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The xenos scum fought with ferocity and grace, that was the worst of it. Heinrix was methodical and true to form on the battlefield, but he felt clumsy and crude next to Marazhai, who danced, weilding his blades as though they were extensions of his flesh. It reminded him of Kibellah, more than anyone, although her movements were sparse, lacking the obvious joy Marazhai took in the act of killing.
Heinrix did not have a lot of time to observe him, however, as they were in a fight for their lives against opponents who gave no quarter. It did not help that they also had an audience, one that he had no doubt spent their time shouting insults and criticisms of the poor, stupid mon-keigh who had found themselves in the position of being meat for their entertainment.
Miriam stood firm, wielding her strange drukhari long knives and her pyromancy with equal skill. It felt almost like they were dealing with an incursion on the lower decks, if he didn't listen too closely to the screams of the xenos around them, or the roar of Ulfar, or the delighted cackles of Marazhai. They fought. They endured. It was what she'd always done, and done well, and the lick of her warp flames around the corpses of her enemies was something akin to a comfort.
And when the Keykeross finally fell, her blood staining Marazhai's blades, smoke erupted around them. The lilting voice of another xenos directed them to flee, and to flee now, and he felt Miriam's hand on his arm, her soft voice close to his ear, and he followed, racing through the streets of Comorragh towards Throne knew what else, helpless in the hands of people he had been taught to despise.
*
He knew enough about Miriam by now to know that she would excuse him for losing his temper. He'd been tortured for weeks, left without any knowledge of her whereabouts, any knowledge of his own if he were to be frank, thrown into a pit filled with the xenos he had been trained for decades to fight. Marazhai's taunting of Achilleas was the final blow to his battered psyche, and it was only natural, easy to set his hated blood alight and watch him begin to boil from the inside.
Not for Marazhai the crude whiplash that had killed his Theia before she'd even hit the ground, even in the depths of his pain and rage he had trained himself too well for that, no this was a slow, roiling boil, something that would keep Marazhai alive and screaming for hours if he could balance it correctly, and he would, oh he would take delight in every gasp and gurgle, every spike of agony that echoed what he'd done to one of Heinrix's own…
"Stop!" Yrliet's voice throbbed with passion, the first word he'd heard from her since they'd ended up in this hellish pit, so determined he'd been not to be in close contact with her. When he had seen her at all, even in fighting she'd been flat and colourless, devoid of hope and all but broken, just as Miriam had told him. He'd taken some comfort in it, to be honest, if Miriam would insist on keeping the traitor with them at least she had suffered alongside the rest of them for her actions. But now she was holding up a hand between Heinrix and Marazhai, a snarl on her too narrow face. "Kae Moragh, cannot you see what you do? Bickering at the gates of our freedom. Marazhai, provoking the monkeigh will do nothing to further your cause, and you… you…" her eyes flashed. "If you will not control your own base urges at least remember the one who makes your heart beat faster whose very liberation you threaten with your childishness!" Heinrix narrowed his eyes.
"I do not take orders from you, traitor," he said.
"No," Yrliet said. "But she will not order you when you are so determined to tear out her heart." Her green eyes were full of sorrow and regret. "…and your own."
He blinked, his warp powers stuttering enough that Marazhai could draw a ragged breath, and looked past him to where Miriam stood, hands gripping the hilts of those knives again. She was expressionless. He remembered her telling him that the Angel, Ulfar, had attempted to kill Marazhai when they had first recruited him. Remembered that she'd ordered him off, and, more astonishingly, Ulfar had obeyed. And yet she simply watched him, now, ready to let him kill because… because…
He let the last of his sorcery fade. Time and again she thought more of him, time and again she believed he was something he was not, someone… worthy of her affection. It burned. More than the fact that the person who saw was Yrliet, whom he had made no secret of despising ever since she'd first stepped on board and whose position in Miriam's regard he had always assumed highlighted her naivety, her stupid willingness to trust where trust could not, should not ever be placed.
As she demonstrated with Heinrix, despite his violations of that trust. Over and over again.
"I…" he choked on the words. "I.. am sorry." He meant it for Miriam, but the roiling, sinking, spinning feeling in his guts… was that sympathy? Understanding? For a xenos? "You are correct, Yrliet. About… about this. And other things."
Yrliet gave him the courtesy of saying no more, although the look Marazhai gave him was murderous. Miriam simply nodded, indicating the exit the Arbennian had directed them towards, and Heinrix followed.
There was nothing else he could do, after all.