This meeting had been arranged in the infirmary. Though somewhat strange, desperate times called for desperate measures. Ventanus and a Word Bearers warrior came before the primarch.
Lox saw that the Word Bearer's hands and legs were bound in adamantium chains. His power armor had been stripped away, leaving him clad only in a gunmetal-gray robe.
The Word Bearer also appeared to be a Psyker. A restraint circlet designed to suppress psychic power was fastened around his forehead, fashioned partly from the bones of Untouchables. An ordinary Librarian wearing it would completely lose all perception of psychic power.
Having learned their lesson, everyone granted an audience with the primarch had been disarmed. They had come entirely empty-handed.
The Word Bearer warrior was covered in scars, and the exposed black carapace of his body gleamed faintly.
"My apologies, my lord."
Ventanus approached the primarch. He looked little different from when Lox had seen him on the battlefield of Calth, save that his bearing had grown more mature and composed.
Clearly, this hero who had traveled so far from Calth already knew of the Alpha Legion's assassination attempt. The fact that those assassins had borrowed his identity made Ventanus feel profoundly guilty.
Though he knew it had nothing to do with him and that he, too, had been a victim, Ventanus still regretted his own failure out of a son's love and respect for his gene-father.
Why hadn't he arrived sooner? Why had he allowed those damned Alphas to find an opening?
"There is no need to apologize, my proud son." Guilliman's eyes were full of fatherly affection. He beckoned Ventanus to his side and soothed the Hero of Calth's heart with a primarch's tenderness.
The primarch's care and attention softened the heart that Ventanus had tempered into iron through war. He