Tsu’gan felt his boots scraping against the floor as he was psychically impelled towards the edge of the parapet against his will.

‘Enough talk,’ he spat. ‘Cast me down. Break my body, if you must. The Chapter will hunt you, renegade, and there will be no chance of redemption for you this time.’

Nihilan regarded him as an adult would a simple child.

‘You still don’t understand, do you?’

Slowly, Tsu’gan’s body rotated so that he could see out onto the battle below.

Cultists fell in their droves, burned down by Shen’kar’s flamer, or eviscerated by Dak’ir’s chain-sword. His brothers fought tooth and nail, fending off the horde whilst his beloved captain fought for his life.

Kadai’s artificer armour was rent in over a dozen places, a daemon-thing that wore the flesh of the Speaker assailing him. Talons like long slashes of night came down in a rain of blows against the Salamanders captain’s defence, but he weathered it all, carving great arcs in riposte with his thunder hammer. Vulkan’s name was on his lips as the lightning cracked from the head of his master-forged weapon, searing the daemon’s borrowed flesh.

‘I was devoted to Ushorak, just as you are to your captain…’ Nihilan uttered in Tsu’gan’s ear as he watched the battle with the hell-spawn unfold.

Kadai smashed the daemon’s shoulder, shattering bone, and its arm fell limp.

‘…Kadai killed him,’ Nihilan continued. ‘He forced us to seek solace in the Eye. There we fled and there we stayed for decades…’

Ichor hissed from the tears in the daemon’s earthly form, its hold on reality slipping as Kadai punished it relentlessly with fist and hammer.

‘…Time moves differently in that realm. For us it felt like centuries had passed before we found a way out.’

A chorus of screams ripped from the distended throat of the daemon-thing, as Kadai crushed its skull finally and banished it back into the warp, the souls it had consumed begging for succour.

‘…It changed me. Opened my eyes. I see much now. A great destiny awaits you, Tsu’gan, but another overshadows it.’ Nihilan gave the faintest inclination of his head towards Dak’ir.

The Ignean was fighting valiantly, cutting down the last of the cultists and heading for Kadai.

‘Even now he rushes to your captain’s side…’ Nihilan said, insidiously, ‘Hoping to gain his favour.’

Tsu’gan knew he could not trust the foul tongue of a traitor, but the words spoken echoed his own long-held suspicions.

And so, unbeknownst to the Salamander, Nihilan did plant a seed. Not one born of daemonic essence. No, this came about through petty jealousy and ambition, through the very thing Tsu’gan had no aegis against – himself.

‘This cult,’ the Dragon Warrior pressed. ‘It is nothing. Stratos is nothing. Even this city is meaningless. It was always about him.’