Battle Sisters Never Betray

Now that he had confirmed they could be allies, Lin En took the initiative and turned back to rummage through his bag. "Sister, would you like something to eat?"

She had not found much edible food here. After these past few days, she was probably close to her limit.

Battle Sisters might have high combat prowess, but they were still mortals. They needed food too.

Lin En dug out the rations and protein blocks from his bag and gave half to Cecilia.

Cecilia thanked him politely. Then the two sat facing each other, a dancing flame between them, eating by the fire together.

Throughout the meal, Cecilia had been observing Lin En.

A Battle Sister's eyes were trained to complete a full assessment of someone's bearing without arousing their vigilance.

Lin En's hands bore no calluses or scars from long-term labor. His skin was fair and clean, and his nails were neatly trimmed.

His posture was relaxed. One hand rested on his knee, while the other held a ration bar that he ate with focus. He had none of the nervous wariness of someone who had spent years surviving in the wilderness of Warhammer 40,000, always ready to flee.

His face was young and handsome, and his hair was in excellent condition—black and thick.

He was around twenty years old, with smooth skin untouched by wind and sun, no hollows from malnutrition, and only the faintest trace of stubble.

...This man had not grown up on a battlefield, nor had he clawed his way through the hungry slums of a lower Hive City.

Warhammer 40,000 was full of brutal environments that ground people into dust, but he was different. He should have come from the upper classes.

For him to so easily share food with a complete stranger, he must have grown up somewhere safe, where people fed him, clothed him, and perhaps even taught him to read and write.

Perhaps he had been a scholar or noble from humanity's upper echelons, though for some unknown reason he had fallen to this state.

Istvaan III had fallen ten thousand years ago.

Cecilia simply asked Lin En directly, "This is Istvaan III. How did you end up here?"

Lin En froze mid-bite, and the ration nearly slipped from his hand.

He looked up at Cecilia's slit pupils, and his mind suddenly filled with garbled chaos, as though someone had hit fast-forward.

Is...tvaan...III.

The moment Istvaan III was mentioned, Lin En understood.

The site where the Horus Heresy began, where the Sons of Horus and other traitor Legions carried out a devastating massacre against the loyalist Legions.

The Drop Site Massacre. Viruses, bombs, fire, corpses.

In the 30th millennium, the four Chaos Gods had turned humanity's Warmaster, Horus, Primarch of the Sons of Horus.

The Sons of Horus and several other traitor Legions had suddenly attacked the three million loyalist warriors of the Legions beside them. The loyalists had never imagined their brothers would betray the Emperor. Caught utterly unprepared, so many bodies fell that they could have blocked every river on Istvaan III.

He had forgotten the name of this Hive City, but Cecilia supplied it in her next sentence. "Hive Herya."

Right. The famous Hive Herya.

So this was where he was?

Lin En turned and looked at this place that had once changed history.

The loyalist Legions and civilians had been slaughtered by the traitors. Later, the planet had been steeped in Warp corruption and blood, the Hive City abandoned, and its ruins became a holy site for the forces of Chaos.

No wonder so many Chaos Cultists were wandering around.

Those cultists came here to make pilgrimages, offer sacrifices, and seek opportunities for corruption.

Lin En rubbed his face.

The Drop Site Massacre cinematic had been truly horrific. The Horus Heresy marked the beginning of the Imperium of Man's decline. It was such a strange feeling—he had somehow witnessed this planet's fall ten thousand years ago with his own eyes.

Cecilia could tell that he knew Istvaan III's history. He really was someone who had received an education. "How did you get here?"

Lin En said bitterly, "I don't know, Sister. I was on Terra—another name for Earth—and when I woke up, someone had brought me here."

Maybe it was the Emperor's recruitment drive. Or maybe the system had trafficked him here.

Cecilia's slit pupils flickered slightly.

Terra—the capital of the Imperium of Man, where the Emperor's Golden Throne stood.

Cecilia imagined a whole string of political struggles and alien investigations.

Bringing someone from Terra to Istvaan III was not something an ordinary person could accomplish. It required a ship, a route through the Warp, the ability to withstand Warp Storms, and knowledge of Istvaan III's landing coordinates.

Within the Imperium's system, only a handful of organizations could manage that. The Inquisition was one of them.

It was perfectly plausible. Had she not been exiled too?

Cecilia asked, "Are you a psyker?"

Lin En thought for a moment and decided to use the system as a cover. "Yes."

Just as I thought. Cecilia felt that her speculation had been correct.

Because psykers could communicate with the Warp, they were especially vulnerable to corruption by it.

The Imperium's policy toward psykers was cruel. The useful ones were kept, fitted with mind-locks, and assigned to psyker support units in the Imperial Navy or Astra Militarum. The useless ones, or those deemed too dangerous, had parts of their brains altered and removed, or were exiled to barren planets and left to fend for themselves.

Not everyone even qualified for exile. Did exile not cost energy? Those who did not qualify had already been turned into idiots in mining zones, capable only of obeying orders and working.

He must have been a weak psyker with little use, perhaps the younger son of some scholar or noble family. They could not simply turn him into an idiot, so the Inquisition had exiled him.

Cecilia comforted him. "It's all right. I was exiled too."

Cecilia introduced herself. She had once been a Battle Sister. "During the Ophelia Crusade, my squad was surrounded by Khorne's daemon legion. The battle lasted three days and three nights. My sisters fell one after another, and in the end, only three of us survived, myself included."

She raised a hand and touched her eyes.

She did not know whether the battle had affected them or whether daemon blood had splashed into them. She had been gravely wounded and unconscious at the time, and when she awoke, her pupils had already become like this.

Because Battle Sisters were not permitted even the slightest mutation, the Inquisition and the Sisterhood jointly declared her a heretic. But she retained her full human mind and had once been a war hero, so she was merely exiled.

They confiscated her Power Armor, sacred robes, and weapons, then cast her onto this planet and ordered her to undertake a Penitent Crusade for the Emperor, to prove her loyalty. Then they left.

In truth, everyone knew it was an execution in all but name, only slightly better than a public execution.

Lin En knew the Inquisition. They really were capable of doing something like that.

Though he understood that it was for humanity's safety, that they would rather kill by mistake than let danger pass, he still had to say that the Inquisition was truly inhuman.

Still, Cecilia's slit pupils were indeed a little frightening.

Lin En asked, "Then how can you guarantee that you haven't been completely corrupted?"

It was not a very pleasant question.

But Cecilia did not get angry. Her expression did not change as she said softly, "I am a Battle Sister. Battle Sisters never betray."

"Saint Celestine taught us that faith is immortal, and the Holy Light shines upon me at all times." Her voice was low and tranquil, as though she were reading scripture.

She looked at her hands, turned them over, and studied the calluses and scars on her palms, worn there by years of battle. "As long as my soul can still command this body, I will never return to the Chaos faction."

Lin En looked at her.

Her slit pupils were a little frightening, but the way she sat was very calm.

She sat there with her back straight, like a stone statue that had endured centuries of wind and rain yet still stood firm. Someone corrupted could not sit like that.

Lin En remembered a name he had seen somewhere before.

People in the Warhammer community occasionally mentioned her as an extreme example of a Battle Sister who had been corrupted. Every mention sparked an argument over whether Battle Sisters could truly betray.

Minohr Sebastus, the Slaanesh-corrupted sister.

She had been captured by the Emperor's Children and subjected to unimaginable torture. Her body was destroyed, her soul torn apart, and in the end Slaanesh implanted another soul into her body, forcibly turning her into someone else. Only then was she finally corrupted.

Before that, she endured every torment without betraying the Emperor. She had not even bent a single finger.

Lin En felt that if Minohr Sebastus had been able to say one final sentence before her corruption, she would probably have said the same thing: Battle Sisters never betray.

She was telling the truth.

Battle Sisters would never be corrupted.

All right.

"I believe you." Lin En shifted a little closer to her.