Chapter Text
He tried to swear, but bands of rune-etched skin as strong as auramite bound his jaw as tightly as they bound his limbs. Still his throat strained, his chest vibrated with muffled howls of rage.
It was the skin of his own sons that bound him, torn from their living bodies. They lived still, bound to pikes that jutted up from the earth like bones from a compound fracture. Their mouths weren't bound -- but with their tongues cut out, they were as wordless as he.
"Roboute. Shh."
A voice like honey, like ink and incense and charred flesh. A hand in his hair, and another clutching his chin. He tried to shake them off with a twist of his head, baring his teeth as he glared up at the daemon-brother-traitor-bastard who had done this to him. Lorgar smiled, the glyphs on his skin shining crimson-gold as they twisted and writhed beneath his mitre of horns.
(A small part of Guilliman was amazed at the creature he had become -- how it was more Lorgar than his flesh and bone had ever been. The rest of him cared not what he looked like, as long as he could die.)
"I am so sorry for the deception, brother-dear," he crooned, smiling all the wider, "but you wouldn't have accepted an honest invitation. I've heard you in the night," he continued, and Guilliman tensed with fury and with shame. Lorgar's eyes shone with delight. "Your agony, your loneliness. All of it unnecessary, when your brothers already wait for you. More of us than you know!"
Roboute almost wondered what that meant. But as his brother spoke, the profane bindings were tightening, with the electric agony of misfiring nerve endings. They were digging into his flesh -- they were seeking weak points, he realized, trying to take root inside of him.
"You've finally begun to realize what you are, but I'm worried that your burden will kill you before you work it out completely. So here I am to help you along."
He could not spare Lorgar's madness any acknowledgment. His priority has to be escape, before his brother could see his goals through, whatever they were. But he wasn't strong enough to fight his magics. Not alone. Not as he was. The bindings tightened further still, and he felt something crack, something rupture. His head swam. He couldn't... he needed...
There was a warmth. Just outside of his reach. A light. Just beyond his sight. If he could get to it, he'd be saved. He'd be enough.
As his teeth cracked against each other, as he felt something wet and warm run down his face, he mustered himself. He pushed. He pushed. He pushed.
There was a pain. There was a lack of pain. There was the light all around him, the faithful of a million worlds, his Father's name on their lips. His name on their lips. He plunged headlong into it, as his body caught alight.