"Lorgar."
Curze's voice suddenly broke the silence in the room.
It came through his Helmet, low and steady, yet in the stillness of that moment, it was like a stone dropped into a deep pool, sending out faint ripples.
Lorgar tore his gaze from the starlight and turned toward the midnight-blue figure seated in the shadows. "Hm?"
Curze did not answer immediately. His midnight-blue Helmet turned slightly, its pitch-black Visor seeming to "look" once more at the two figures beneath the Starry Expanse outside, now reduced to blurry specks but still moving slowly.
Angron was carefully supporting his adoptive father as they walked along the gentle slope.
Then the Visor slowly shifted toward the empty darkness farther away, as though he were staring into a dimension no ordinary person could see.
Several seconds passed in silence, broken only by the faint sound of distant wind.
"I want to ask you something." Curze finally spoke again. His voice betrayed no emotion, but beneath its matter-of-fact delivery lay something exceedingly subtle, almost inquisitive.
"Ask." Lorgar picked up his earthenware cup and took another sip of the bitter tea, long since gone cold. His tone was casual.
"Why," Curze paused, as though choosing the most precise wording, his Helmet tilting slightly toward Lorgar, "are you like this?"
He did not specify what he meant by "like this."
Was it patiently accompanying Angron on this visit to his adoptive father?
Was it silently using psychic energy to prolong a mortal's life earlier?
Was it the extraordinary acceptance, support, and even protection he showed Angron, Curze himself, and their other Primarch brothers?
Or was it the almost obsessive emphasis on cultivating "brotherhood" that ran through everything he did, something that did not seem entirely consistent with his identity as a "son of the Emperor" and