It was no secret that she was a servant of the enigmatic techno­mandrites. It was, in truth, her relationship to the arch-engineers of the necrons that had brought her to the gaze of King Szarekh. Courting their favour and seeing her potential, the Silent King had readily agreed to her presence within the matrix expeditions. She wondered if it was simply poor fortune or a degree of cunning circumspection that had seen her placed within the tomb fleet of Simut. Had Szarekh deliberately kept her from the main effort? There was no reason to believe the king harboured any suspicions. If so, he was not the sort to indulge potential traitors, even if they came with the seal of the techno­mandrites. Simpler to believe that Ah-hotep had been placed with Simut because the king knew his cousin was incompetent.

If only Szarekh had seen fit to give her full access to the command protocols.

Instead she had nothing. She accessed the technomandrite dimensional wave transmitter and processed a fresh missive. There was little of note to report and as always she received no reply, not even an acknowledgement that her signal had been picked up.

Resigned to a future of irrelevancy, she closed the dimensional transmitter and relocated back to the command chamber. On arrival she powered the ship’s long-range sensors, ready to observe the distasteful spectacle about to be unleashed.

The wan light of the red sun caught in the pupils of her eyes, trapped there for the longest time. Zozar marvelled at the beauty, letting the sight seep into his every fibre as though he could make the sensation last for eternity.

Cleophatia’s happiness was infectious. It lifted his spirit even in these uncertain times. She made it easier to ignore the tumours that riddled her body, drew his mind away from the polyps that punctuated his. There was no sickness in her gaze.

They stood like that for a long time it seemed, together on the slope of the Evermount overlooking the capital. The ruddy light washed over the pyra­midal buildings of the city below, catching like laser on capstones, dancing from one vertex to the next as a living thing, a monochrome zephyr that streamed along abandoned streets. All was quiet now. The rioters had no more strength, the rebels had been cowed, the disenfranchised infected no longer possessed the strength for upheaval.

Zozar had wanted no part of it. What was the point of wasting the last of one’s life in despair? The end came all the same, and Cleophatia had taught him that it was better to embrace what life there was than to spill it ­meagrely through one’s fingers in bitterness and hostility.

A tug at his tunic brought Zozar’s attention down to his daughters, Azella and Isoris. The twins looked up at him, so pure, free of the sun-curse.

‘Will it hurt, Father?’ asked Isoris. ‘The biotransference?’