Chapter 3: Trial by Fire
The cell was a cathedral of shadows. Cold stone pressed against her back, damp with age, and the heavy scent of incense lingered in the air. The walls bore inscriptions of oaths and litanies, their words bleeding devotion into the silence. The Dark Angels did not simply imprison. They encased. Entombed.
She sat bound, the weight of the chains biting into her new, unfamiliar flesh. Every motion was a reminder—of her weakness, her fragility. An Aeldari would have slipped through these binds with grace, but she was no longer Aeldari. Not in body. Perhaps not even in mind.
The door groaned open, and the Interrogator-Chaplain stepped inside. His every movement carried an air of judgment, his presence a wall of scrutiny. The flickering candlelight carved deep lines into his worn features, making him seem more specter than man. He was a priest and executioner both, and she was his enigma.
He knelt before her, his gaze unwavering. When he spoke, his voice was rough, jagged—like gravel grinding in a deep abyss.
"You live by the grace of the Emperor."
A pause. She forced herself not to react. Not to let her thoughts betray her. The Aeldari gods were silent now.
"And yet you do not pray."
She met his gaze. A mistake. Those eyes were knives, carving into her, searching. He was testing her. Every word, every breath, was a trap.
"I do not remember," she rasped, her voice hollow. "I do not know who I was."
Another lie. But it was a lie shaped in human fragility. In confusion. That, they would believe.
The Chaplain studied her, the weight of his scrutiny a hammer upon her soul. Then, he stood, withdrawing a dagger from his belt. It gleamed in the dim light, a simple, unadorned blade.
"You will learn," he said. "Through battle. Through blood."
He severed the chains in one swift motion.
They threw her into the training cages that very night.
---
The world beyond the fortress was an endless sea of grey. Ceramite walls, gothic spires, the ever-present hum of industry—an empire built upon ceaseless war. She had begun to understand humanity's world, but she had yet to understand its soul.
And so, she trained.
Under the ever-watchful gaze of the Dark Angels, she was shaped into something new. Her body, this cursed human shell, was strengthened through ceaseless drills, punishing regimens of combat, marksmanship, and discipline. Yet, where her mind sought the graceful precision of an Aeldari warrior, her form betrayed her with the crude brutality of mankind.
She learned to fight not with a style, but with insight. The Aeldari danced through battle, every strike measured, every movement flowing into the next. But here, in this imperfect body, she was forced to adapt. Brutality and efficiency. A fist, too slow to dodge, became a tool for breaking ribs. A misstep was corrected by sheer force. She was learning what it meant to be a warrior of humanity.
And she hated it.
One day, she found herself before the Chaplain again, his dark eyes watching her through the flickering candlelight.
"You fight like an animal caught between two instincts," he mused. "You hesitate, seeking grace where there is none."
She did not know what she was.