Sister Callisine stared into the darkness, and felt the terror gnawing at her bones.

She was the only one left. Her visor was blank, her vox silent. And she had counted the agonised, dying screams of her squadmates.

The abandoned mine seemed endless. Massive chasms, intricate scaffolding, winding tunnels and old equipment; it was a warren of cover and hiding places, filled with a deep gloom that even her helmet's autosenses struggled to penetrate. It was also seemingly impossible to escape. In her earlier flight, she had completely lost her bearings, and although the systems of her power armour could have guided her in retracing her steps, that was the last thing she wanted to do.

The hunter was still there.

Something moved behind her, and she spun, finger instinctively compressing the trigger of her flamer. Promethium belched into the darkness, dispelling the shadows, and for a moment she caught a glimpse of massive, taloned hands.

She screamed incoherent prayers to the Emperor for salvation, spraying flame towards the figure, but it was already gone. Then the fear took her entirely, and she turned to flee, her heart pounding in her ears.

The Battle Sister made it three steps before something powerful grabbed her shoulder, hurling her against the wall. She lost her grip on the flamer as she crumpled, and she began crawling on all fours in blind, animal panic. The hunter grasped her backpack reactor, pulled her to her feet and pinned her against the wall.

The figure towered over her, utterly silent as she quivered. "Emperor save me," Callisine whimpered.

"Save you?" The hunter's voice was harsh, grating, and she flinched at the hatred in it. "The Emperor does not save. He only destroys. Why should he save you? What makes you so special?"

"Mercy! I'm begging you –"

"I have none for your kind." The talons crackled with disruptive energies, and with casual strength they ripped into her armour, ripping chunks away to reveal the skintight bodysuit below. "I have only malice."

Blood sprayed, and her agonised wails echoed through the depths as he flayed her alive.

Tzarine jerked awake with a cry.

The sheets were a tangled, sweat-soaked mess. She clawed free of them, stumbling over to the basin in the corner of her quarters, staring into the mirror. The face she saw there was pale and haunted, and she splashed cold water over herself, trying to purge the nightmare from her mind.

She knew the girl. Callisine had been a fresh recruit brought to the Mission a few weeks before her own disgrace and demotion. She had been a sweet girl, polite and earnest, and Tzarine had felt that she might have a bright future.

So why had she suddenly dreamed about her being tortured to death by a nameless horror? The warrior in her struggled to remember, to try and identify the monster, but it had never appeared clearly. She just knew that it had been big, stealthy and filled with absolute hatred for Callisine – and maybe for the Sororitas in general, by the way it had spoken.

She glanced accusingly at the wall, and far beyond, the twisting skeins of the warp that surrounded the Soul Venom. The cruiser had been travelling through the Immaterium for a week now, and although she had scoured the warship to remove all trace of the Word Bearers from it, she couldn't help wondering if the vessel's former masters had not left some legacy that might attract the gods of Chaos to give her nightmares. It was quite possible some daemon or other held a grudge after her betrayal and killing of the Apostle Korgar.

Of course, there could be a closer explanation.

She ran a palm over the scanner set in the wall, and metal plates obediently unfolded to reveal the storage chamber beyond. In pride of place were her midnight blue power armour, and her bolt pistol and chainsword. All of them gleamed, repaired and cleaned after the gruelling fighting on Senaav. Apart from a fond glance, though, she ignored them, instead focusing on the two artefacts at the far end of the small room.

The Azure Gate appeared lifeless, little more than a metal frame. Although the pre-Eldar artefact was a mystery to her, it made sense that it would not function while the Venom was travelling through the warp; after all, the Gate itself was a contained warp rift. It seemed unlikely that it was to blame for her dreams, but she still glowered at it, part of her wishing that it had been left on Senaav to burn with the rest of the planet. As far as she was concerned, it was dangerous – and not just because it was a stabilised rift into the warp, safeguards or not.

She remembered the first time she had gone through, at Korgar's insistence. The biting cold had penetrated her to the core, but her most vivid memory was of the trials she had faced. The four gods of Chaos, or their chosen servants, had tested her, tempted her with their power. She had resisted, but only by a thread. Having the Gate in her own chambers was undoubtedly a good way of preventing anyone unwanted from passing through… but she was also aware of the tiny corner of her brain that wanted to go back through, to taste what they had shown her once again.

She had held out, although by any standard of the Ecclesiarchy she had fallen; she had refused to serve Chaos, and had demanded that it serve her as a tool.

Her eyes slid off the Gate and to the other artefact as she remembered the brutal fight she had endured to 'earn' that. The gore-red gemstone glinted, and she knew that if she touched it, it would feel warm. It was the heart of a daemon – though whether literally a heart, or just a symbolic gesture, she was unsure. All she knew was that its owner walked the halls of this ship.

Llthaanhir was, in her own words, a favoured champion of Slaanesh. It had never been stated outright, and Tzarine's knowledge of daemonic lore was somewhat lacking, but the Sororitas suspected that she was in fact a daemon princess, with all the quirks and cunning of mortality as well as the capricious power and malicious nature of a true daemon. According to her, the heart bound her to Tzarine's will, and certainly, she had obeyed Tzarine so far. Without the daemon's assistance, her little band would never have had the power to thwart and destroy the Word Bearers.

That did not mean she had to like it. Her faith in the Emperor was dead, and her soul seethed with hatred for the mindless bureaucracy and cruelty of the Imperium, and the Ecclesiarchy in general. They had betrayed her, and all her Sisters, and her loyalty to those monolithic bodies was all spent. Chaos, however, was not the answer. Whatever her deepest, darkest cravings said, the path of Chaos led nowhere good, and she knew that just using it in the form of the daemon princess was dangerous. Llthaanhir had helped them once, but she had had nowhere else to turn, and she had sworn never to call on the creature unless she had to.

The fact that she had not refused Llthaanhir's offer to remain with her when the business on Senaav was complete was proof that she was walking a thin line. She justified it with remarks about the daemon's strength, the information it could provide – but deep down, she knew that she had allowed it because it was a benefit to her. Not her Sisters, just her. She'd hoped that leaving Senaav and the growing warp rift there would loosen Llthaanhir's grip on reality, but it had been a vain hope; somehow the daemon remained healthy and solidly physical, and she had a nasty feeling it was to do with that same gemstone that she was now looking at. A bond could go both ways.

Now, as if her presence did not do enough to cause friction between herself and those under her command, that bond could be ruining her sleep.

She shook herself, and sealed the chamber with another wave of her palm, scowling. Or maybe it was just her warp sickness playing up again.

She glanced at the chronometer, and sighed. Three hours until she was due to be up. Reason told her to go to sleep, but she knew that the screaming, skinless form of Callisine would be imprinted on the inside of her eyelids.

The door buzzed angrily, and she jumped, snatching for the knife she kept under her pillow. The Soul Venom's officers and crew had acceded to her command, but this was still a pirate ship that, until recently, had been independent of any outside control. Certainly they seemed to think she was a vast improvement of Korgar and his Word Bearers, but she didn't trust them an inch. "What?" she barked.

"It's me," came a familiar voice. Tzarine relaxed, and hauled the heavy door partway open, closing it behind her very welcome guest. Few entered the area of the quarters assigned to the renegade Sororitas, but she didn't feel like showing the crew what she looked like in a shift.

Morgana glanced around the room, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. Judging by her robe, she had been on duty – there had been talk among some of the Sisters about abandoning the traditional out-of-armour clothing of the Sororitas, but old habits died hard. Her lieutenant turned to look at her, concerned. "You look terrible. Bad dream?"

Tzarine slipped the knife back into its hiding place, and nodded. "What's up?" she asked, forestalling any questions.

Morgana peered at her for a moment, then shook her head, expression becoming grave. "The astropaths intercepted a distress signal." Tzarine suddenly realised that the other woman was tense and shaking. "Shondar is under attack."

Shondar. Tzarine stared. The Shondar system had been a local hub, particularly important to the Ecclesiarchy. On those grounds, she would shed no tears if it burned – but her old Mission had been located on one of the dead moons of the main planet. Where Callisine would have been. Her stomach knotted at a sudden fear, that maybe it had been more than a dream, but she held her voice steady. "What by?"

"A Tau hunter cadre."

Tzarine relaxed. Whatever the thing had been, it was not Tau, nor was it like the xenos to use monsters like it. "Why should we care? It's a bold move, but we both know that they're unlikely to gain a foothold. They'll kill a few priests, the galaxy will be better off. The Sisters are capable, they'll weather the storm."

Morgana hesitated. "Whether we should care or not about the outcome is something that we should probably all talk about. But it's not just the Tau. The message stated that the xenos forces have launched a full invasion on the capital, but they've never gone near the moons – probably don't know what's up there. Yet all contact has been lost with the Mission and the outlying bases. There's something else at work."

Tzarine closed her eyes, and the clawed shadow flashed before her again. "Tell the captain to set a course for the Shondar system."

"It's already done. I knew how you'd feel. Sister… Katarina… I'm not sure what we'll be able to do. They'll brand us traitors and heretics, rightly so."

"It doesn't matter," said Tzarine softly. "I may no longer be their commander, and I may no longer share their beliefs. But they were my comrades in arms, and I won't abandon them." She closed her eyes, Callisine's tortured features running through her mind again, and impulsively she drew Morgana into a tight embrace, burying her face into the other woman's neck.

Morgana held her firmly, gently running a hand through Tzarine's shoulder-length hair. It was the closest they'd got since before Senaav, and the mutual understandings there. "Is this your way of saying that you're ready to stop fencing with me?" she asked, half-joking.

Tzarine almost pulled away, an evasion rising to her lips, but it died unsaid.

Morgana looked at her, at the haunted look in her eyes, and nodded. She sat on the bed, and Tzarine curled up next to her, resting her head in Morgana's lap.

"What did you dream?" she whispered.

Tzarine did not reply.