“I’m not fucking dead,” I said, which wasn’t even true, and I was choking up; everything I’d ever done, everything I’d ever been through, and I was choking up. And the Emperor of the Nine Houses, the Necrolord Prime, stood from his chair to look at you—at me; looked at my face, looked at your face, looked at my eyes in your face. It took, maybe, a million myriads. The static in your ears resolved into wordless screaming. His expression was just—gently quizzical; mildly awed. “Hi, Not Fucking Dead,” he said. “I’m Dad.”
