Contacts like Dagra Thul, who amongst his other titles likes to call himself the Master of Dreams.

Fortress Meridia’s primary landing platform is technically outside, though you wouldn’t know it, standing there. The hive blocks and spires stacked around it are so tall that none of the Throneworld’s pale grey sunlight can reach the platform, so it is lit only by blinking guidance lumens and floodlanterns that cast a glare off the puddles of runoff and rainwater that have settled all across the platform’s surface. The air out here is cold and wet, and carries with it the scent of inorganic decay and spiralling clouds of pollutant fog. Two members of my retinue await me amongst the rain and fog and darkness, armed and armoured and ready to fly.

Zoric discards the lho-stick he is smoking and grinds it out with his boot. ‘What’s the mark, lord?’ he asks, in a voice as blunt as his face.

Zoric is tall and corded, with a strong, square jaw and a nose that’s been broken one time too many. His skin is pale and badly scarred, his fair hair prematurely silvered. Zoric has long since left his old life behind, but he still dresses like a mercenary. His clothes are military-issue. All black, save for the lightweight, grey flexi-armour plates he wears under his battered leather jacket. Zoric has a heavy calibre Valedictor-pattern stub-pistol holstered at his hip and his old, uniquely modified lasrifle slung over one shoulder on a worn strap. The guns were the only thing he brought with him when he came into my service. I offered him replacements for them, but he declined. Zoric was willing to give up everything else about his life to serve the ordos, but not that.

‘We aren’t killing,’ I tell him. ‘Not today.’

‘And yet you called for killers, inquisitor.’

Those words are Yumia’s, and they come with a smile. My bladeward could never be described as at ease. She holds herself in permanent tension, as if she is about to sprint or leap as soon as take a breath. Beside Zoric, Yumia looks almost feather-light. Her dark hair is bound up at her crown, her light brown skin scored with tattoos and faith-marks. Her features are as sharp and fine as the blades she carries. Yumia wears no armour. She is clad only in leather and cloth and scars, her wrists wrapped in lengths of grey cord. Her feet are bare, despite the rain and dirt. No matter the conditions, she never seems to feel the cold.

‘That I did,’ I say to her, as we move together towards where my transport waits.

The Crypsis is crouched on stanchion legs in a fall of dismal grey light from above. The craft is gloss-black and seamless, just like Meridia. Its wings are elegant and forward-swept in a way that reminds me of a hunting bird steadying itself before a strike. There are no visible weapons on the Crypsis’ exterior. One could easily mistake it for a hive-runner or a noble’s speedcraft, which was exactly my intent when I commissioned it to be built. The pilot, Tomo, is already cycling the engines as we board via the rear ramp.