#primarch angron

Anvitha, princess to the ‘Kingdom of Veylorn’ if they could even call themselves that anymore, walked home along the marble causeway, bare feet in sandals, her robe, the colour of unbleached linen: the garb of an acolyte of The Way. The midday sun had now turned a mellow thing, filtered through high clouds that turned their world into a watercolour. She carried her slate and stylus in one arm, the other tucked behind her back the way her tutor insisted. Posture was philosophy, her people believed. If you carried your body like a weapon, your mind would follow.

She had spent the morning in the Hall of Still Waters, where the elders taught the old doctrine: how breath could become a door, how attention could become a lamp, how anger could be observed until it softened into something useful. Recently the Hall had gained a second curriculum, newer and stranger. Words brought by strangers with polished boots and bright banners.

The Imperial Truth.

The Iterators who had come to the planet spoke of it with a preacher’s certainty, the kind that made even truth feel like a blade. No gods, they said. No spirits. No fate. Only reason and the Emperor’s light, only the Great Crusade, only unity. They delivered the doctrine as if it were mercy, and perhaps, to many, it was. To Anvitha it felt like a storm cloud parked politely on the horizon, pretending to be part of the landscape.

She had been curious in class, careful in her questions. She had quickly learnt that curiosity was allowed, dissent was not. The Imperium liked questions the way a surgeon liked a patient’s pain: informative, expected, contained. But if the same questions dared challenge the basis of their own understanding, those were quickly silenced.

As she crossed the last bridge into the palace gardens, she saw the new additions to her childhood world.

An aquila carved into the gate arch, fresh cut, its edges too sharp compared to the softened motifs of her people. A squad of armored men at the outer steps, faces hidden behind visors, still as statues. And on the far lawn, work crews erecting a tall plinth that would soon bear a figure in metal: the Emperor, or perhaps the Imperial eagle, or perhaps both in the same inevitable shape. The palace grounds, once devoted to lilies and fountains, now held the scent of oil and iron.

Anvitha slowed, sensing a disturbance long before she reached it. The servants moved differently today. Eyes lowered faster. Hands folded tighter. Voices kept behind clenched teeth.

Her steps took her into the central arcade, where the formal, heavy cadence of Imperial diction flowed from multiple mouths. Anvitha wondered how even in language they were so different. Her people spoke as if each sentence were a drop in a bowl set down gently. The voices for the Imperium spoke as if each sentence were a seal pressed into wax. Final. Irrevocable.

A small part of her wanted to turn back. Another part, steadier, said: walk forward. Her tutors had taught her that fear was a river. One did not stop it by denying the water. One stepped in, one breath at a time, and one crossed.

And so, she entered the audience chamber.

Her parents sat on the low throne dais, side by side. Where one they seemed the very picture of dignity and pride, she now saw a couple bearing the crown as though it were a weight unbearable. Her father held himself upright, but Anvitha noticed the little things. He had called her his precocious one. And now, the same trait her father so loved, caused her to notice how his hands were clasped too tightly; how her mother had a tremor at her mouth that only surfaced when she held back her emotions from the scrutiny of others. Their attendants, all more friends than servants, stood behind her parents, their postures too still, too formal, as though there was some fragile peace that might crack at the slightest movement.

Before them, with their backs towards her, draped in pale silk with a red edging, stood two Iterators of the Imperium.

They weren’t tall men, not when compared to the ‘Emperor’s Angels’ from Fulgrim’s retinue who now stood guard all over their palace. Lord Fulgrim had suggested it was a gift. A show of respect that his own men would now guard the palace… make sure everyone could sleep at peace. They knew what it truly meant. And now, Anvitha knew that they were attempting another slight, as though to see how far their world would bend.

The Iterators turned as Anvitha entered, and for a heartbeat the chamber held its breath.

The elder of the two looked her up and down without shame. His gaze was quick, economical, as if he were assessing livestock. The younger smiled in a way that did not reach his eyes.

“Princess Anvitha,” the elder said. His pronunciation of her name was perfect, and somehow that made it worse. It meant he had studied her like a file.

Anvitha bowed, as etiquette demanded, palms together at her sternum. “Honoured Iterators.”

The younger one tipped his head. “Is she the one?”

Her father’s eyes flicked toward Anvitha and away again. Her mother did not look up at all. The silence stretched thin, tight as a string.

“Yes,” her mother whispered at last, and the sound of her voice was wrong. Smaller. Like someone speaking from behind a closed door.

The elder Iterator stepped closer. With nary a preamble, he reached out and took Anvitha’s chin between finger and thumb, turning her face slightly as if checking bone structure, skin tone, the symmetry of her features. She felt the pressure, the indignity, the heat rising in her chest. The teachings urged: observe the anger, do not become it.

So, she breathed.

In. Hold. Out.

Up close, the elder Iterator smelled faintly of spiced oils and ink. His nails on his fingers that still clutched at her chin were clean and trimmed. That detail struck Anvitha with absurd clarity, as if her mind were trying to anchor itself with something small.

“She will do,” he said at last, and released her like an object set down.

She felt her cheeks burn with the indignation of his assessment. Yet, her hands remained folded, and her eyes remained calm. She would not diminish her own people by indulging in some base display of anger.

The elder turned back to the King, her father. “Compliance is a relationship of mutual obligation. Your world has been granted the Emperor’s protection. You will now demonstrate your world’s continued loyalty in a manner suitable to its… station.”

The younger Iterator’s smile returned. “A bond, Your Majesty. A pledge made flesh.”

Anvitha felt her stomach tighten at the phrase, though she did not yet understand what it meant.

The King’s throat moved. “We understand.”

The elder tapped the scroll that the younger one held with one finger, as if reminding them that paper, when written with the right words and sanctified with the right seals could become fire.

“Good. Preparations will proceed immediately.”

They bowed to the throne, though it was clear that there was no deference in it at all. For Anvitha, no bow was to be accorded.

After the sashay of their robes became a faint echo over their marble floors, the throne room descended into silence once more.

For a long time, Anvitha stood where she was, where her legs had suddenly forgotten how to move. When the silence dragged on, only to be punctuated by her mother’s soft sobs, she turned to look at them, her eyes darting from the sad, stoic face of her father to the bent, trembling form of her mother.

“What was that?” Anvitha asked softly. The words came out steady, which surprised her. “Why did he… touch me like that?”

The King’s gaze finally met hers. There was apology in it, and grief, and something else she did not want to name.

The Queen shook her head as she pressed the edge of her shawl onto her lips, seeking to dampen her cries.

Behind the dais, a side door opened and her elder brother entered. Prince Rael, heir to Veylorn, wore his ceremonial sash, the one threaded with pearls and the old glyphs of their dynasty. He had never been cruel, exactly. He had simply been… absent, as though siblinghood were an inconvenience that did not fit his future.

Today, he looked awake in a way Anvitha had never seen.

He did not bother with preamble. “You’ve been chosen.”

Anvitha blinked, confusion clouding her mind. “Chosen for what?”

Her brother’s jaw tightened. “For marriage.”

The word fell like stone into water. The ripples spread through her body before her mind caught up.

Anvitha’s lips parted, and for a moment nothing came out. She looked between her parents, waiting for them to contradict him, to laugh, to tell her it was a misunderstanding.

The Queen was now openly sobbing, her cries wracking through her body as she covered her face.

The King exhaled, long and heavy. “Anvitha…”

She heard the tremor in her father’s voice and felt something inside her rearrange itself.

“To whom?” she asked. Her mind reached for the nearest frame it could tolerate. The Imperium had brought many new figures into their sky. Among them, the most dazzling had been the Emperor’s Children, resplendent in polished plate, voices like music, manners like performance. They had spoken to her people with a sort of radiant confidence, as if beauty itself were a strategy they could use to win hearts and worlds.

So, Anvitha said, almost reflexively, “Is it to Lord Fulgrim?”

Her brother let out a short breath that might have been a laugh if there had been any humor left in the room.

The Queen shook her head hard, like a person trying to shake off a nightmare. Tears spilled between her fingers.

“No,” she whispered. “No, my love.”

Anvitha’s fingers curled around her slate until the edge bit her palm.

The King’s voice came quietly, carefully, like someone approaching a wounded animal. Or like a healer declaring the inevitable.

“You are to be wed,” he said, “to the Primarch Angron.”

For a moment, the world around her was silent, except for the blood rushing in her ears. It was a long moment in which she remembered she had stopped breathing on reflex.

Angron.

Even on a world such as theirs that preached calm, that name had reached them like thunder.

It travelled ahead of the Imperium’s ships, carried in rumour and offhand comment, in the tense silences of visiting officials, in the sharp way the palace guard straightened when the XII Legion’s designation appeared on a dispatch. The World Eaters, a legion that was said to bend worlds to their bidding and consume them… living up to their name. And a Primarch who oversaw it like an ancient god of wrath: The Red Angel, they whispered to children to get them to behave.

Anvitha had never seen him. Yet she could already see him in the fearful imagination of her people: a giant with teeth bared, a living execution.

She heard her own voice, and it sounded far away. “Why?”

Her brother answered first, brisk, as if the haste in his reply might make cruelty easier to swallow. “Because if we refuse, we are deemed unreliable. Because the Imperium has a thousand ways to punish a world that hesitates. Because this is the price of safety.”

Anvitha looked at her father. “Is that true?”

The King’s eyes shone. “There is… pressure,” he admitted. “There are factions within the Imperium who would make an example of any newly compliant world that fails to display devotion. We have fought to keep Veylorn intact. We have conceded tithes. We have conceded laws. We have conceded doctrine.”

His voice broke on the last word, and Anvitha realized he hated himself for it.

“And now?” she asked.

Her mother made a thin, strangled sound. “Now they ask for you.”

Anvitha’s mind tried to do what human minds always did when faced with horror: it reached for some semblance of the familiar. And for her, it was the teachings of her tutors. On technique. Breath. Stillness. Detachment. She let herself sink inward, toward the old teachings, toward the quiet pond where thoughts could float without drowning her.

Yet something stubborn remained at the surface.

Her younger sister, Lysa.

Fifteen years old, still laughing in the gardens, still believing the world would never demand her blood.

The servants. The farmers beyond the city. The children who attended the Hall of Still Waters and thought philosophy could protect them.

“If I say no,” Anvitha said slowly, “they will….” She couldn’t bring herself to complete that sentence.

Her father did not answer with words. His silence was elucidative enough.

Anvitha’s throat tightened. She found that her palms were sweating. She steadied them against her robe, a small, private act of composure.

“Angron,” she whispered again, tasting the name. It did not belong in her mouth. It belonged in battle hymns and warning tales.

Her brother’s voice went colder. “The Imperium calls it an honour.”

The Queen lifted her head then, eyes red, and her gaze finally met Anvitha’s. In it was apology so deep it looked like devotion. “We did not choose this,” she said, as if that could be a comfort. “We begged. We bartered. We offered everything else. They said this was the only guarantee. That their Emperor mandated this himself!”

Anvitha swallowed. The room felt suddenly smaller, darker.

In the quiet that followed, she could hear the water channels outside, still singing their soft song, unaware that the palace had just become a place of mourning.

Anvitha looked down at her slate, at the notes she had taken that morning about reason and unity and the promise of peace under the Imperial Truth.

A line from her elder’s teaching rose unbidden in her mind: Peace is not the absence of violence. Peace is the presence of choice.

She had thought it meant choosing calm over anger.

She understood now that it could also mean choosing sacrifice over annihilation.

When she lifted her head again, her voice did not shake. Something in her had gone quiet in the way a blade went quiet after it was drawn.

“Then tell me what I must do,” she said.

Her mother began to cry in earnest, as though the words had signed the decree all over again.

Her father rose from the dais and stepped down toward her, slow, like each step weighed a lifetime. He reached out, stopped short of touching her face, and instead placed his hand over his heart in the old gesture of blessing among their people.

“You must live,” he said hoarsely. “You must endure.”

Anvitha held his gaze and felt, somewhere deep inside, a small ember of resolve begin to glow.

If she was being sent to a monster, she could not change that.

She could choose what she carried into the dark. She could choose what she refused to become.

Outside, the palace bells rang the hour with gentle clarity.

Inside, the first funeral preparations of a wedding began.

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The days following the decree taught Veylorn’s Crown and her people a new kind of silence. The household continued to move as always because it had to. Jasmine and sun warmed stone filled the air with their fragrance, the silver fountains sang, and the lilies within still held their floating haloes of light.

And yet, every footstep within carried the weight of what everyone knew but could not utter out loud. The servants’ hands trembled as they pinned the pennant banners that normally meant celebrations were afoot. The courtiers spoke softly, as though the words they uttered might invite disaster if it reached the wrong ears. Even the birds in the cypress around the palace seemed to fall silent, their voices swallowed by the presence of Imperial sentries stationed at every archway like decorative threats.

Amidst all this, Anvitha’s chambers became a place of gathering for the women of the household.

They arrived in waves, as tradition demanded: aunts, cousins, elder attendants who had once rocked Anvitha as a child, younger girls who had grown up watching her move through the palace like a quiet current. They brought bolts of silk, baskets of petals, combs carved from sandalwood, small jars of ink to be used for ceremonial markings.

Outwardly, the preparations for a grand celebration was underway but inside, it felt like dressing a beloved for burial while insisting the word “funeral” must never be spoken.

Anvitha sat in the center of the celebrations as some hung garlands over the doorway, and others sang the bridal hymns of her people in voices thin with effort. Her hands lay neatly folder over her lap as she breathed the way Master Sileth, her tutor had taught her.

In. Hold. Out.

Observe the fear. Do not become it.

And still, she felt it. Fear did not vanish because one was disciplined. It simply became a thing carried with a straighter spine.

Her younger sister, Lysa, did not have that discipline yet.

The girl had been inconsolable since the morning Anvitha’s father spoke the name Angron. She moved through the chambers like a storm that refused to break, eyes red, mouth set, hands clenching and unclenching as if she meant to punch the universe until it apologized.

When the attendants offered her sweets in the way they always did to soothe children, she pushed the plate away so sharply the silver dish rang a bright note as it clattered to the floor.

“Don’t,” she snapped, voice cracking. “Don’t pretend this is normal.”

One of Anvitha’s aunts tried, valiantly, to scold her into composure. “Lysa, your sister must be serene.”

Lysa’s head whipped around. “Serene?” she spat. “She’s being sent to a monster.”

The word monster hung in the air like incense smoke, bitter and inescapable.

Several of the women made the old protective gesture, thumb brushing the waterlily pendant at their throat. A superstition, that. Veylorn’s people had their own quiet rituals, even as the Iterators insisted such things were childish remnants of pre-compliance ignorance.

Anvitha reached for Lysa’s hands, catching them before the girl could fling them into another helpless gesture of rage.

“Breathe,” Anvitha murmured.

Lysa shook her head hard, tears spilling. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.” Anvitha pressed Lysa’s knuckles between her palms, grounding touch the way her people had practiced for generations. “With me.”

In. Hold. Out.

Lysa tried, failed and then, tried again. The third breath came with a sob that sounded like the breaking of something precious.

“I don’t want you to go,” the girl whispered. “I don’t want you to be brave. I want you to be here. I want you to… I want you to stay where I can see you.”

Anvitha’s throat tightened. She leaned forward and kissed her sister’s brow, careful not to smudge the gentle lines of sandalwood paste that adorned the younger girl’s skin.

“I will be with you,” she said softly. “Even when I am far.”

Lysa clung to her like a drowning girl clung to driftwood, and the attendants turned their faces away as if this were a private moment between sisters and not the aching center of the palace’s collective grief.

Later, when Lysa had been coaxed out to eat and sleep, the preparations continued with the meticulous thoroughness of tradition.

Anvitha was bathed in water drawn from the Still Lake, a ritual meant to symbolize continuity and calm. The water was warmed and steeped with pale herbs that smelled faintly of rain. Elder women poured it over her hair while humming a hymn meant for joy.

Their voices trembled anyway.

They dressed her first in linen, then in the ceremonial wrap dyed in the soft blue of Veylorn’s lakes, edged in silver. They braided her hair with thin chains of moonstone, combing through it slowly, reverently, like one might comb the hair of someone dear who is meant to leave and not return.

Then came the markings.

A jar of ink was opened, the same ink they used for meditation rites. Spiraling sigils were painted along Anvitha’s palms and wrists, mapping the old pathways of calm over the places where pulse beat strongest. The pattern was beautiful, delicate, precise.

It was also to be her armour.

As they worked, whispers moved through the room in threads.

“Do you think he will be there?”

“They say he does not care much for ceremonies. They say he prefers war.”

“They say he is half-demon.”

They spoke in fragments, as if speaking full sentences would make the horror too real.

Anvitha listened without reacting, letting the words pass through her mind like wind through the cypress boughs. She steeled her mind in a defiant refusal to allow fear command over her.

Yet a question kept returning, persistent as the drop of water claiming space in an ocean.

Would she meet him?

Would she see his face before the vows bound her to him in the eyes of the Imperium?

When an Iterator arrived to oversee the integration of Imperial rites into the ceremony, Anvitha chose her moment.

He stood near the doorway with his data-slate, robe immaculate, expression bored. Behind him lingered two armoured Astartes from the IIIrd, silent as statues.

Anvitha stepped forward, hands folded in front of her, voice smooth.

“Honoured Iterator,” she said. “May I ask a question of procedure?”

He did not look up from the slate. “Speak.”

“Will I meet my betrothed before the wedding?”

The Iterator finally raised his eyes, and something sharp slid into his gaze, like a hook.

Then he scoffed.

“Meet him?” He laughed once, short and derisive. “Girl, do you think you’re being sent a courting poet? Are you desperate to die?”

Anvitha held her expression steady, though the insult pricked like nettle. “I seek understanding.”

The Iterator’s mouth twisted. “Understanding is a luxury, you can ill afford now, girl. Your function and that of your people is compliance.” He glanced at her attire, at the ceremonial blue and silver, and dismissed it with a flicker of contempt. “Be grateful your world is permitted to keep its quaint customs.”

He turned away before she could speak again, leaving her alone there, feeling the sting settle in her chest.

Then she exhaled slowly.

In. Hold. Out.

She left the chambers and walked, barefoot and silent, through the palace corridors toward the one place that still belonged to her people rather than to Imperial schedules.

The Hall of Still Waters.

Master Sileth waited by the central pool, seated as he always was, hands resting loosely on his knees. The water reflected the ceiling’s pale stone, lilies drifting like thoughts.

Anvitha knelt beside him without speaking at first. The quiet between them was familiar, a shared language older than words.

Finally, she said, “He laughed at me.”

Master Sileth’s gaze lifted to her face, calm and attentive. “The Iterator?”

“Yes.” Anvitha’s voice remained controlled. That control cost her something. “I asked if I would meet my husband before the vows.”

“And?”

“He asked if I was desperate to die.”

Master Sileth’s fingers dipped into the pool, causing the ripples to spread in rings across the surface. “They want you afraid. Fear makes obedience easier.”

Anvitha stared at the ripples. “Should I be afraid?”

“Yes,” he answered, so simply it felt like honesty made tangible. “Fear is reasonable.”

Anvitha swallowed. “Then what is the point of my training?”

Master Sileth’s gaze sharpened with quiet affection. “Fear is a tool. It can govern you, or it can inform you. Your training does not erase fear. It prevents fear from becoming your master.”

Anvitha’s hands tightened around the edge of her robe. “They speak of him like he is a beast.”

“He is a being shaped by war and suffering,” Master Sileth said gently. “Many beasts are made that way.”

Anvitha’s breath caught on something she did not want to name. “And if I cannot endure?”

Master Sileth reached out and took one of her inked hands, studying the spiral markings on her palm as though reading scripture.

“You have learned to steady another’s breath,” he said. “You have learned to hold a storm without letting it drown you. That is rare. That is why they chose you.”

The cold clarity of that sank into her.

They had not chosen her only because she was royal. They had chosen her because her culture had honed something the Imperium wanted to use.

Anvitha whispered, “To make him… manageable.”

Master Sileth did not deny it. Instead, he smiled as he gently brushed some of her hair behind her ear, the way he always did since she was a child.

“Then remember this,” he said softly. “If your calm becomes a chain, it will break you. If your calm becomes a choice, it will sustain you. Choose it again and again. Even in a warship. Even in a monster’s shadow.”

Anvitha closed her eyes and breathed until the knot in her chest loosened enough to be bearable.

When she rose, she felt no less afraid. But now, she felt less alone inside her fear.

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The day of the wedding dawned on a sky so bright, it felt indecent.

Veylorn’s people had always revered the waters of their world, believing that wedding vows and the binding of souls should be done near water, as a reminder of continuity, of eternity.

The main courtyard had been transformed: lily pools had lanterns floating amidst the blooms, flower petals were scattered everywhere like blessings, an archway of woven reeds and moonstone beads were set at where the actual ceremony was to take place.

Beside it, the Imperium had erected its own symbols with stiff insistence.

Aquila standards stood like watchful sentinels. A lectern had been placed near the archway, bearing a scroll of oath-terms sealed in red wax. The officiant wore Imperial robes. His voice carried the cadence of law rather than the softness of blessing.

Two rituals braided together. Water and wax. Flower petals and sealed decrees. Quiet hymns and proclamations.

Anvitha stood at the center, veiled in pale silk, her hands inked with spirals, the waterlily pendant cold against her throat.

And beside her, where a groom should have been, there was only an empty space.

Angron, her husband-to-be was absent.

The reason was spoken with a kind of resigned reverence by the Imperials. “Conquest,” they said. “A campaign.” As if a war were merely an unavoidable appointment.

Anvitha watched her people glance toward the empty place and flinch, as though the absence itself was an insult.

Then the air changed.

A ripple moved through the gathered crowd like wind through tall grass. Heads turned. Conversations died mid-breath.

Three figures entered the courtyard who made even the palace seem smaller.

Lord Fulgrim came first, radiant and precise, armor gleaming like art made deadly. His smile was bright, effortless, and a little too amused, as if he found the solemnity charming.

Horus followed, broader, his presence warm in a way that was its own kind of power. When he looked at the assembled courtiers, people straightened instinctively, hungry for his approval.

Then Lorgar entered, quieter, eyes thoughtful, the script etched into his armor catching sunlight like prayer caught in metal.

Anvitha’s heart thudded once, hard.

These were the Emperor’s sons. Just like her husband-to-be.

They had seemed like legends told around wintery campfires up until then. Now, with them so close, she could hear the soft hiss of their armour’s systems, the measured rhythm of their breathing.

Fulgrim approached them first, his gaze sweeping over Anvitha’s attire with open appreciation.

“Princess,” he said, voice smooth as silk. “I see that your people have prepared for the wedding so beautifully. Your world has beauty. Even under integration, it has not forgotten elegance. That pleases me.”

It sounded like a compliment. It also sounded like a verdict.

Anvitha bowed. “Lord Primarch.”

Fulgrim’s eyes flicked toward the empty place at her side, and his smile sharpened. “My brother Angron is… well.” He lifted a shoulder delicately, as if discussing a troublesome sibling at a dinner party. “A challenge. You will need patience. Or extraordinary luck.”

His tone was light. The implication beneath it however was heavy. It was almost like he wished to see just where and how far this charade of a marriage would lead.

“My brother is prone to theatrics, princess. I would take his words with half the care he thinks it deserves,” an amused voice boomed from behind Fulgrim.

Horus Lupercal. The supposed favourite of their Emperor… no, no longer just theirs, was he? Anvitha lowered her head in respect.

Horus stepped forward next. His face held a special kind of warmth and underneath it, there was a semblance of assessment, as though she were a soldier he could recruit into his legion

“You are composed,” he said, at last. “That is not a small thing.”

Anvitha met his eyes for a moment before lowering them to her feet. “It is an honour, your lordship. We hope the Emperor and Lord Angron are happy with what little we have to offer.”

Horus’s mouth softened briefly. “The honour is ours, my lady. May your days with my brother be… happy,” he said, and it sounded almost like counsel and a prayer offered in earnest to a person rather than a comment on a planet’s ransom. She bowed her head once more, a show of gratitude for the Primarch’s wishes.

Then came the third, Lorgar Aurelian, their diplomats had informed them. A man whose face bore strange markings that were at once familiar to the spirals and shapes she bore across her palms. He smiled gently; his eyes were a gorgeous violet. And for a moment, Anvitha forgot all her worries.

“Anvitha,” he said quietly, using her name as though it mattered. “I am sorry. I hope you will come to see my brother for more than what tales make of him.”

The words startled her more than Fulgrim’s glittering charm or Horus’s warmth.

“I am honoured to have been chosen, your lordship. I shall endeavour to be obedient, and loving,” Anvitha whispered, her voice trembling only a little as she clasped her hands tighter together, hoping against hope that something would happen to change her fate that day. A fool’s hope, she knew.

“I know,” Lorgar said softly. His gaze held hers without judgment. “Angron is my brother. He is wounded in ways most cannot imagine. I hope you can see beyond the hurt to where a caring heart may yet reside.”

Anvitha lowered her head, because hope was a dangerous thing and she could feel it trying to bloom anyway.

Then, the ceremony began.

A bowl of water from the Still Lake was carried forward by elder women. Anvitha dipped her fingers into it and let droplets fall onto the stone, blessing continuity.

Then the Imperial officiant read the terms of bond and compliance in a voice that made marriage sound like legislation. Wax seals were displayed. Witnesses signed. A proxy stepped forward to represent Angron, armoured and anonymous, his presence a reminder that this union was less love and more treaty.

Anvitha spoke her vow anyway, voice steady.

The proxy spoke Angron’s vow by rote.

Rings were exchanged, one delicate band for her finger, one massive ring placed on the proxy’s gloved hand as symbolic placeholder, heavy enough to look obscene.

When the final proclamation rang out, it felt like a hammer striking stone.

“By the authority of the Imperium of Man and under the auspices of the venerable Emperor of Mankind, this union is recognized.”

A cheer rose from the Imperials, crisp and satisfied.

From Anvitha’s people, the sound that followed was complicated. Relief and grief tangled together, a wave that could not decide whether to crash or retreat. Some wept openly. Some bowed their heads as if prayer might reach the void between worlds.

Anvitha stood in the center of it, newly bound, and felt her mother’s gaze like a wound. Her father’s shoulders looked as though they carried ten lifetimes. Her brother watched as if he were forcing himself not to feel anything at all. And then there was Lysa.

Lysa’s eyes never left Anvitha’s face. They were furious, pleading, shattered.

After the ceremony came the swift, merciless part.

Departure.

An Imperial official approached with a data-slate and the kind of politeness that felt like a blade kept clean.

“Princess Anvitha. Your transport is prepared. You will board immediately.”

Anvitha’s mouth went dry. “So soon?”

The official regarded her with a look that barely hid his irritation. “You are now the wife of a Primarch. Things will now happen as mandated by the Emperor and his venerable son, your lord husband.”

She swallowed whatever bitter retort she had bubbling up to her lips and turned to her father who looked on, helpless and sorry.

“I apologize, lord Iterator. Where must I go to embark?”

The official lifted his chin as if announcing an honor. “You will travel aboard Lord Lorgar’s flagship. The Fidelitas Lex.”

A murmur rolled through the crowd.

It began as confusion, then sharpened into resentment.

“He didn’t even send a ship,” someone whispered, thinking Anvitha would not hear.

“No escort from his legion. No colours. No presence.”

“As if she is nothing to him.”

The words stung because they were true enough to be believable.

Anvitha heard them, let them pass through her, and kept her spine straight. Her face held the façade of calm as she nodded, acknowledging how her life seemed to now be at the Imperium’s mercy and schedule.

Lorgar approached her then, and his presence steadied the air around him.

“You will travel with us,” he said, voice low enough that it felt like a private promise. “It was deemed efficient.”

Anvitha looked up at him. “I am honoured, your lordship. It is…Efficient. Like moving cargo.”

A flicker of pain crossed Lorgar’s eyes, quick and human. “Yes,” he admitted. “Like that.”

He paused, then continued with gentleness that did not erase the truth. “Angron’s absence is not necessarily contempt. He is… indisposed. War is the only structure he trusts. Courtesy is a language he was never allowed to learn.”

Anvitha’s fingers tightened around the pendant at her throat. “And if he has no regard for me?”

“Then you will have my regard aboard my ship,” Lorgar said softly. “You will have protection. You will have company, if you desire it. And you will have my honesty.”

His gaze held hers. “You may yet find him reasonable, Anvitha. In his own way. I will not offer you false comfort. I will offer you a handhold in a dark place.”

Anvitha lowered her head in acquiescence because that was what was expected, and because, privately, she did not trust herself to speak more without her voice breaking.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Then she turned toward her family.

Her mother came to her first, hands shaking, touching Anvitha’s cheeks as though memorizing the shape of her face. She whispered blessings that sounded like prayers old enough to outlive empires.

Her father held her hands, his grip tight, eyes shining.

“Live,” he said again, hoarse. “However you must. Live.”

Her brother stood back, stiff. When he finally spoke, his voice was brittle with the effort of being dignified. “You will be remembered as the one who saved our world.”

Anvitha looked at him, saw the cowardice beneath the crown, and did not scold him. Compassion did not always feel warm. Sometimes it felt like swallowing bitterness so it could not poison you later.

Then Lysa broke through the attendants and threw herself at Anvitha.

The girl clutched her so hard it hurt, face pressed into Anvitha’s shoulder.

“Promise me,” Lysa choked. “Promise me you won’t let him turn you into something else.”

Anvitha held her sister, breathing slowly, letting the girl’s grief shake against her body like thunder.

“I promise,” Anvitha whispered into her hair. “I will remain myself. Even if I have to fight for it with breath alone.”

Lysa sobbed, clinging.

An Imperial officer cleared his throat pointedly. Even farewell, it would seem, had a schedule.

Anvitha drew back, brushed tears from her sister’s face with an inked thumb, then turned toward the waiting transport craft.

The ship that would carry her up to Fidelitas Lex sat on the landing platform like a sleek predator, its ramp lowered, mouth open.

Anvitha stepped forward, her veil fluttering in the wind. Behind her, the palace bells rang as they always did, bright and gentle, as though time did not understand what it had just taken from them.

She did not look back again, because she knew if she did, she might shatter.

The ramp rose. The engines thrummed.

Veylorn’s Crown shrank below her into a jewel of white stone and water and aching gentleness.

Ahead, the sky deepened into void.

Anvitha pressed her palm to her water lily pendant once more, felt the cool metal, and breathed.

In. Hold. Out.

She was a bride. She was a treaty. She was a sacrifice dressed in silk.

And she was also, stubbornly, a healer trained for storms.

As the Fidelitas Lex loomed in orbit like a cathedral made of iron, Anvitha felt her future waiting with its mouth open.

She lifted her chin and stepped into it.

There we go! We've set the ball rolling!! I know I ought to finish the ones I have ongoing before I write more... but this idea would NOT LEAVE ME ALONE!! So, now that this is out there, my brain will let me focus on the other works more!

Also, this would mean that the next update will not be until next week! I am fully wrung out and will need some time to recoup my neurons, my friends!