had been ten minutes of the Gorgon staring at him, Konrad might have been uncomfortable. But it was actually ten minutes of the Gorgon craning his head this way and that, for the viewing room — true to its name — was a greenhouse and planetarium of sorts, an invention exclusive to Nostramo where neither the stars nor the sun were visible on a regular basis.
And so Konrad was given leave to truly look upon his older brother for the first time since their initial meeting.
He had heard of the Gorgon's explosive temper from his brothers (Fulgrim, mainly) and had campaigned with him twice — once in the Rikadian Sector with Horus and again in Abydos III with Mortarion. Both times, he had favoured the company of his other brother though, in retrospect, it was clear the Gorgon was solitary to the point of reclusive, and so when the other had called him — on the vox attached to his throne, no less! — it had been the longest parlay the two of them had engaged in, up until now. Despite being one of the four who had greeted him, the Gorgon remained a mystery to Konrad. He knew little of him, save for what was provided second-hand. And how he would meet his end, of course. Konrad knew how everyone who meet their end.
"Ah," Ferrus said at the end of it, pointing to a cluster of stars about seventy degrees to his left. Konrad followed his finger, craning his head upwards.
"What?" he asked, uncertain what he was seeing.
"That's the Medusan sun," Ferrus told him, "Persium, they call it."
"I see," he ended up saying, uncertain again as to why Ferrus was here with neither Fulgrim nor an honour guard as well as why he had sought to speak with him in the first place. He had asked Konrad to delay his punishment of Nostramo while he made his way to Cheraut and the absurdity and wrongness of the secret he had divulged (if such a lie could even pass as a secret) had somehow been registered as sufficient in Konrad's conscience. And so he had held back his men.
"As of late I have wondered," Ferrus began with his gaze still trained on that distant mirage, "Why our Father asked me to journey with him to retrieve you." He tilted his head down, meeting Konrad's gaze at last. "Have you arrived at a sufficient conclusion, brother?"
"I had assumed the Iron Tenth was nearby when I was discovered."
Ferrus shook his head. "You might have been retrieved months prior, had Father not insisted on my presence."
This was a revelation for Konrad. "What of the others?" he asked. "Were they also brought from distant reaches?"
"Fulgrim and Rogal were nearby. Lorgar needed to journey a fair amount."
"Accounting for that decision," Konrad carefully started, "I would presume the four of you were potential ends." He frowned at his own word choice and qualified it with: "Possibilities."
Ferrus tapped his beautiful silver fingers against the armrest of his throne.
"Illuminate me," the Gorgon said.
"I had assumed he wished to exercise caution, considering the state I was in." Speaking to Ferrus was a strange experience. Konrad was loathe to utilise High Gothic to express himself, considering the poetic nuances inherent in Nostraman far superior for his own thought processes, yet to say the words to Ferrus, to one of the few souls in the galaxy who could be considered his equal, had a materialising effect and his own thoughts solidified as he spoke them.
Ferrus said nothing and Konrad continued, relieved to have the ear of a brother Primarch.
"He must have been aware of my visions. The Angel and I were opposite sides of the same coin. But then there is the matter of Corvus." Konrad frowned, thinking of his first and last encounter with the Primarch of the XIXth. He had considered himself a creature of the night, of shadows and secrets, the foremost son of a sunless world. And then he met Corvus who could truly cloak himself in darkness in a way Konrad could not manage. And Deliverance had a sun, its denizens enjoyed regular, albeit infrequent, rays of sunlight, yet here he was.
"It is curious though," he admitted, "That the four of you were chosen. Corvus' absence would of course be due to the order of our rediscovery, but if it were me, I would have asked the Angel along..." he trailed off, frowning again. He heaved a great sigh, adding: "But then, who is to know the inner workings of our Father's mind?"
"Not I," Ferrus readily agreed, and if Konrad didn't know better, he would swear there was a hint of humour in his tone. It vanished in a blink as Ferrus looked at him again. "Lorgar was wrong though, to venerate him as a god. It is through him that we have any connection with humanity so of course it follows that he is capable of mortal error."
"This sounds remarkably like sedition, brother." He was unable to mask the uneasiness of his tone.
"Hardly," Ferrus scoffed, "Only a rational evaluation of actions in hindsight."
Konrad had never had a vision of this conversation. So reliant was he on the Sight, he realised, especially when it came to confrontations (or even conversations) with his brothers that he felt blind at the moment.
"I mean to say," Ferrus concluded, "That it was a mistake to choose Fulgrim as your mentor. I would have been better suited."
Though Konrad knew Ferrus alone was permitted to criticise Fulgrim so, a part of him was still riled on behalf of his old mentor, their current spat and his status as a gossip notwithstanding.
"Yet I learned much from him," Konrad insisted, even as the dark voice in the back of his said retorted: and now you are left with so many things to unlearn.
"And you will learn more from me."
Konrad blinked, looking upon his brother with fresh eyes.
"Excuse me?" he asked, not quite believing his ears.
"I am here to correct our Father's mistake," Ferrus explained. "I realise now that the teachings Fulgrim imparted on you for homeworld management are insufficient. They worked for Chemos, of course, but it is little surprise they would fail on Nostramo."
"He is our Father," Konrad countered, unable to believe the other capable of such cutting criticism. This was worse than gossip, it was outright betrayal. He could only imagine what things Ferrus would say behind his back, now that he had revealed so much. "He can do no wrong. And there was nothing wrong with Fulgrim's teachings; it is Nostramo that is tainted at its core."
"I have read your writings," Ferrus said instead, "And the logic behind your brutality is sound. Minima sine maxima, was it?"
"Do not think to sway me, brother," Konrad snarled, furious to be defending both Fulgrim and the Emperor in this parlay, "For my mind is set. Nostramo was doomed the day my cradle breached it."
"Explain to me, then, how you would save more lives than you might slaughter by putting a whole world to sword."
"My writings were lies," Konrad hissed. How he ached to slash at this brother's throat, to put him in the same straits as the Praetorian. It was not Ferrus' fate to die here, to die at his hands, but that did not mean he could not damage him. "I am a monster, a creature from a sunless world, and I exist to inspire hatred and fear."
"Yet I feel neither hatred nor fear for you."
"Leave now," Konrad commanded, rending gashes in the wrought frame of his throne. The air was poisoned with the dragging of his claws against the metal, harsh shrieks that gave him little pleasure.
"I only need answer to the Emperor," Ferrus snorted. He made no move to leave.
It was the sheer arrogance of him, to come on board the Nightfall on his own, without even Forgebreaker at his side, and then to criticise the Emperor in one breath and then venerate him in the next, that truly pushed Konrad over the edge. With a primal snarl he leapt at his brother, claws aimed at his neck.
As he was throwing himself at his brother, Konrad was at last assaulted with a vision. This one was not of events to come but rather, an instance decades prior. He remembered being welcomed aboard the Fist of Iron and being goaded into a cage match with the Gorgon. It had been a private affair which neither their sons nor their brothers had been privy to and though Ferrus had nominally equipped himself with Forgebreaker, for the actual spar, he had contented himself with his bare hands.
Sparring against him then, Konrad understood what it was to be laid low. It did not matter how many hits he landed or how vehemently he dug his claws in, it was as if he were a crow trying to move a mountain one pebble at a time.
He could not remember the details of the fight at present, only that, like the spar in the cage on board the Fist of Iron, it ended with Ferrus seated on his midsection, his liquid silver hands bound like wraiths to Konrad's wrists.
"I hate you," Konrad spat, "I hate you with every fibre of my being." In that moment, his animosity towards the Gorgon was so great, he did not care that it was the other's fate to fall before Fulgrim's xenos blade, he wanted to see him bleed with his own claws.
Curiously enough, it was that hatred — that surge of emotion that he kept so tightly locked away lest it impede with his ability to mete justice — that caused his vision of the future to shift.
Konrad frowned and ceased his struggling, trying to concentrate on the certainty of the Gorgon's death. Though it had been set in stone since their first meeting, right now, for reasons inexplicable, his brother's death was fuzzy at the edges. It was like trying to find the stars through the Nostraman sky. The future was there, just as the stars were there — but he couldn't see it.
He drew a long breath and stared at his brother.
"What have you done?" he whispered, horrified that one of the few things that was certain had been stolen from him.
"Saved myself a trip to the Apothecary," Ferrus replied, shrugging nonchalantly. Konrad had no idea how the other managed to read him so, only that he was uniquely capable of seeing when the moment of danger had passed.
"There," Ferrus added, sliding off of him before he pushed himself to his feet. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" he asked as he reached out with one hand.
Konrad stared at the proffered limb in disbelief. He thought again to Perturabo's hypothesis that the Gorgon, while not blessed (or cursed) with the Sight, was nonetheless capable of seeing things they could not.
He took the hand and allowed himself to be pulled up. He could hear the scream of fate in the back of his mind but it was growing more and more distant, as if he were sinking further beneath the clouds of his homeworld.
"We are not so different, you and I," the Gorgon told him with all the confidence of an older sibling. Konrad looked down at the hand that was firmly wrapped about the upper half of his gauntlet. "Father would not censure you for razing your homeworld," he admitted, "But it would be cause for alarm."
"I am fated to die by his word," Konrad said, "Just as you are fated to die by the blade of your best-beloved brother." Yet now he could not speak those sentences with the same certainty as before and the futures he had foreseen for so long were fading fast.
"You are not the first to tell me so," Ferrus shrugged, removing his arm. "Yet what do you expect me to do? Run to the farthest corners of the galaxy and never entreat with Fulgrim again? Remind him at every opportunity not to run me through with his sword?" He snorted at the notion, and Konrad felt a laugh escape his own mouth. And then all humour left the Gorgon and he continued with: "We were not made for peace. We were not made for hearth and home. This is a philosophy you and I share."
"It is hardly unique."
"Yet we alone prescribe to it with such readiness. Who, among the rest of our brothers, denied all creature comforts to their homeworld? Not Roboute. Not the Lion. Certainly not Fulgrim."
"The people of Nostramo resent me for my decision."
"Then I will aid you in their illumination." Again, there was that maddening certainty in Ferrus' tone. "But it will not be an extermination."
He reached his hand out and Konrad flinched, only to feel that same warm and soft touch — which should have been impossible given the composition of Ferrus' hands — lightly tousle his already-disheveled locks.
"You'll see," the Gorgon promised him, "There is much promise in your homeworld. Just as there is much truth in both our philosophies."
Konrad wrenched the other's hand away, turning to the side and then shooting his brother a glare without venom.
"Take care, brother," he warned, "Some day I might have your head."
Ferrus laughed properly at that. It was a little like hearing the foundation of a hive wobble. "You're welcome to try," he answered and Konrad couldn't help admiring him a little then.