The carriage moved through the streets of Observo Marus like a shadow detached from the night.
It was a fortress on wheels, constructed from Obsidian-blessed wood—a material as rare as it was indestructible, dark as the void and harder than steel. The armor plating was black, etched with intricate silver linings that caught the flicker of the streetlights. The crest of the Imperium, the Great Raven, was emblazoned on both doors, a silent warning to any who dared look too long.
Inside, the cabin was a cocoon of silence and velvet. The suspension, enchanted and engineered to perfection, absorbed every vibration of the road.
Corvin sat in the corner of the plush seat, his gauntleted hand resting heavily on the armrest. He was staring at the partition, but he wasn't seeing the carriage.
He was seeing the past.
He was seeing the dirt under his fingernails in the Crucible. He was seeing the way Jonas had looked at him—with that terrible, heartbreaking mix of fear and hope. He was hearing the echo of his father's silence, a silence that had stretched across twenty years to find him again today.
Corvin didn't realize the carriage had stopped. He didn't realize the lift had carried him up the spine of the Central Tower. He moved on instinct, the autopilot of a man who had trained himself to function even when his soul was bleeding.
The doors to the private chambers slid open, and then sealed shut behind him with a heavy, final thud.
The sound snapped the thread of his dissociation.
Corvin blinked. The room was warm. The scent of the ocean and woodsmoke hung in the air, overlaid with the faint, sweet perfume of lavender.
Kyra was standing by the hearth.
She turned as he entered. She wore a slip of silver silk, loose and flowing, a stark contrast to the rigid black armor that encased him.
Corvin stood by the door, intending to give her a nod, to perhaps say something about the sector's stability or the Ethnarch's report. He intended to keep the Mask—the face of the Raven Lord, the impassive God of Order—firmly in place until he could compose himself.
But then she looked at him.
Her eyes didn't search for the Emperor. They found the man. She saw the cracks in the obsidian that no one else was permitted to see.
"Corvin," she whispered.
That single word, spoken in the sanctuary of their shared space, shattered him.
The Mask didn't just crack; it fell away. It wasn't a choice. It was a surrender. It was the involuntary collapse of a man who had been holding up the sky for too long and finally found the one place where he was allowed to put it down.
His shoulders slumped. The terrifying violet light in his eyes dimmed to a bruised, weary purple.
Kyra crossed the room. She didn't run, but she moved with an urgency that spoke of her own need. She stopped inches from him, her hands hovering over his chest plate.
"You're back," she breathed, her hands resting on the cold metal, warming it.
"I... I almost didn't make it back," Corvin admitted, his voice a ruined gravel, stripped of all its command. "I was lost in it, Kyra. The memories."
"I know," she said fiercely. "I felt you. You were drifting."
She began to undo the clasps of his armor. Her fingers were deft, knowing the mechanism of his defense better than anyone. She stripped the pauldrons, the bracers, the heavy gorget that protected his throat.
With every piece that clattered to the floor, Corvin felt lighter, yet more exposed.
When the final chest plate was removed, leaving him in his sweat-dampened tunic, he didn't step away. He collapsed forward.
He buried his face in the crook of her neck, wrapping his arms around her with a desperation that would have terrified a lesser woman. He held her as if she were the only solid thing in a universe of smoke.
"I saw him," Corvin choked out, the vibration of his voice humming against her skin. "In the boy's eyes. I saw my father."
Kyra wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, holding him tight, absorbing the tremors that racked his frame. She didn't shush him. She didn't tell him it was okay. She simply held him, letting him bleed out the poison of the past.
"He is gone, Corvin," she whispered into his hair. "But you are here. You survived."
"I am the Anchor," he murmured, repeating the title the world gave him, the title he gave himself. "I am supposed to be the stone that does not move."
"You are the Anchor for the world," Kyra corrected him, pulling back just enough to frame his face with her hands. Her gaze was intense, filled with a love that bordered on worship. "You hold the Imperium together. You hold the Legion. You even hold me."
She ran her thumbs over the sharp angles of his cheekbones.
"But even an anchor needs a harbor, Corvin. Even you need a place to rest."
Corvin leaned into her touch, his eyes closing. The tension that had been coiling in his spine since he walked into the orphanage finally unspooled.
"You are my home," he whispered, the admission raw and absolute. "The Citadel is just stone. The Tower is just a vantage point. You are the only place I live."
"Then stay," she commanded softly, rising on her tiptoes to press her forehead against his. "Stay here with me. Let the Raven sleep."
Corvin exhaled, a long, shuddering breath that carried the last of the day's ghosts out of his lungs. He was the Master of the Imperium, the Warlord of Shadow, the tyrant who would burn the world to save a child.
But here, in the circle of Kyra's arms, he was just a man who had found his way back from the dark.
He picked her up, burying his face in her hair again, needing the physical contact to prove he was alive. She clung to him, her dependence on his strength matched only by his dependence on her love.
"I am home," he said. And for the first time that day, he believed it.