Angar sat in the Budget Post, the fort’s revelry filtering through the entrance, the letter in his gauntleted fist, its perfumed allure overpowering all other odors.

  And he reread it once again. Her elegant script cavorted across the page, each ornate flourish ensnaring his heart.

  To be loved was a balm to all life’s cruelties, a salve like no other.

  The words burned in his gut, warm as whiskey, laced with that exquisite peril she veiled so thinly, the grim certainty of fate's redressing hand.

  A threat he savored, this feral, uncompromising edge beneath her proclaimed and false submission.

  She’d have her place at his side or bury any who dared stand there.

  Another smile tugged at his bandaged jaw as he refolded the missive, tucking it into the pouch at his belt beside its tattered predecessor.

  He then turned to the parcel, slitting the cord with a claw, the box yielding like a felled foe, baring its trove.

  Beyond the bundled reports, it contained some small devotions.

  First, a handkerchief steeped in the same perfume of her letters, like jasmine undercut with something sharper, something exotic and wild. A Fabricator-chit affixed by a Trey-brooch pinned a note to it, this stating it contained the code to replicate the cloth in full should the scent fade.

  He pressed it to his helm, inhaling deeply through the grille.

  Adjacent lay woolen socks, a sealed tube of dentifrice, and a kit of toiletries, all staples for a warrior's grind on the front lines, far from civilized comforts.

  She knew he had cybernetics from the knees down. Why the socks?

  He rummaged for a concealed note explaining. There was nothing. A mistake?

  He could gift them to Garioch, he supposed.

  Next came a jar of foil-wrapped candies, irregular lumps that screamed homemade.

  Then a thick, silken postcard, embroidered with twining flowers, pierced hearts, and the legend ‘Forget Me Not.’

  A pouch followed, leather tooled and bulging with shredded tobacco, a pipe nestled inside it.

  He'd heard this leaf calmed nerves and was popular with sophisticates.

  But he’d also heard it eroded endurance and risked the hook of addiction burrowing deeper than Heresy.

  Still, she'd sent it, and he'd honor the gesture, giving it a try. A draw after victory's red sacrament, maybe, shared with his companions.

  Nestled with the pipe was a locket, a heart forged of rose-gold alloy, chased with thorned filigree, 'AM + FT' etched into both sides of the metal.

  He hefted it, then slipped it into a pouch, appreciating the sentiment, but it’d be far too embarrassing to wear.

  Lastly, a bulky plastic canister, ‘D-Surge: High Absorption’ emblazoned on its label, adorned with dual notes, the foremost insisting he peruse the report on Tribute-born adaptations to Terra-norm climes to grasp its significance.

  He pried it open, and capsules rattled inside like spent casings.

  Seizing the report, he intended a quick skim through the dry and uninteresting content, the kind that put sentries to sleep during watch, but its revelations struck like blaster fire to the chest.

  The text, though clinical prose with some jargon he couldn’t decipher, was fascinating.

  Nearly four millennia on Tribute had made his people compact and cruelly efficient, adaptations etched in genome and marrow to defy the planet's malice.

  Normal sunlight birthed vitamin D in the skin's depths, UVB rays splitting cholesterol into the stuff of quiet strength.

  But his hide, toughened for sulfur storms and radiation, repelled such rays with merciless efficiency, blocking nearly all a normal Terran's take, the synthesis slashed to less than a twentieth the yield.

  Tributean physiology was rigged to hoard and burn, with cholesterol precursors dialed low, breakdown enzymes cranked high, every scrap rationed like food in a siege. Even sprawled under a clear sky's blaze, he commenced from a significantly declined baseline.

  The pills, explained the second note, contained compounds of vitamins and minerals.

  Cholecalciferol was the core fury, bulked with other D-variants, magnesium, zinc, omega-3, and dozens more, the specific brand available for purchase on most civilized worlds.

  Drive fuel for his physiology, unlocking benefits to his muscle, bones, cognition, and more, somewhat like having a minor systemic implant installed.

  Even biobricks, dry bars packed with nutrition, lacked these resources in sufficient amounts to reap such gain.

  The report brimmed with invaluable info, such as Tributeans fared dismally on the baseline cogitation assays administered at Cloisteranages.

  This didn’t stem from inherent flaw, but from their world's meager 18% oxygen against the Holy Empire’s norm of 21%, and a miasma of carbonic vapors and noxious gases that further exacerbated the mind’s decline.

  Compounding this, intellect held little value on Tribute’s savage arena, not next to the brute force of limb and the unyielding prowess of the warrior's trade.

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  But transplant them to a Terra-norm biosphere, and their minds could bloom like a thirsty flower, augmented further by immersion in civil society, where intellect was far more exalted, and dunces shunned, forced into serfdom and servitude.

  Post-acclimation, in sum, Tributeans achieved near parity on the aggregate with cogitation assays, being a handful of points shy of the imperial median.

  But there was a major caveat.

  Baseline Terrans bore the result of four millennia under Holy Theosis’ regimen of selective breeding and scientific enhancements.

  Even accounting for the lower lows, Tributeans, once subjected to the comprehensive array of available genetic modifications, stood superior to all others, and their imperial-enhanced offspring would stand unequivocally so.

  The report didn't decree this in those exact words, but Angar assumed that's what it meant, reading between the lines.

  Encouraged by the revelations in the first report, he pressed on to the implant dossier, his curiosity sharpened by the promise of answers about his own peculiar hands.

  But it proved a barren field, just the thin gruel of speculation bereft of hard facts, nothing he hadn't already known or assumed. The section on his leonine hands was the worst of it, being merely vague hypotheses.

  No revelations, nothing useable in the least. He set it aside with a grunt.

  The final report, in part, was familiar territory. He'd viewed sections of an earlier version upon joining the Smallest Spark.

  He’d seen Tributean graduation tallies, the brutal cull of the Grim Ordeals, and the breakdown of which Knightly chapters claimed the survivors.

  The rest, such as chapter dispositions, company alignments, deployments across the galaxy, held no spark for him. He wouldn’t fire off comcaps to strangers like some lunatic.

  But new info, such as the paths Tributeans carved after Cloisteranage spat them out hooked his interest.

  Less than half slunk back to Tribute's embrace. Of those that remained, about 20% scattered into the fold as vigiles, private guards, or laborers.

  The majority fed the military maw, vanishing into the ranks.

  Outliers were rare. For instance, a small percentage drew invitations to higher academies of learning. The split was even, with half accepting the chance, the other half spitting on it.

  Knowing most were northern monkeys, the weakest people of his planet, added a layer of grim speculation. What would the stouter souls of Tribute do instead?

  With the reports exhausted, Angar sifted through Fella's shorter comcaps. They were terser, mostly updates on community-building progress, lacking the lavish sprawl of her letters.

  A few of the more recent ones warned of Chagan. The last missive she sent, the day prior, was just to tell him that the papal allocution during Sunday Mass had mentioned Abyssalhome along with the Swarm’s defeat.

  Venerable Sister Kenson's followed, three staid updates from her now much less chaotic home, inquiries after his health and fortunes.

  He disengaged his armor then, the suit hissing open like a sarcophagus yielding its dead. Into the back storage went the reports and parcel's bounty, save the kerchief tucked close for its scented solace, and the candies.

  Reclad in his suit, he scanned outside the post. No sign of the urchins he'd dispatched to hunt Simo, no word crackling over comms from Garioch or Chagan.

  Where in the blessed Mother’s name had the Paragon vanished off to? The balls were to start in mere hours.

  Back inside, at the counter, he composed replies.

  First, a curt nod of thanks to Tianmi, then a more measured dispatch to Kenson, lengthy enough to honor her, but rushed due to time constraints.

  The final one was for Fella. He wished for hours to craft something worthy, but time pressed, allowing only haste, though he'd still push the edges, nudging her away, towards a life free of the suffering a future with him would bring.

  Tianmi's credits were a blessing, their arrival too providential to ignore, a true fortune.

  To him, though? It equated to a mere rounding error for all the debt he'd racked up fueling his cult’s ambitions.

  How to relay the account cipher took some thought, then inspiration struck. The city of Dimnashia would serve nicely.

  December 27th, 4186

  My Treasured Fella,

  May these words find you and young Firkar enveloped in the boundless grace of the Holy Trinity, bathed in the radiant light of our Lord, whose Divine wrath ever guides the God-fearing faithful to tribute Him blood and war unending.

  I have received your consignment, a blaze of cherished light against life’s darkness, and thank you for its many treasures, the missive enclosed therein, and your unwavering devotion.

  Though I must admit, the woolen socks puzzle me.

  The Crusade unfolds in boundless splendor. The slaughter is glorious, the blood of the unholy flows in crimson rivers, the battles thunder like righteous hymns. In this Holy carnage, I find fulfillment absolute, craving nothing beyond the ceaseless harvest of death-tithes.

  The reports you have procured brim with revelations profound, but I must beseech you to henceforth refrain from harboring illegal materials. You imperil your station as aspirant, your passage to the Grim Ordeals or through the hallowed halls of Seminary. I would not see your light extinguished by folly.

  It gladdens my heart to learn of your labors inuring young Firkar against the cruelties of violence, and I commend this edifice you erect, building a fellowship of Tributean Knights.

  Among these noble pursuits, you overlook the sacred charge I laid upon you to immerse yourself in the opulent repose of imperial worlds, savoring their manifold comforts and leisures, to find your heart.

  As you have mentioned your humble resources and meager funds, and knowing your tastes far surpass my discernment, instead of gifts chosen poorly and ignorantly, I enclose herein the number to an account.

  OA-EEN-ZA-ER-7528.9051.89-11-TPSS1

  It holds credits sufficient for indulgences and delights befitting you and young Firkar, as well as to bolster your community endeavors.

  The cipher to its unlocking is the name of an edifice upon your campus, the sole building to share a (somewhat similar) name with the largest hold nestled along the main route between Mecia and Tormina City.

  The trailing TPSS1 denotes its secured protection, which seals irrevocably after a single errant trial.

  Should misfortune befall and the account lock fast, apprise me forthwith, and I shall work on its reopening and refashion a new password.

  I am fortified by your vow to uphold my election of a partner in warrior covenant with unreserved fealty, but harbor no worry nor care for destiny. Countless times has fate decreed my demise, yet here I remain, unvanquished and unbowed.

  It is understandable that you, being of a delicate nature and prone to superstitious beliefs, cling to such silly notions, but to embrace them too closely verges upon idolatry and blasphemy.

  Rest assured, we forge our own fate. For instance: should any dare harm my chosen companion, their doom would not descend by supernatural decree, but by the certain retribution of my own hand.

  Twice now have your letters resounded with pleas to the Divine for benedictions and favors. Are you a daughter of Tormina, or a beggar? Have you no pride?

  We offer unto God tributes of blood and battle, asking nothing of Him, for He is far beyond our ken, unaware of our insignificant existences.

  I hope you remember the true faith, and from whence you hail. We do not plead, not for anything, especially not Divine intercession.

  If conforming to the soft faith of your peers has claimed your spirit, so be it, as that is your right, but I ask you to cease these supplications on my behalf.

  Once more, I enjoin you to honor your mandate to embrace this sojourn with reckless abandon, delving into the opulent tapestry of imperial life, its ease, its pleasures.

  In solemn vigilance and the unyielding service of our Lord, the King of Kings,

  Angar Mecia, Holy Knight, Bellator Summus of the Lord Hungers, a fine cult of unrelenting glory, Baron of the planet Tribute