Chapter 230: Father
Two psykers facing each other. The surrounding soldiers stopped firing by mutual unspoken agreement and watched.
The rebel psyker extended a hand toward Silentium.
"You and I are the same. I can feel the power in you — the same gift. We are both chosen. Come to me. Come with me."
Silentium had never encountered another psyker in his life. The existence of one standing ten metres away, radiating familiar energy, held him completely still.
The rebel pressed his advantage, moving slowly closer.
"I know what your life has been, child. The whispering — the voices that never stop, that threaten to unmake you. The people around you, pulling away, one by one. They called you a monster. They were afraid of what they didn't understand.
None of that matters now. Come to my side. I'll teach you to silence the whispers. I'll teach you to use the gift properly, to become what you were always meant to be. You're lonely — I can feel it. Don't you want to be with someone who understands?"
Silentium had been raised in a world that treated him as something broken and dangerous. When Kian had given him a stable place — the distillery, the routine, the tacit acceptance — he had held onto it precisely because he'd never had anything like it before.
And now something that recognised him as kin was right in front of him.
Little Joel was watching through field optics from behind a field embankment. He keyed Kian immediately.
"Sir — the rebel psyker is working on your man. He's actually responding to it. What do we do?"
In the command Chimera, Kian had the suit telemetry up. Silentium's biometrics: elevated, unsettled, something that registered as genuine conflict.
He's actually considering it.
If Silentium switched sides — two psykers coordinating against him, against everything he had assembled here — there would be nothing left to salvage.
"Sir, he's getting closer, they're about to — what do we do—"
"Relax. Watch this."
Kian picked up the helmet vox channel to Silentium's suit, cleared his throat, and began to sing.
In a voice of studied emotional sincerity:
"Always taking from me, never once said thank you~
Only when I grew up did I understand how hard things were~
Every time you left you pretended it was easy~
Smiling, saying go back home, while tears soaked your eyes~
(Chorus)
Time, time, slow down a little! Don't let me grow any older!
Would you trade everything you have just to keep those years?
My son who always tried so hard — what can you do for me?
Just don't betray me mid-battle and stab your old man in the back~
Thank me for everything I've done, both hands holding up our home.
Always giving you the best of what I had.
Are you my pride? Your father's still worrying about you!
My child, have you grown up yet?
Grateful to have me by your side..."
Inside the sealed helmet, Silentium's expression had gone completely flat.
"If you sing one more line, I will put a psychic slap across your face that leaves a handprint."
Kian coughed.
"Right, so — what exactly are you doing? Because from here it looks like you're about to hold hands with a rebel and skip off into the sunset. Are you actually thinking about going with him?"
Silentium glanced at the psyker, who was now very close.
"I'll handle it," he said quietly. "But you have to let me do my research. The immaterium study. Properly. Or I really do go with him."
Kian's jaw tightened.
"Fine. Approved. Under my supervision, designated location, and don't make so much noise that something comes through that we can't deal with. Are we clear?"
The corner of Silentium's mouth moved.
The rebel psyker had reached him. He extended his hand, reaching for Silentium's gauntlet.
"Come with me, child. Come..."
Silentium's eyes sharpened.
He raised one hand and put a psychic strike directly into the rebel's chest.
"Child. Don't call me child. I hate nothing more than someone deciding to be my father."
The impact sent the rebel psyker tumbling backward through the air. He had some shielding active — enough to absorb the blow without injury — but the trajectory was undignified. He hit the farmland and rolled several times.
He came back up floating, fury replacing the warmth.
"A difficult child. Fine. You come back with me whether you want to or not."
Both hands extended. A gravity field descended on Silentium's position — sudden, crushing, pressing downward. The earth under his feet compacted several centimetres. The rebel meant to pin him flat.
Silentium shrugged it off. He'd been playing with gravity manipulation since before he had a name for it.
He returned fire — a wide-arc psychic shock wave, fan-shaped, carrying the kinetic and thermal and electrical signatures of a compressed warp discharge. Everything in its path shredded.
[End of Chapter 230]
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