Lion El'Jonson's Holographic Projection had vanished, but its chilling presence still lingered on the bridge of the Sin.
Mortarion stood where he was. His fingers, restored to normal yet still etched with the marks of age and suffering, slowly relaxed, then clenched again.
His knuckles whitened slightly with the effort.
Humiliation burned through his veins like venom.
Once, he had been the Primarch of the Death Guard Legion, a major force in the Horus Heresy, a Daemon Prince lavished with Nurgle's "favour."
Now he was like a prisoner freshly dragged from his cage, told to seek "atonement" by another brother—a brother he had never truly been close to, one with whom he shared a mutual loathing—in a manner that bordered on charity and surveillance.
Prove yourself to Father, Mortarion!
Lion El'Jonson's words echoed in his mind.
Father... the Emperor who had taken him out of Barbarus's poisonous mists, yet never truly given him recognition?
The one he had once betrayed, and to whom he was now expected to prove his worth?
How ironic. Prove what?
That even freed from Nurgle's corruption, he remained a useful tool?
That his sacrifices and those of his progeny could buy a sliver of the Emperor's insignificant "recognition"?
A deep, almost self-destructive rage churned in his chest.
How was this any different from Nurgle?!
Yet beneath that rage lay a deeper, colder pool of stagnant water—exhaustion and bewilderment.
The Panacea had washed away the corruption, and Nurgle himself had withdrawn the twisted "affection" and diseased "vitality" that had sustained Mortarion's existence for ten thousand years.
What remained was a wasteland scoured clean, and utter uncertainty about the road ahead.
Fight.
Atone.
Apart from the progeny who followed him, he had nothing left.
His gaze swept over the Deathshroud standing like statues behind him.
These most