The Warp churned, twisting into unnatural eddies as the Praedyth drifted forward, following the pull of the stable currents. Servius sat in the command chair, sharp green eyes flicking across the shifting data streams that updated in real time. The ship’s passive auspex had begun to pick up disturbances ahead—localized gravitational fluctuations, lingering energy emissions, the telltale distortion of voidcraft engines bleeding into the Immaterium.

  He was approaching something.

  His tail flicked as he adjusted the display, bringing the forward auspex into sharper resolution.

  Ahead, the chaotic tides of the Warp began to shift. What had once been a ceaseless storm of unreality, violent and erratic, was calming—not into true stability, but into something structured. The roiling tides settled into slower, circular patterns, forming layered distortions, like the ripples of an unseen force pressing against the raw flesh of the Immaterium.

  The first true sign of civilization came in the form of wreckage.

  It appeared suddenly, scattered across the void like the bones of ancient beasts—hulks of broken ships, some drifting, others caught in the gravitational pull of something ahead. Twisted Imperial hulls, shattered warships, derelict voidcraft of designs both familiar and foreign. Some had clearly been abandoned for centuries, their surfaces scoured clean by Warp exposure. Others were fresher, their burned-out engines and ruptured hulls still leaking faint flickers of energy, as if their deaths had been recent.

  Servius’s claws tapped against the armrest of his chair. A battlefield? A graveyard? Or something worse?

  He pushed the thought aside. It didn’t matter.

  The Praedyth ghosted forward, weaving through the debris field without disturbing a single fragment. Servius watched the wreckage closely, his instincts on edge. Some of the ships bore signs of the Warp’s touch—their hulls not just damaged, but transformed. Metal twisted into unnatural shapes, impossible spires growing from shattered decks. Some wrecks still had faint sigils burned into them—warped runes that pulsed dimly, as if whispering to whatever might be listening.

  Then, beyond the wrecks, the planet emerged.

  Servius’s ears flicked forward, his green eyes narrowing.

  It was massive, its surface shrouded in an eerie, unnatural glow that pulsed faintly against the backdrop of the Immaterium. Unlike the raw, unformed madness of the Warp’s deeper regions, this world had not been fully consumed—it still retained shape, presence, gravity. But it had been changed.

  The continents bore scars, vast and jagged, etched with patterns too precise to be natural. From orbit, Servius could see enormous sigils carved into the land itself, sprawling across entire landscapes, as if something had burned its will into the flesh of the planet. The atmosphere flickered with crimson storms, their lightning stretching in slow, pulsing veins across the cloud layer.

  Ruined cities jutted from the surface—some still intact, others reshaped by the unnatural forces that had taken this world. What little light the planet had did not come from the sun, but from fissures in the ground, as if something beneath the surface still breathed.

  Not dead. Not alive. Something in between.

  Servius’s tail flicked sharply. This was no ordinary Warp anomaly. This world had been here a long time.

  And it was not alone.

  Encircling the planet was a vast collection of ships, stations, and orbital structures, their silhouettes forming a jagged, sprawling web of drifting civilization. Some vessels were docked, tethered together in makeshift ports. Others moved, slow and purposeful, navigating between the floating structures.

  There was no single form to this gathering.

  Servius could pick out Imperial ships, their designs unmistakable, though modified beyond recognition. Some bore ancient insignias, faded with time, others had been patched together with scavenged plating, their surfaces reinforced with crude repairs. Among them, there were vessels of other origins—xenos hulls, merchant ships of bygone eras, and things that should not have been flying at all.

  One station stood out among the others.

  A vast, half-burned structure, its hull marred by deep Warp-scars, massive fissures running through its core. And yet, it was alive—lights flickered across its surface, ships docking and departing, smaller voidcraft slipping through its open moorings.

  A hub. A place where things gathered.

  The Praedyth drifted forward, its hull blending seamlessly with the unnatural glow of the surrounding void. Servius sat motionless in the command chair, tail flicking absently as his sharp eyes scanned the countless vessels and stations forming the chaotic sprawl ahead.

  This was not Imperial. Not a system of order or hierarchy. It was a den of survivors, outcasts, and things that had no place elsewhere. The remnants of a world stolen by the Warp, a civilization that had refused to die, even as its bones were twisted into something unrecognizable.

  The ship’s auspex continued to update, scanning the expanse. Some ships were anchored, tethered to great spires jutting from the half-ruined planet below. Others moved in lazy, predatory orbits, waiting for prey too weak or too desperate to pass them by. He could see shuttles moving between stations, figures drifting across docking bridges, faint plumes of engine exhaust bleeding into the void.

  It was not lawless.

  It was worse.

  A place with its own rules.

  His claws tapped against the console once before he reached forward, activating the Vox array.

  “Unknown station,” he said, his voice measured, neutral. “This is Praedyth. Transmitting on open frequency. Identify.”

  Silence.

  A moment passed, then another.

  A flicker of movement on the scanners—something shifting frequencies, something adjusting.

  Then the reply came.

  "Ohhh, now that’s an interesting ship."

  The voice oozed from the speakers, slithering through the cabin with a slick, crawling amusement. It was smooth, warm, far too friendly—a tone that did not belong in the depths of the Warp, yet felt perfectly at home here.

  Servius’s ears flicked forward.

  It was the kind of voice that wore a smile that wasn’t real.

  "We don’t get many like you drifting through our little haven," the voice continued, honeyed and laced with an underlying hum of something else, something too controlled. "I was wondering what all the little whispers were about."

  Servius’s tail flicked once. Little whispers.

  He did not respond immediately. Instead, he keyed the ship’s systems, scanning for the source of the transmission.

  The display shifted—coordinates flickering into view. The signal was originating from one of the outermost orbital stations, a twisting, half-formed structure grafted onto the shattered remains of an old Imperial void platform.

  One of the many watching eyes in this place.

  "Identify yourself," Servius said, voice flat.

  A soft chuckle crackled through the speakers.

  "Names don’t mean much out here, traveler," the voice purred. "But for the sake of courtesy… you may call me Kyniel."

  Servius exhaled through his nose, fingers drumming idly against the console. That was a Daemon’s name. Or at least, something that wanted to sound like one.

  “Not much of a welcome,” Servius muttered.

  “Ahh, I disagree,” Kyniel replied smoothly. “You’ve arrived, haven’t you? That means you’re welcome. Otherwise, well…” The voice trailed off, carrying the faintest undertone of a smile filled with teeth.

  Servius let the silence stretch, feeling the weight of it settle in his chest. This thing—this thing—wasn’t hostile. Not openly. But it wasn’t just some opportunistic scavenger, either. It was playing a game, watching, testing reactions.

  He hated these type of games.

  "What is this place?" Servius finally asked, keeping his tone neutral.

  Kyniel let out a soft sigh, as though genuinely delighted by the question. "A sanctuary, my dear traveler. A place where the tides do not devour, where trade is made, where things meet in peace—or at least, the illusion of it."

  Servius narrowed his eyes slightly.

  Peace.

  Illusions.

  This thing spoke as if the two were the same.

  "And what exactly do you trade?" he asked.

  A pause.

  "Anything," Kyniel said, almost reverent. "Everything. Wares from broken realms. Echoes of lost ages. A favor for a favor. A soul for a song. Whatever price one is willing to pay."

  Servius’s tail flicked. That was the kind of answer that said nothing and everything at once.

  Kyniel continued. "I do wonder… what is it you are looking for, stranger?"

  Information. A path forward. Clarity.

  But Servius had spent enough time in places like this to know that giving too much away was a mistake.

  "That depends," he said simply.

  Kyniel let out a low, indulgent hum. "Ah, a careful one. Good. That will serve you well."

  Servius ignored the remark. "You said this was a haven. If that’s true, I assume there’s a hub. A place where… travelers gather."

  Another pause.

  "Yes," Kyniel admitted. "A place where all manner of souls convene."

  A flicker of data scrolled across the Praedyth’s displays—coordinates. A transmission tag, relayed directly to his ship.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "Follow this path, dear traveler," Kyniel purred. "It will lead you to Driftmourne."

  Servius stared at the data for a moment. The name meant nothing to him—just another waypoint in a realm of lies and half-truths.

  But it was a direction. A place to start.

  Kyniel’s voice lingered, softer now, curling like a whisper around the edges of the transmission.

  "And traveler…"

  Servius didn’t respond.

  “…You should be careful. Some things here might find you very interesting.”

  The transmission cut off.

  The silence that followed felt heavier than before.

  Servius exhaled slowly through his nose.

  Interesting.

  He did not like being interesting. It meant he would be noticed.

  Without another word, he keyed the controls, setting a course toward the station.

  Driftmourne awaited.

  The Praedyth glided toward Driftmourne, silent and unannounced.

  The station loomed before him, a monstrous corpse of steel and corruption, half-devoured by the Warp, half-clinging to its original structure. Its vast frame jutted out into the void, fractured but still holding—an unnatural fusion of Imperial architecture and something much older, much worse.

  Great black spires curled up from its hull, too fluid in shape to be metal, twisting like petrified tendrils reaching for unseen prey. Sigils burned into the plating pulsed with a dull, ember-like glow, shifting between states of material and immaterial. The remains of Gothic cathedral structures stood in defiance atop the station, their stained glass shattered, their vaulted ceilings collapsed, now woven with tendrils of something alive.

  And yet… the station wasn’t dead.

  It thrived.

  Thousands of lights flickered within its depths—ships docked in its hollowed frame, figures moved along gangways and landing bridges. Small craft zipped between its docking bays, some crude and patched together, others too sleek, too unnatural. Warp-born storms flickered across its surface, feeding into the power conduits like living veins pumping through an iron carcass.

  Servius sat rigid in his chair, watching the display feed. His sharp eyes narrowed as the ship’s auspex struggled to categorize what it was seeing. There were human life signs, yes, but also… other things. The station teemed with a menagerie of existences, some biological, others barely clinging to definition.

  He had seen warp-infested vessels, slaughter-filled derelicts, daemon-haunted void hulks that should have been put to the torch. But this place was different.

  It wasn’t writhing in madness. It was orderly. Structured.

  A functioning society.

  Servius exhaled slowly. That was more unsettling than any warped flesh-monastery of the Dark Mechanicum or screaming cult-world.

  "Praedyth," he muttered. "Keep all weapons armed, but do not power them. Maintain full lockdown on all systems unless I give direct override."

  The ship responded with immediate compliance. "Acknowledged."

  His tail flicked once as he piloted the vessel toward the designated docking platform, threading through the tangle of vessels clinging to Driftmourne’s exterior. Pirate craft, battered Rogue Trader hulls, ships bearing sigils of renegade warbands, and others that defied classification. Some of them watched him, scanners flickering as he passed.

  He could feel it.

  They had noticed him.

  The Praedyth was an anomaly, a vessel too clean, too advanced, too untouched for a place like this.

  That was a problem.

  Servius set the ship down on the docking bay, the landing struts engaging with a hiss of depressurization. The air outside was stable—if it could be called air. His displays confirmed that life-support systems were functional, but the composition had... variances. As if the station had been forced to accommodate many different requirements over time.

  The docking hatch depressurized, the ramp lowering with a mechanical hiss.

  Servius rose from the pilot’s seat, adjusting the coat across his armor as he stepped toward the exit. His sidearm was holstered, his power blade ready at his hip. He didn’t expect an immediate fight—if this was a trade hub, then violence was controlled, not absent—but that meant little when dealing with Warp entities and worse.

  He strode down the ramp.

  And froze.

  Something was waiting for him.

  A daemon.

  It stood at the edge of the platform, watching him with amused curiosity.

  It wasn’t subtle.

  The creature was tall, easily over seven feet, draped in silken robes of deep violet, its form shifting between the elegance of a noble and the formlessness of a nightmare. Its horned head tilted slightly, eyes like smoldering coals locked onto him with an unsettling mixture of interest and amusement.

  Not a human. Not a mutant. Not a rogue psyker.

  A true Daemon of the Warp.

  And yet—it was not attacking.

  Servius’s claws flexed at his sides, every instinct screaming at him to react, to kill, to move.

  Instead, the daemon smiled.

  "You are new here."

  The voice was smooth, cultured—deep with something that echoed beneath the skin, like a second voice lurking beneath the first. The daemon clasped its long, clawed hands together, watching him with the patient amusement of a predator studying something unusual.

  Servius’s tail flicked. His muscles remained taut, but he did not reach for his weapons. Not yet.

  The daemon let out a soft, satisfied sigh, as if pleased by that restraint.

  "Interesting," it murmured.

  Servius exhaled sharply through his nose. "If you're looking to test me, find someone else."

  The daemon chuckled, a warm, rolling sound that did not belong in a place like this.

  "Oh, no," it purred. "Nothing so crude."

  It took a single, fluid step forward, its movements unnervingly smooth.

  "You are not like the others who come here," it continued. "They arrive with desperation, with hunger, with the need for something they cannot claim elsewhere. But you..."

  It studied him, tilting its head.

  "You are watching. Measuring. Deciding."

  Servius said nothing.

  The daemon smiled wider.

  "That makes you far more dangerous than them."

  The words hung in the air. Not a threat. Not a challenge. Just an observation.

  Servius let the silence stretch before finally speaking. "I assume you're not the welcome party."

  The daemon laughed, a low, pleased sound. "No, but I am always... welcoming."

  It turned slightly, gesturing toward the vast, towering halls beyond the docking bay—the entrance to Driftmourne’s inner depths, where the true heart of this wretched station lay.

  "Come," it said smoothly. "You are about to step into something far greater than you expect."

  Servius didn’t move immediately. His instincts were still on edge, still weighing every possibility.

  But he had come here for answers.

  And if this was the kind of thing that greeted travelers upon arrival...

  Then Driftmourne held far worse things deeper within.

  He exhaled through his nose, rolling his shoulders, and took a step forward.

  The daemon’s smile widened as it turned and led the way.

  The air within Driftmourne was thick—not just with the press of too many bodies, too many voices murmuring in a dozen tongues, but with something unseen. Servius could feel it brushing against his skin, curling through the corridors like an unseen tide. It was Warp-touched, but not in the raw, maddening way of a daemon world. This was something more measured.

  Controlled.

  The daemon leading him walked with effortless grace, gliding over the twisted metal flooring like a noble surveying their domain. Its robes flowed around it, shifting in texture with every step—fabric, then mist, then something like shadowed silk. It never fully took shape, never fully settled, and yet, it was present in a way that made Servius’s instincts itch.

  He hated this.

  Everything about this place was wrong, yet functional. A contradiction given form.

  The corridor stretched ahead, twisting through the bones of the station like the veins of a dying beast. The walls bled history—rusted Imperial plating welded to scavenged xenos alloys, blackened sigils pulsing dully where the Warp had eaten through reality itself. The station was alive in a way that voidcraft should never be, and every step Servius took felt like descending deeper into something’s throat.

  And there were things watching.

  Figures drifted along the side passages, lurking in the periphery of his vision. Some were human—pale, gaunt, wrapped in layered robes and patchwork voidsuits. Others were not.

  A hulking brute, easily twice his height, stood slouched against a nearby bulkhead, its body wrapped in chains of iron and flayed skin. The helm it wore was fused to its flesh, rusted metal welded over raw bone, and its blackened eyes followed Servius as he passed.

  Further ahead, a pair of figures sat perched on a raised platform, their clawed hands weaving unseen patterns in the air. Their faces were featureless, their skin a dull, shifting gray that rippled like liquid. No mouths, no eyes, no indication of how they perceived the world—yet they turned toward him as he walked by, their blank, shifting visages tilting in eerie synchronization.

  This place crawled with life, but none of it was natural.

  Servius kept his pace even, his green eyes scanning every movement, every corridor, calculating routes of escape even as he followed the daemon deeper into the station. The weight of his weapons at his belt was reassuring, but he knew better than to think that a simple blade or bolt round would solve every problem in this place.

  Driftmourne was not a battlefield. It was a game.

  And everyone here was a player.

  The daemon finally slowed, stopping before an open archway that led into a vast chamber beyond. The space was a market, though calling it such felt insufficient.

  It was chaos given form.

  Rows of stalls and suspended platforms stretched in every direction, floating on chains or welded to the bones of the station itself. Creatures of all kinds bartered and whispered—humans wrapped in void-leathers, hunched mutants with too many limbs, towering figures shrouded in silken veils. A merchant whose face was nothing but rows of exposed teeth leaned over a counter of glistening, severed hands, each one carefully wrapped in parchment.

  A gilded servitor, its body reforged into something mockingly elegant, stood motionless beside a stall, its chest cavity opened to reveal a collection of vials filled with writhing, living shadows.

  And above it all, suspended in the air by chains too thin to be real, were cages. Some were empty. Others were not.

  Servius’s expression did not change, but his tail flicked once.

  This was a place of transactions.

  The daemon turned to him, its smoldering gaze unreadable.

  "Welcome to the Mire of Trade," it said, gesturing with a clawed hand. "Here, the foolish are devoured, the desperate are exploited, and the careful… thrive."

  Servius exhaled slowly through his nose.

  "I assume this is where I start looking," he muttered.

  The daemon’s grin widened.

  "You assume correctly."

  It took a step back, inclining its head in a mockery of a formal bow.

  "I will not insult your intelligence by telling you to be cautious," it said smoothly. "You already know the stakes. But do be mindful, traveler—your words carry weight here."

  Servius’s eyes narrowed slightly.

  Another reminder. Another confirmation of what he already suspected.

  The Boons of the Nexus had altered him in ways he still did not fully understand. Here, in a place like this, where words were weapons, that gift could be as much a curse as it was an advantage.

  He would need to be careful.

  Without another word, Servius stepped forward, leaving the daemon behind as he entered the market.