The sileretched for a few seds as the giant of a man that was Guilliman loomed over the slightly less gigantic Custodes. He was really good at looming, his eyes cold and judging as his presence washed over the room like a tidal wave.

  Tech-priests, mortals and a few Astartes stumbled, a few of the tter falling to their knees as their Primarch’s aura brushed against their souls.

  Unfortunately for him, I barely felt the pressure. Maybe my soul just wasn’t susceptible to it or it might have had something to do with the fact that I was far too removed from this drone, merely trolling it through my avatar with le telepathy.

  The Custodes simirly ig, or if it affected them, they didn’t show it. I was happy to hat while only the two Custodes actually stepped up to defehe rest seemed to respect their stand aimed their ons to the side instead of at them. Though they still seemed ready to pou a moment’s notice.

  “Is that so?” the Primarch said, his tone making sure no oruly thought he was asking a question. His gaze shifted to me and his frown deepehe slightest bit as he saw me standing without a care in the world. “I’m willing to hear you out si seems these two are willing to vouch for you.”

  I threw a g the two gold-cd backs. One was the regur gold armour with the crimson cloak hanging over it, but the other was royal purple. I felt like that was an important differe was important somehow, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember why.

  No matter, I will find out soon, anyway. I gave a smile to the Primard slid past the two golden giants. Everyone was so damall, Custodes were about one and a half Eas and Guilliman was almost twice as tall as me.

  I could only begrudge myself for taking on a more petite form for this, thinking it might make them let their guard down a bit more if I appeared harmless. I suppose with them having seen my Hunter Form, that was a long shot.

  Thankfully, the two Custodes didn’t try to keep me back as I stepped past them and came face to face with Guilliman.

  “You see,” I started, an easy smile on my lips through it all. “I was rather curious whether my reward for saving the Blood angels from certaih and annihition was a Shadowkeeper sent to murder me. I hoped we could have a symbiotic retionship, but then I found out you might have ordered my death before we eve.”

  There was a shift in the air. The Custodes behiiffened almost imperceptibly while Guilliman stared at me.

  “I have not ordered the Shadowkeeper to do any such thing,” Guilliman said. “I believe I eve a vox forward to Baal for the Astartes chapters there to secure you. Not that I see why my father’s guards seem to think it would be of much use.”

  I g the sword still held in his hands as I thought it over. Was he talking out of his ass? Trying to deny a failed assassination to see where this was going, or is he sincere?

  He is alsht. I haven’t given him any reason to aodate me. He is the ag sn of the Imperium and I am just some runaway artefa his eyes at best or some upstart Xeno at worst.

  The cogs are probably already ing in his head, trying to e up with the most effit way of disposing of me. Let’s give him a reason not to.

  “I suppose I should prove why doing such a thing would have been moally stupid.”

  The Astartes twitched, their malformed heads gring at me from behind their gene sire while the man himself just raised an eyebrow in what might have been amusement. “Are you … threatening me?”

  “I am doing no such thing,” I said evenly, slumping back as a fluffy chair formed under me. “My most valuable odity is information. Information I know to be worth the most to you in this entire gaxy even.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he did lower himself bato his and chair as it swirled around behind him. He motioned for me to tinue.

  “Let’s start with some appetisers to get your attention,” I hummed. I wanted some serious pensation for the more valuable little factoids I knew he would love to know, but I had to work up to that. There had to be some trust between us and in my words for that to work. “Your fallen brothers are trying to take bites out of you oer the other, I believe Fulgrim and Magnus already gave murdering you a shot, didn’t they?”

  That got their attention. No one was supposed to know about the fallen primarchs, this robably new information for ahere than the old hands iramarines and the Custodes.

  Guilliman’s frown deepened, but he gave me a nod.

  “Mortarion is ,” I said. “Though he will go about it with a touch more thought put into it than the previous two.”

  “I suspected as much,” he said. “Are you g to be a seer?”

  “Like that one over there?” I ined my head towards the Eldar and he nodded slightly. “No, what I know is fact. What he knows is a possibility.”

  “Impossible,” the Eldar frow me. “No one predict the future with certainty.”

  “You are one of Eldrad’s, aren’t you?” I pierce the man with a stare and he gave me a jerky nod. I gave a soft snort. “Thought as much. I am not predig the future, I am seeing the present and the past. Though with how taime is right now, I might as well be seeing the future.”

  “And what I’m seeing is a legion of Pgue marines surrounding Ultramar.” I added.

  “That would be hard to prove as of now,” said the primarch. “Astropathiunication is cut off and even if what you are saying is true, it would take too much time to verify.”

  “True,” I shrugged as my thoughts swirled. What could I tell him that wasn’t much of a loss to give away freely and would make him believe me? Hmmmm. I tapped my . “I believe the most valuable information I have for you s your brothers, but I am not willing to part with them without pensation.”

  “What could you tell me that I don’t already know?” he gave me a mog smile. “They are either dead or fallen.”

  I just let a sly smile tug at my lips. His smile fell away.

  “Let’s start with the fallen ones, what I know of them is hardly something you couldn’t pry out of your pet Eldar,” I tapped the chair’s ha. “Are you ied in any of them in particur?”

  He stared at me for a few seds again, looming ominously as his blue eyes tried to unravel my soul. “Fulgrim.”

  “Ah,” I nodded. “He has been throwing a hissy fit for the st few turies after one of his loyalist sons blew a virus bomb up in his face. Rynor, I believe his name was, waited thousands of years to clether the bomb on Istvan 3 and lured Fulgrim to himself. He tried to corrupt the dreadnaught, but all he got was a virus bomb to the face for his troubles, his pride hasn’t been the same since.”

  That was a tle short story I remembered clearly. The arrogant sting shown up was glorious, maybe I could needle him about it if we ever run into each other. What else though?

  “He barely does anything other than py around on his p,” I said with a thoughtful frown. “And he is probably the weakest right now after Lar, maybe somewhere a bit below Magnus.”

  “Is there proof of this?” he asked after a moment, maybe waiting to see whether I’d cough up anything else.

  “All the witnesses for this aside from Fulgrim are dead, he’d probably die of shame if they weren’t,” I shrugged, then gave him a feral grin. “Though if you mention it to him whenever he es for you, I’m sure you will have all the proof you need. Now then, who ?”

  We went over all the fallen primarchs like that with Guilliman’s frown tinuing to deepen as a pensive look entered his eyes. I could tell he was looking at something, there was a blue glint in his eyes so I supposed he was reading up on some reports to verify what he could. Though, maybe he was doing that through some unication device with a scribe.

  The damned scribes were walking libraries, their minds are a mess of so much tangled information that I could barely get anything useful out of the mind of the single one I mao mind-dive.

  In the end, we mao reach the part where I drew the line. “I’m afraid that’s as much as yoing to get without pensation. While we are at it, you might as well enlighten me about how much part you had to py iacks I’ve had to endure over the past few days.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. I barely gave him anything more than basiformation that he couldn’t get from the database or random factoids, but he should know that I know much more than I should by now.

  “I could have you seized,” he said evenly. “And have a psyker pry that information out of your mind.”

  “You could try,” I said, a flicker of anger surging in my heart. “All that would earn you is a localised explosion sending your and deto the void. Sure, you would survive, but that would mean you made an enemy where you could have made an ally.”

  I turned my head, ign the frown he was throwing me and looked at the Custodes standing a step behihe oh the red cloak. “You know what I am, don’t you? That Shadowkeeper seemed to know much about me and now you e g I am your ‘charge’?”

  “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Our mission was to protect you. Five me for intruding on your versation, but are you in any danger from the Shadowkeeper?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Not the one on Baal. He is busy trying to survive the pgue I shoved up his ass so I’m not too worried about him. He had a nasty spear, though.”

  How eloquent. Well done, me. I thought, but couldn’t bother with looking too cordial. Guilliman was being a pain.

  “Anyway,” I cleared my throat. “Could you enlighten him about what I am, so he finally realises how silly and worthless his threats are?”

  That earned a deep, questioning stare from the Primarch, but it quickly jumped up to the Custodes that talked to me.

  “I believe that is heavily restricted information.”

  “Of course it is.” I rolled my eyes. “The gist of it is that I am piloting this body through a telepathiion from half a system away and if you do something silly — like trying to attack me — I am blowing it up so hard you will be washing the fried pieces of your men’s guts out of your hair for the decade.”

  Some of the Astartes seemed to be frothing, but the custodes didn’t show any sign of even having heard me. They could probably sehat I didn’t have anywhere close enough power in this form to hurt them.

  I could send all of their asses onto a space-walk though.

  “Worthless threats,” Guilliman said. “You said you came here to talk, but I hardly heard anything other than threats and information I could have gotten anywhere else.”

  “I am not giving free information away.” I rolled my eyes. “And the only reason I am here after not only having a Shadowkeeper try to murder me, but even the Blood Aurned ohe moment your orders arrived on Baal is to see whether I should cut my losses here.”

  Guilliman’s gaze momentarily fshed to one of the tech-priests. “Verify that.”

  A moment ter something fshed in his eyes and his ear-piece buzzed to life. I could hear the monotonic voice of a cog-head even though I wasn’t meant to.

  “They reported having attempted apprehending the creature suspected to be the one you described, but it broke through them with little effort. They failed.”

  Guilliman hummed at the answer.

  “Having your me someone’s girlfriend bd blue and threaten her life isn’t how you make allies,” I said as he thought.

  After another bad forth with the tech-priest as Guilliman’s mouthpiece, his frown deepened.

  “It seems we started off on the wrong foot,” he said.

  “So it would seem,” I said. “I broke into your ship a some lobotomized voidmen behind and the only reason I survived your misuood orders was because Dante’s meoo weak to enforce them.”

  “They wouldn’t have killed you,” he amended. “The part about your survival was strictly stated in the order.”

  “But my partners’ wasn’t,” I said. “But I am willing to let it be water uhe bridge. I even refrained from sughtering Dante and his men for their betrayal as a sort of olive branch for you.”

  “You wao talk,” he said after a moment. Stubbornly refusing to apologise or even aowledge having been an ass. Oh well, works for me. “Talk, and we will see where this goes.”