"Bluster doesn't scare anyone."
Curze's whisper rippled through the dark. "The blast radius of a nuke is only five kilometers. That yield can't even flatten a spire. Yes, many will die, but that is a necessary sacrifice."
To lay down one's arms just because hostages were taken wasn't noble; it was foolish.
Anyone bold enough to take hostages at gunpoint would only be emboldened if you surrendered.
A nuclear detonation would kill many, yes, but what was that to Curze?
The Midnight Phantoms' roots lay in the lower hive. The spires had no factories, no workers, only nobles and their servants.
If they really died in nuclear fire, Curze might pity them, but he would feel no pain, no regret.
And besides, what made Scarlawke think he could even press the button before a Primarch?
"If you think I'm bluffing, then why don't you dare kill me?" Count Scarlawke's lips twisted into a victorious sneer. He was sure he had found Curze's fatal weakness.
"Why don't you turn around and look?" Caelan offered kindly.
"Heh." The Count snorted through his nose. Did they take him for an idiot? Behind him was nothing but his son; what was his son going to harm him?
A sharp pain struck his chest. The Count looked down, only to see the bloody tip of a blade pierce through his left chest.
His head turned stiffly, his face frozen in a shock colder than death.
Jando wrenched out the knife and snatched the detonator. His eyes brimmed with sorrow as his throat worked painfully.
"Father… you can't keep making the same mistake. That's tens of millions of lives! Forgive me, just this once, I must stop you!"
The Count collapsed unwillingly, blood blooming from his chest.
"I'm sorry, Father."
The dagger fell from Jando's hand with a hollow clang against the stone floor, its sound shrill in the dead silence.
He staggered back, spine slamming into the cold wall before sliding down to sit on the ground.
He buried his face in his hands. From between his fingers seeped blood, or tears; it was hard to tell whose.
Such a scene of "sacrificing kin for righteousness" could bring tears to the eyes of any who heard of it. Even Caelan found himself clapping, and if he hadn't known this man was Jando Scarlawke, he might almost have been fooled.
Curze stepped past the Count's corpse and plucked the detonator from Jando's hands.
The Count's dead eyes glared wide, as if asking his son why.
And now he finally understood: Curze hadn't stayed his hand out of fear, he'd simply been watching the show.
"Jando Scarlawke," Curze said slowly, drawing out the name.
Jando wiped at his tears with a bloodied sleeve, struggling to his feet. His voice shook.
"My lord… I know the rules of the Midnight Phantoms. My father's stubbornness has doomed our house. I dare not ask forgiveness, only that you grant us a chance to atone."
Curze ignored his plea. He lifted Jando's chin and studied the black marks on his face.
"The two dark streaks on your cheeks, your father gave them to you when you were ten. They commemorate your first kill, marking you as the strongest of his offspring."
Jando flinched, this time in genuine fear.
"You didn't kill a gang member. Not a scavenger. You killed a beautiful girl from the lower hive. What was her name again? Ah, Veronica."
"She found you in the street and brought you home. At first, you didn't plan to kill her; you even thought of taking her back to the spire. But when you were forcing yourself on her, her parents returned. You had no choice, you killed them, then silenced the girl who screamed and screamed."
"Poor Veronica. Her beauty and kindness doomed her. Even in death, she suffered your violation. You flayed her skin as a trophy, displayed it to your family, and still hang it by your bedside. A first love is always hard to forget, isn't it?"
"I was wrong! I was so wrong! Please, forgive me, I can atone!" Jando sobbed uncontrollably, his body shaking.
"Don't beg. You know I won't forgive you."
Jando's face twisted in despair. But it wasn't resignation, it was the last desperate lunge before the fall.
A gun barrel slid from his sleeve, but a crimson line bloomed across his throat before he could raise it. Blood sprayed in the air, sketching an arc of mockery, mocking his futile double game.
To a Primarch, mortal struggles were no more than dust drifting in slow motion.
"You can see the past?" Caelan asked in surprise.
"No," Curze said. "He wrote it all in his diary. He even kept adding new entries."
Caelan's lip curled in disgust. "Figures. Anyone who keeps a diary can't be right in the head."
Curze said, "A pity."
"Who?"
"That girl, Veronica. If she hadn't met Jando, she might have had a beautiful future."
"She was unfortunate, but under the old order, such tragedies were the fate of every soul in the lower hive."
"Which is why we must overthrow it. In the new order, such things will never happen again. The Midnight Phantoms will ensure justice and law are upheld."
"This is the future you've seen?" Caelan asked.
"No," Curze said. "This is the future we will create."
Caelan felt comforted. Though given the nature of the Warhammer universe, even without the "Tattooed Count," there would still be a "Tattooed Duke" or "Tattooed Marquis." But Caelan believed Curze would lead the Midnight Phantoms down the right path.
Which meant that he, Caelan, would have to start worrying about the Raven Guard.
"What troubles you?" Curze asked. He could sense even the faintest shift in Caelan's mood.
"Your other brother," Caelan admitted. "He is like you… and yet not."
Curze was slowly becoming more like Corax. Caelan feared the reverse, that Corax might one day become like Curze.
"You're leaving?" Curze's voice tensed suddenly.
A chill raced up his spine. He thought he saw Caelan's cloak stir in the still air, tugged by unseen tides.
Caelan had never hidden anything from him. From the very start, he'd told Curze of his great but wretched father and his twenty brothers.
Curze had always known Caelan would one day leave. Not just because Curze needed him, his brothers needed him too.
He understood it. He respected it.
But now that the moment was near, Curze's heart throbbed with unease.
"I don't even know when I'll leave," Caelan said. "Just as I don't know how I came here. That depends on your father, the one who isn't much of a man. But don't worry. I won't leave so soon. Not before I see the future you build."
Curze nodded heavily. 'Even so… would that day truly be far off?'
If he didn't want Caelan to leave, he would need to find a way to stop his father, and his brothers. Those oversized infants weren't worthy of Caelan's guidance.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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