The Watcher in Gold
The Black Ship Sanctis Vult drifted like a cathedral without windows, its baroque silhouette swallowing the void.From the observation deck, Aurelius stood with arms folded, the golden plates of his armor almost black in the dim red lumen-strips. The Sanctis Vult was a ship that existed not to travel, but to contain — a fortress-prison for the psykers that would one day feed the Astronomican, and the Emperor's great work.
They had been ordered aboard after Audit of Faith, a deployment so heavy with suspicion that Aurelius could feel the political threads still tugging behind him. This escort mission was supposed to be routine. The psykers were sedated, their cells sealed with hex-steel and layered wards, guarded by Sisters of Silence.
Yet his Observation Haki whispered otherwise.It wasn't sight, nor hearing — it was a ripple through the fabric of will. Threads trembling. Pressure in the air. A storm building where no wind should be.
"Something's wrong," he said quietly.
Seraphine looked up from checking her bolter. Her expression — pale, sharp, eternally calm — didn't change, but she adjusted her stance. "The null-field's restless," she replied. "It's like… walking against the tide. It shouldn't be moving at all."
The Navigator joined them at the viewport, his augmetic eye swiveling to follow some point in the void. His voice was a whisper. "A voice beneath the deckplates, Lord Custodian. Too soft to hear, but it's there. I… I shouldn't be able to notice it."
Aurelius turned to him sharply. "You will not speak of this to anyone outside this deck. Do you understand?"
The Navigator nodded once, trembling.
Deck Thirteen — Psyker Containment
The first clue was in the air.Most Black Ship vaults were cold, stale, dead-smelling — as if the very concept of life had been banished from them. Here, the air was warm. Heavy. It carried the faint tang of incense.
Seraphine's null-field flared instinctively, her presence pressing against the world like a silent bell note. "Something's leaking will into this place," she muttered.
The guards — Sisters of Silence in full ebon plate — made no sound as they allowed Aurelius and Seraphine into the containment corridor. The hex-steel cells stood in perfect formation, each door rune-etched, each ward burning with dull amber light.
But in the middle of the corridor, kneeling before one of the cell doors, was the ship's senior Confessor.Except it wasn't.
Observation Haki unraveled the lie instantly — threads of will leading not to faith, but to deception. His words were liturgy, but the cadence was wrong. Each syllable a code. Each breath a key.
The man turned slowly, his eyes too sharp, too calculating. The aquila around his neck was reversed.
"Alpha Legion," Aurelius said flatly.
The disguise dissolved like smoke. In its place stood a warrior in sea-green armor stripped down for infiltration, vox-scramblers hissing on his gorget. "You shouldn't be here, Custodian," the Alpha operative said. "This one is meant to wake."
Aurelius's gaze flicked past him to the cell door. Inside, the psyker's body convulsed, skin blistering under invisible heat. Warp-light bled from his eyes.
A daemonhost, he realized. A sleeper key. If it awakened here, in the Warp…
The Sabotage Begins
The deck bucked under them. Grav-plating failed, bodies lifted into the air. The Sanctis Vult's gunnery decks roared — not at an enemy, but in blind, chaotic fire. Systems were collapsing.
The Alpha Legion operative lunged. Aurelius met him mid-air, guardian spear clashing with a chainblade. Seraphine dove past them toward the cell door, her null-field flaring into a burning silence that made the psyker inside thrash and scream.
"Hold it!" she shouted. "If it crosses the threshold—"
"I know!" Aurelius barked, shoving the Alpha operative back into the bulkhead. The impact dented the steel, but the traitor recovered instantly, moving with serpentine precision.
Their duel was vicious and close — spear haft smashing against armor, chainblade teeth sparking off auramite. Observation Haki tracked the operative's feints, but every second spent here was a second the daemonhost's birth drew closer.
The Awakening
The cell door bulged outward as if the metal itself were breathing. Warp-light poured through the seams, staining the corridor crimson. The Sisters raised their blades but dared not step closer.
The Alpha operative's grin widened. "You're already too late."
Aurelius didn't bother answering. He drove his spear clean through the traitor's torso, pinning him to the wall. At the same time, he reached deep into himself — past muscle, past bone — into the furnace of will that was his Conqueror's Haki.
It surged outward in a precisely focused burst, touching every mortal mind aboard the ship. No grand wave of intimidation this time — this was a scalpel. Each soldier, tech-priest, and crewman felt the same thing: absolute, unshakable clarity. The daemon's whispers vanished like smoke in a gale.
Seraphine slammed her hand to the door's locking rune, her null aura pouring into the gap. The warp-light sputtered. The psyker screamed, body cracking under the impossible forces tearing at it.
"Mechanicus!" Aurelius bellowed into his vox. "Vent this chamber into the void, now!"
The Silence After
The Alpha operative died without a sound. The cell and its occupant were gone, vented into the endless dark. The Sanctis Vult stabilized, its gunnery decks falling silent.
Hours later, Aurelius stood alone in one of the ship's reliquary chambers. The Inquisitorial handler assigned to the Black Ship approached quietly, his face a mask of diplomacy.
"This will not reach Terra," the handler said. "Nor the Custodes. Nor the Emperor."
Aurelius turned his head slightly. "You would hide this from the Throne?"
The handler met his gaze without flinching. "Because some truths destroy more than they save. If the Black Ships were thought compromised, the chain of the Astronomican would break. You know what that means."
The silence stretched between them. Then Aurelius spoke. "You have my silence."
The handler nodded once. "Then it is sworn. A silent oath."
Epilogue
On the final day of the voyage, Seraphine joined him at the viewport again. They watched Terra grow from a pale ember into the golden blaze of the Imperial Palace.
"You hate this," she said.
"I hate lies," Aurelius replied.
She glanced sideways at him. "Then you'll hate Cadia."
The Black Ship descended toward the Palace docks. Aurelius didn't answer. But in his mind, the oath burned — not in guilt, but as a reminder. Some truths would be buried forever. Others would be wrenched into daylight by his own hand.
And Cadia's Gate… would decide which was which.