The Forgotten Son (30k 2nd Primarch SI/R63)

Chapter 1 - Awakening

There was warmth, constant and soft around me. A muffled heartbeat somewhere beyond the glass. I drifted in a sea of nutrient fluid, suspended in a sleep deeper than memory, and yet... not truly asleep.

Thought stirred before consciousness. There was little capacity of thought yet in my mind, but understanding flickered, sensory impressions I shouldn't have been capable of parsing, patterns buried in the light, rhythms in the vibrations of distant voices.

Then light pierced the dark.

Soft at first. Gold.

I opened my eyes, or tried to. They responded sluggishly, my lids struggling to part against the fluid that cradled me like a womb. Shapes swam beyond the transparent curve of my world, but one stood at the center of everything.

"...responding well to gene treatments..."
"...I will never understand why use a lost human soul for this one, my lady..."
"...incorruptible—second will be a bulkhead against the parasites..."

Words came and went even when I couldn't parse through them, what I did notice wasn't with my normal senses... it was with my soul. She radiated power, even to my primitive brain. Radiated it not like sun, like the concept of divinity made flesh. I could feel the change in the air, or whatever passed for it in this chamber, when she drew close. The machines hummed louder in her presence. The glass of my pod felt warmer.

"...a potential replacement for Project Magnus..."
"...Psychic potential through the roof..."

She was beautiful. Terrifyingly so. I wanted to avert my eyes, but I found that I couldn't.

Black hair fell like cascading night over shoulders wrapped in a golden toga that shimmered as though woven from captured starlight. Her eyes...

Her eyes were what held me. Bright, flawless orbs of molten gold. Living suns.

I couldn't look away.

She turned to the figure beside her. A man, shorter, stooped with age, his grey beard combed and robes marked with arcane sigils. He leaned on a staff shaped like a dagger plunged into a book.

"Number Two responds to your voice, old friend," the man said. His voice was dry, amused. "Neural activity spikes every time."

"I know," she replied, and the words were music. Light, full of gravity and grace. She stepped closer. "The Soul integration is going well, he seems... more than before."

Her hand rose to touch the surface of my pod.

"I see you, my son," she said softly. "And you see me, don't you?

Her fingers splayed against the reinforced plasteel, and I floated forward, helpless in the current of my own awe. I couldn't reach out, not yet. Could barely move. But I felt.

Her power reached out to my mind and I felt her emotions.

Love. Unconditional. Massive. Terrifying in its depth. And pride, a lot of it. She was sending her emotions directly into my brain.

"You are Second," she whispered. "Second forged, second born. My blade, my storm, my flesh and my light. I have made you strong."

A rumble from somewhere far away. The machinery whirred as my tiny heart surged. My mind flooded with impossible colors.

"Perhaps," the old man muttered, glancing at a data-slate, "you have made this one too strong."

The Empress smiled. Just a little. It was a thing of absolute serenity.