The Cursed King, Chapter 66

Khârn woke slow.

His vision came back in blurred shapes and shadows, forms sliding across one another, edges uncertain, surfaces pale as ash. A faint sound drifted through the room—soft hisses, clicks, a distant drip like water through stone. He blinked and felt the ache behind his eyes.

Above him was metal, grey and clean, dulled by sterile lights set into the ceiling. He turned his head slowly. The world tilted for a moment, then settled. There were beds laid out in rows, their shapes stark beneath white sheets. Figures lay on them, motionless, chests rising and falling gently. Machinery pulsed and hummed quietly alongside each bed. Green-lit screens flickered in rhythm with their slow breathing.

He tried to move, felt straps holding him firm. They loosened at a pull, the catches softening with a mechanical sigh as he sat upright. The cold air raised bumps along his bare chest. He lifted his hand, turned it slowly before his eyes. The skin was clean. The blood gone. The violence scoured away like rust from steel.

He touched his head. His fingers met smooth skin, broken by thin, healed-over lines of scar tissue, faint and pale as ice. His breath caught and he froze. Carefully, he traced the lines, following the patterns carved across his skull. The twisted, snarling metal was gone. No sockets remained. No cables hung loose. Just the clean precision of a surgeon’s work.

Khârn turned his head slowly, gaze searching through the shadows. In the pale half-light he saw him sitting there, hunched at the edge of a bed no more than two paces away. Broad shoulders slumped, head tilted toward the window. The Primarch did not turn or acknowledge Khârn’s waking. His massive frame was still, yet not rigid. In the quietness of the medicae bay, he seemed almost a stranger.

Khârn watched him for a long moment, uncertain. Then, gently, he rose from the bed, legs shaking slightly beneath him as he took his first steps across the cool floor. He stopped a pace behind Angron, waiting, watching. The Primarch did not move. His gaze was fixed outward, to the dull glow of a world beyond the glass, a city ravaged, a sky heavy with smoke.

Khârn’s eyes widened as he drew closer and saw clearly.

The Primarch’s scalp was a raw patchwork of fresh wounds and faint healing scars. Where the Butcher’s Nails had been anchored deep, coils of metal threading bone, only ridged scar tissue remained. A few jagged metal plugs still clung, twisted remnants stubbornly embedded, but most of the cables, spikes, and needles were gone, torn away by the roots, leaving smooth arcs of flesh in their wake.

Khârn’s breath halted sharply.

Angron turned slightly, sensing Khârn’s presence. He did not speak at first, only watched the ash drifting slow outside the glass. A subtle line creased the Primarch’s brow, not of rage or pain, but something Khârn had never before seen there: quiet reflection.

"I ordered it," Angron finally said. His voice was low, rough from disuse, scraping gravel across rusted iron. "I had them take out the Nails—all of them."

Khârn swallowed. His jaw tightened and he opened his mouth, but no words came. He looked down at his own hands again, turning them, feeling emptiness and clarity where once violence had curled like a coiled serpent. He flexed his fingers, testing. The silence was heavy between them.

Angron slowly raised his hand and touched the raw wound at the back of his skull. He winced faintly, jaw tightening. 

"It still hurts," he said softly. "But not like before. Now it only aches."

Khârn stepped closer, eyes narrowed. He felt the questions rise, tangled and choked in his throat, but he forced himself to quiet. He waited, watching the Primarch as Angron slowly stood, his towering form unsteady for a single breath before straightening. The bed creaked softly beneath the shift of his weight.

"You will lead the Legion," Angron said simply. "In my stead."

Khârn's eyes widened, mouth opening again, but the Primarch shook his head slowly before the words came. 

"No questions now," Angron murmured. "I have no answers yet."

Khârn’s fists clenched softly, but he nodded, head bowed slightly in acceptance. He could feel the weight settling upon him, unfamiliar, uncertain. He watched Angron move away, steps slow, almost cautious. The Primarch seemed fragile for a moment, his great shoulders hunched forward, spine slightly bent, walking as if he carried a burden heavier than armor, heavier than worlds.

Then Khârn saw it.

It was faint at first—a shimmering wake, a subtle distortion of the air around Angron’s retreating form. He blinked, thinking it a trick of the pale medical lights, but the shimmering persisted, pulsing gently in rhythm with the Primarch’s slow steps. Khârn’s pulse quickened. He’d seen it once before, around the man who’d fallen from the sky like a thunderbolt, around the monster with four arms and eyes like darkness made solid.

Cursed Energy.

It followed Angron like a vapor, a thin veil rippling gently around his form, flowing outward in slow tides. Khârn took a step forward, eyes tracking the subtle motions, feeling the skin of his neck prickle and tighten. The air grew colder for a moment as Angron passed beneath the medicae’s dim lights. His outline flickered subtly, as if reality itself were reluctant to hold him in place.

Khârn’s voice came finally, softer than he’d intended. 

"Lord," he began, voice scraping, uncertain. "What—"

Angron paused at the doorway. His shoulders rose and fell slowly. He turned just enough for Khârn to glimpse his profile, eyes shadowed and distant, a strange calm resting on his features. 

"I will meditate," Angron murmured. "Until I find answers—or until the answers find me."

Khârn took another hesitant step, hand half-raised. "And the Legion?"

Angron did not look back. 

"Yours," he said. "Lead them until I return. Or do not. It no longer matters. Find your own path."

Khârn’s mouth opened to protest, to plead, to ask what had changed, what had been awakened. But the Primarch stepped forward, through the doorway, leaving the words unspoken in Khârn’s throat. The shimmering wake of Cursed Energy lingered briefly, glowing faintly in the doorway, before fading to nothingness.

Khârn stood motionless, staring after him. The air in the medicae bay had grown cold. Behind him, machinery hummed softly, its rhythm steady, indifferent to the weight that pressed upon his shoulders. He turned slowly, surveying the rows of silent, slumbering brothers, each with pale lines across their skulls, marks of metal excised and rage tempered.

His chest rose and fell. He felt strangely alone.

He crossed the room slowly, stopping at the first bed he reached. The warrior upon it lay quiet, breathing steady, chest rising gently. Khârn placed a hand carefully on the brother’s shoulder, feeling the warmth through the thin sheet. The World Eater stirred faintly beneath his touch, eyelids fluttering briefly but not opening. Khârn withdrew his hand, watching the steady rhythm return.

He moved to the window, the floor cold beneath his feet. Outside, the ruined city lay silent, its devastation stark in the pale glow of distant fires. The smoke drifted upward in slow coils, reaching into the heavy sky. He thought of the people who had once lived there, voices quiet now, their streets empty, their dreams extinguished beneath his blade.

Khârn leaned his forehead against the cold glass, eyes closing. The emptiness inside him spread slowly, filling spaces where rage and pain had once lived. He breathed deeply, felt his heart beat slow and calm, unfamiliar in its steadiness.

The Legion was his. Angron had left it in his hands, a burden placed without question, without explanation. The Primarch had vanished into silence and shadow, carrying with him the subtle, shimmering echo of something Khârn did not fully understand.

He opened his eyes again, looking out upon the city. The devastation was complete. Ash drifted silently through the darkening sky. He wondered what remained beyond the ruin, what path lay ahead for the Legion, stripped of its anger, stripped of its pain.

Khârn exhaled softly, breath fogging the glass. He straightened, turning back to the rows of silent warriors. Soon they would wake, each one changed, each one hollowed out like himself. He wondered what they would say, what they would become. The Legion would look to him, their questions unanswered, their confusion mirroring his own.

He returned to his bed slowly, legs feeling heavy and unfamiliar. He sat carefully, fingers tracing the scar lines again across his skull. The metal was gone, but the wounds remained, deeper than flesh, deeper than bone.

Outside, the world grew darker, the fires burning low. He lay back on the cool sheets, eyes open, staring upward at the pale, sterile ceiling. The silence of the medicae bay pressed upon him, a weight heavier than armor, heavier than worlds.

He waited in quietness, breathing slow, feeling the emptiness within him grow deeper, waiting for answers, waiting for purpose, waiting for something to fill the hollow places left behind. Waiting for the Legion to wake, waiting for his Primarch to return.

And somewhere, deep beneath the quiet, he felt the faintest stirring of something new, a subtle pulse in the marrow of his bones, a soft whisper of a power waiting just beyond reach. He closed his eyes again, felt his heartbeat calm and steady, and waited. He fell asleep again. And when he awakened many hours later, the first thing he saw was… a monster, floating over the bed of one marine to another. It bore the abominable shape of man, but twisted and broken, too many limbs and mouths and faces, much of it culminating in a gargantuan maw that was lined with dagger-sized teeth. It was searching for something, Khârn realized, and that was why it jumped from one brother to another. But whatever it searched for was not to be found and that seemed to frustrate the monster. 

Khârn pushed himself up off his bed and found himself with an odd clarity in the absence of the nails in his brain. Still, he stared at the monster and knew that he was the only one who could see it. Was he hallucinating? No one else reacted to it. The servitors certainly didn’t. A few of his brothers were awake, but they didn’t see it either. The entity did not disturb the air as it moved and emitted no noise or scent for his other senses to pick up. That said, Khârn realized, it was mumbling something unintelligible, almost like a prayer–several of them at once. 

His eyes narrowed. “What are you?” 

At his words, the entity spun and turned towards him, its dozen eyes widening and then narrowing at him. It surged towards him and Khârn’s every battle instinct screamed as he grabbed the nearest rod of metal, gripping it so hard it bent at his hand, and then bashed the creature away, sending it crashing into a nearby wall. The crash awakened several more of his brothers, but none of them saw it. Khârn ignored their questions as he strode towards the entity. 

There was a power within himself now, he knew, a foreign energy that granted him power beyond his physical form. He was almost certain that it was Jujutsu, but he wouldn’t know until a Jujutsu Sorcerer confirmed it and the World Eaters had none. 

The creature pulled itself from the wall and let loose a shriek that shook the walls and the floor, and caused all manner of medical instruments to rattle–some even falling onto the floor. And then it attacked again. It did not charge this time; instead, its many limbs extended, each one surging forth like a bolter round and hissing through the open air. Khârn’s eyes widened. Up, down, left, and right he went, deftly avoiding most of the limbs, but a few found their mark and tore the skin of his arms, drawing blood, which trickled into his hand. The metal rod he’d grabbed earlier was broken. 

That would not stop him. 

This time, Khârn charged. He’d torn apart foes before with nothing but his bare hands. This one would be no different. As the thought passed his mind, a pulse of energy surged through him and pooled upon the blood in his hands. He reached the roaring monster and tackled it into the wall. Another pulse of energy. Khârn began punching the creature, pummeling it with blows that would’ve pulverized the bones of fellow Astartes. Another pulse and the blood around his arms became power fists. Khârn paid the change no heed and kept punching. 

And he did not stop until his hand had burst through the wall and the entity reduced to nothing more than a purple smear. 

Khârn panted and fell to the floor. The power fists were gone and only blood remained. He heard footsteps behind him. “Captain? What was that?” 

Khârn shook his head. “I don’t know.”