Ezekiel: Azrael, Your Mother Is Dead

Monolithic Fortress,

Zabriel set foot upon the floor paved with black stone, walking through deep, broad corridors, gazing at towering statues that supported ceilings hidden within the frigid mist, feeling the biting wind brush across his weathered cheeks.

It was as though the lingering world-soul of Caliban were using her fingers to stroke Zabriel's scar-covered face.

Some of these scars had come from mankind's enemies, some from beasts in the forests. But more had come from brothers who shared his genetic sequence.

A mocking sneer crossed Zabriel's lips, ridiculing himself, ridiculing those brothers who claimed to be loyal, and ridiculing this damned fate.

He had once felt nothing for Caliban. Zabriel was Terran, one of the Uncrowned Prince, one of the first Astartes. By the time he arrived on Caliban, its mountains and forests had long been razed, leaving only cold rock and countless newly built armories.

In Zabriel's eyes, Caliban had always been an unremarkable planet. It was not as civilized as Macragge, not as magnificent as Fenris, not as majestic as Chogoris, and certainly not as important as Terra.

Yet now, as he stepped upon this fragment of Caliban, a thought he had never had before arose within him.

"We're home," Zabriel said softly. There was no anger, no pain, only a trace of weightless emptiness, like liberation.

An inconspicuous tremor spread outward from Zabriel, passing through the Absolved Angels around him. These Astartes, once condemned as Fallen Angels and hunted by the Dark Angels for ten thousand years, showed faint changes in expression.

Though they were Astartes with minds of iron, though ten thousand years of hardship had forged them into stone, their hearts still wavered.

Especially those warriors who had been born on Caliban and raised on Caliban.

Once, this place had been home. It had