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PART I: THREE WERE ONE Three Bodies, One soul The ash stuck to everything. It clung to our boots, softened our steps, turned every movement into a whisper. But even then, we were loud in how we moved. Not in sound, but in intention. We weren’t perfect. Not by technique. But we flowed. Vasik advanced like a storm surge, blunt and brutal. Every blow he made was one I didn’t have to. Maerik danced, not elegant, but deliberate. He never wasted a step. Never struck first. But the moment you lost your guard, he was already there. I cut between them. Fast. Playful. Sometimes reckless. I was the flicker, the one who filled the gaps, confident they'd hold the line. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t analyze it. We just moved. I don’t know who we were fighting. It doesn’t matter. They moved like individuals. We moved like muscle memory. One formation. One will. Three bodies. One soul. The fight ended as fast as it began. Vasik knocked the last one down hard... too hard, maybe. The poor neophyte bounced off the sparring field’s edge with a grunt and rolled onto his side. Before anyone else could react, I clapped my hands once, loud, and shouted, "We’ll stitch his pride back up, too!" Maerik snorted. Vasik shook his head and muttered something about me needing a muzzle. I just grinned, arms wide, ash clinging to my armor like paint. The sun was high and hot. The world was still gray with smoke and dust. But we laughed. We laughed together, not for long, not loudly. But enough. Just enough to remind ourselves we were still alive, still together. That kind of laughter... it stays in the bones. It’s the sound you remember long after the voices are gone. But not every day was like that. Not every day let us fight side by side. They split us once. Just for a day. Said it was to test our individual strengths. I remember Maerik raised an eyebrow, and Vasik just shrugged. I didn’t say anything. We all obeyed, of course, we were still too young to question orders, and too proud to admit we hated the thought of it. I trained with a different squad that day. Good fighters. Focused. Efficient. But none of them moved like Maerik. None of them held the line like Vasik. No one shouted my name when I got ahead of myself, and no one laughed when I tripped into a barrier because I wasn’t watching the field. Everything worked, technically. My strikes landed. I hit my marks. But something was off, like training inside someone else’s armor. Like wearing your brother’s boots and pretending they fit. The silence after drills felt louder. The meal tasted flat. And for the first time, I realized something I didn’t know how to say: Without them, I was still breathing... but half the rhythm was gone. The next day, they put us back together. Nothing was said, no reason given. Just a nod, a lineup, and the three of us were back in formation. But I never forgot that day apart. Afterward, we sat on the edge of the sparring field. Helmets off, sweat drying, ash still in our hair. We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. Maerik passed me his canteen. Vasik leaned back on one arm, watching the horizon like it might try something. I closed my eyes and listened to the silence, the good kind, the kind that only existed between us. I don’t remember what that day’s training exercise was meant to teach. I don’t remember who landed the final strike, or how many points we earned, or what the instructor yelled at us afterward. But I remember how we moved. How the three of us circled and crashed and shifted without a word, like limbs of the same body. I remember the weight of Vasik’s shoulder brushing mine as we turned. The soft hiss of Maerik’s blade just inches from my arm, always precise, always trusted. That rhythm. That rightness. We were three. But we weren’t. Not really. We were one. And those first steps... they still echo in me, louder than any war cry since. I Never Had to Look I don’t remember the name of the world. Might’ve been something with "Primaris" in it, or maybe a number. Doesn’t matter. It was dust. Rocks. Heat. A canyon with sharp drop-offs and wind that howled like it was in pain. The enemy wasn’t impressive, fast, loud, overconfident. Thought they’d flank us from three ridgelines and cut our force off from the drop point. They never got close. We were sent as a forward element, a standard sweep operation. Three of us. No need for command vox or squad-wide coordination. Just the three who had trained together since they could walk upright in Astartes plate. We moved without a word. Varneth was already sliding up the side slope before the vox even hissed. Maerik adjusted our formation without speaking, tightening the wedge, shifting our advance angle to trap the lead pack in a cross-pattern before they even realized they were spotted. I kept the center. Shield up. Axe forward. That was always my place. We didn’t call it strategy. We just knew what to do. That’s the thing I remember most. Not the fight. Not the noise. Just the way we moved. I knew where they were before I looked. I knew their rhythm better than my own heartbeat. And when the strike came, when the second wave burst from the ridge behind me, I didn’t turn. I didn’t see the blade. I heard it, maybe, somewhere behind my right flank. But I didn’t shift my footing. I didn’t check. I just kept swinging forward, one strike at a time. Because I knew Maerik was there. And he was. His blade caught the attacker low, swept them off-balance. I felt the brush of movement behind my shoulder as he passed. I didn’t flinch. Varneth came next, laughter in his voice as he drove the kill in deep. I didn’t have to speak. Didn’t have to thank them. Didn’t even turn around. We just kept moving. That was the rhythm. That was the bond. Not because we trained it. Not because someone taught it. Just... because it was true. I always struck second. I always knew I could. When it ended, we didn’t talk. Maerik sat against a half-shattered rock, hands resting on the pommel of his blade, eyes closed, not sleeping, not praying. Just... still. Varneth was wiping gore from his gauntlet using the edge of his own cloak. He said something. A joke, probably. His mouth moved like it was. But I didn’t catch it. Didn’t need to. I just stood there for a while, axe resting against my boot, the weight of it settling deep into my arm. The wind had picked up again. The canyon below us was quiet. Still. The three of us didn’t move for a long time. That was how it was, sometimes. Not silence because we were tired. Not silence because we were angry. Just... the kind that came from knowing nothing needed to be said. That was a good day. A quiet one. A day we’d forget in every way but one. We were whole. We were exactly where we were supposed to be. And I didn’t have to look to know that. That day? It didn’t mean much. Just another patrol. Another fight. No medals. No names. But I still think about it. Because that was the day I knew, no matter where I stood, no matter how the lines shifted or how loud the war got... I was never alone. Not then. Not with them. Words I Needed to Say He was staring at the names again. The roll of the fallen, etched into cold stone across the Apothecarion wall. Varneth stood there longer than he needed to, his hand resting on the hilt of his scalpel like it was a relic instead of a tool. He wasn’t praying. He wasn’t reflecting. He was... listening. That’s when I knew. Not fully. Not with words. Just that feeling in the marrow of my bones that something had shifted. Like someone had stepped back from a fire, but left their shadow behind. We weren’t neophytes anymore. Varneth had taken the white, the scalpel, the rites, the silence. He bore the lives of others in his hands now, and he carried that burden with grace I never envied, only respected. And I... I had been named Arbiter. Not a mere pathfinder of souls, but their guardian. The voice in the silence, the flame in the dark. The duty that watches even those you love most and holds them to truth. I never told him I was proud. I thought he already knew. Maybe he did. Maybe that’s why he looked away when he noticed I was watching. It didn’t happen all at once. Little things. He stopped laughing first. Not entirely, but the kind that echoed, the kind that used to make even Vasik smirk, that was gone. Replaced with half-smiles, short exhales through his nose. He stayed longer in the Apothecarion after drills. Said he had to restock or sanitize or finish reports. But when I passed the doorway, I saw him just sitting there sometimes. Not working. Not moving. Just... still. He missed cues in our rhythm, minor things. A delayed nod. A strike that didn’t land with us. Not enough to draw comment. Enough to feel. Once, Vasik threw an elbow at him during a lockup, half-playful, half correction. Varneth didn’t dodge. He didn’t react at all until it hit. He blinked. Smiled like nothing happened. I should have said something then. But I told myself it was fatigue. Or duty. Or... just life. But it wasn’t. The space between us was growing. And I knew it. And still, I said nothing. The Chapel was quiet. It always was. I knelt before the Scales, not to ask for strength, but for clarity. The Scales are not ornamental. Not to us. They are judgment. Balance. Truth. We don’t pray to them, we weigh ourselves against them. And that day, I felt myself tilt. “If you must take him,” I said, barely above a whisper, “let me not be blind when you do.” The candles flickered. The censer’s smoke drifted across the tiles like fog. I stayed there longer than I should’ve. Long enough for the ache in my knees to settle into the stone. Long enough for me to hope I was wrong. But I wasn’t. Because when I left the Chapel, I passed the infirmary again. And Varneth was still there. Sitting in the same place. Staring at the same wall. And I didn’t go in. There was a day, months before the signs, maybe years, when we sat and watched a storm break over the hills. No drills. No patrols. Just stillness. A day between deployments. We remained in full armor, disciplined even in rest, but no one spoke of tactics. No one moved to break the silence. The sky above was too clear at first, almost hollow. Then the clouds rolled in, thick, dark, alive. Lightning arced across the horizon, and thunder pressed itself into the stone beneath us like a slow heartbeat. Varneth made a quiet joke. Said the storm looked like my temper and Vasik’s breath. Vasik replied with a low grunt that might’ve been amusement. I didn’t speak. I didn’t need to. We weren’t analyzing. We weren’t training. We were just... together. And it was enough. That moment clings harder than any sermon I’ve ever given. It was the last time I can remember when none of us were being anything but brothers. No command. No watch. Just the sky, and the sound of breathing that didn’t feel heavy. And now I wonder if Varneth already felt it then, the pull, the quiet whisper of the Vault. And if he did… Why didn’t I? Moments when we were alone. When I could’ve asked what he was thinking. When I could’ve told him I was afraid. That I saw him changing. That I didn’t want to lose the shape we had always moved in. But I held back. I told myself it wasn’t the right time. That he would speak when he was ready. That whatever was pulling him inward would pass. I was the Arbiter. I was supposed to guard their spirits. I was supposed to feel the weight shift before it cracked the stone. And still, I let the silence settle. I loved him, not with the love of duty or oath, but with the love of a brother born of my blood, shaped in the same womb, carried through the same rites and fires. I thought he knew. I thought that knowing would be enough. But truth unspoken does not echo. There were no words. But I should’ve found some anyway.