Konrad Curze crooked a finger so Mortarion's corpse could be set down steadily inside the cabin. His expression looked relaxed, in stark contrast to Corax's severity. The Lord of the Ravens had been staring all along at the short blade in his brother's remains. Golden radiance welled from the wound, but pitch-black ash still clung to it.
"A choice." Curze smiled faintly. "The Captain was softhearted after all, wasn't he, Corax?"
"I would rather that blade had destroyed Mortarion outright."
Corax answered as he activated the defensive formation. "In a sense, his actions aligned with Father's will. That means Father forgave him, and that makes me feel as if our persistence was meaningless. After all, all of you came back."
He fixed Konrad Curze with a sharp stare. "Doing the right thing all the time is too hard, Konrad Curze. If justice is not rewarded, then loyalty is meaningless. You should understand that better than I do. Your pursuit of justice was even more fanatical than mine."
"Ah, you sound like a child upset that his parent is playing favorites."
Faced with his provocation, Corvus Corax merely shook his head calmly. "You answered me from a one-sided angle. My dissatisfaction with him is only part of it. What I truly care about are the people who died because of Mortarion. How many worlds burned because of him?"
"And how many worlds burned because of me?"
Konrad Curze sat securely in his seat, the corpse of their dead brother lying between him and Corax. It looked rather poetic, but perhaps only a lunatic could paint such a picture. Their paintings were fear, death, fragmentation, and the despair of Chaos.
Corax looked away. The hull rose amid a shudder. Thunder sounded in the sky once more, and Destruction descended with it. The