Daedren sat alone in the quiet confines of his chamber, the dim glow of a lumen globe casting long shadows across the metal walls. The barracks had grown familiar over the weeks since his return, yet they now felt strange to him, like a mask worn over something deeper, something unseen. He had lived through hell in the warp, through fire and madness, through the death of his brothers, yet here he was, alive and whole, with no scars or marks beyond the ones he’d carried into that cursed world.
His mind churned with doubts. Every sensation, every moment since his return, felt real enough, the scent of oil and smoke in the forge, the weight of his shields, the camaraderie of his brothers as they trained. And yet, how could he trust it? Everything on the rift world had felt real too. He had smelled the stench of Chaos spawn, felt the heat of their corrupt breath against his armor, heard the screams of his brothers as they fell.
Daedren clenched his fists, his gauntleted fingers digging into his knees. The memory of Vulkan’s plea lingered in his mind, clear and sharp despite the haze of doubt clouding everything else. Help me. Find me. The words burned within him, a flame that refused to be extinguished.
His thoughts turned to another question, one he had been avoiding. He had spent weeks in the presence of Chaos energy, surrounded by its malevolent tendrils and whispers. How could he have emerged unscathed? No mortal, or even Astartes, walked away from such exposure without being tainted, without carrying the shadow of corruption in their soul. Yet he had returned whole, unmarked. That fact alone gnawed at him like a rat chewing through steel.
Had he been purified somehow? If so, by what force? Or was the lack of corruption itself the sign of something worse? The absence of Chaos taint might have been a deception, a slow-acting poison waiting for the right moment to reveal itself. Daedren shook his head. He couldn’t afford to spiral into paranoia, yet the questions wouldn’t stop coming.
The sirens. The day they had first been summoned to action.
Daedren froze as the thought struck him like a hammer blow. He replayed the memory, examining every detail with the precision of a forge master assessing a flawed blade. The summons had come suddenly, the alarm blaring through the fortress and their orders following shortly after. The urgency, the call to battle, it had been so clear in his mind. But now, as he thought back, he realized something was wrong.
Stolen story; please report.
The sirens hadn’t sounded.
On that day, there had been no warning klaxon, no familiar rising wail that signaled a call to action. He had assumed, in the chaos of preparation, that he had simply missed it. But now, with the memory brought to the surface, he saw it plainly. The sirens hadn’t gone off, and yet they had mobilized anyway.
And more than that: the day after their supposed departure to the Chaos-infected world had been completely ordinary. The schedules, the routines, everything had been as if nothing unusual had occurred. There had been no briefing, no debriefing, no mention of their return.
Daedren’s breathing quickened, and his pulse thundered in his ears. Was it time travel? Had someone or something turned back the clock, rewriting the events of that day? Or had some entity intervened, sparing him and his brothers from a darker fate? The possibilities spun in his mind, each one more confounding than the last.
A darker thought slithered into his mind, one he could not ignore. What if Chaos had run far deeper than he had ever imagined? What if the infection wasn’t on a distant world but here, hidden within the fortress, or worse, within them? Could they have been manipulated, drawn into a trap that was still unfolding? The questions were a vortex, pulling him deeper into doubt and fear.
Daedren stood abruptly, his shields catching the light as he turned to the door. He had to find answers. He couldn’t remain in this limbo, questioning everything around him, doubting the reality of his own existence. If there were forces at play greater than Chaos, forces that had spared him or rewritten time itself, then he needed to understand them.
And if the shadow of Chaos was here, within the Chapter itself, he needed to root it out. No matter the cost.
He reached for his helm, the familiar weight steadying him as he placed it over his head. The visor’s display flickered to life, its readouts grounding him in the present moment. The world might have been an illusion, but his purpose was not. He would find the truth, through fire, through battle, through whatever trials lay ahead.
As he stepped into the corridor, the faint hum of machinery filled the air, blending with the distant voices of his brothers. Daedren’s resolve burned bright, a forge-lit flame that would not be extinguished. Chaos had cast him into darkness, but he would wield that darkness as a weapon. And if Vulkan’s words held truth, if the plea of his Primarch was more than just a dream, then Daedren would find him. Whatever it took.