Dies Wintarum

The coming of Dies Wintarum stirs joy across the Hepa system. Each standard year, as the long dark of deepwinter settles over Hepa Holida’s poles and snow blankets the cities in silence, the Legions arrive. Not a campaign, not a compliance—something older, stranger. Dropships land in neat lines. Vox signals safe, open, unencrypted. No commands. No threats. No war. For one week, the stars themselves seemed to hold their breath.

Dies Wintarum is more than a custom. It is a ritual of compassion. Astartes of every Legion—ironclad sons of war—descend into the cities, the tundra villages, the orbital manufactora. They repair power grids. They deliver ration crates to frost-locked habs. They give blessings, offer counsel, tell stories to children huddled near heaters made from cracked promethium drums. Even the Night Lords arrived on occasion, and if they did not bring comfort, at least they brought silence.

For one week, the Imperium makes sense. Its cruelty paused. Scribes and schoolchildren light lumen candles in every window. Families hang banners in Legion colors from their roofs. Every citizen gives what they can—carved trinkets, handwoven cloth, preserved fruit—as gifts to the warriors who give far more in return. On Holida, there is peace.

But now it is breaking.

It began yesterday. Vox static from Istvaan. Then a wave of partial transmissions. Then the truth. A massacre. A betrayal. Not distant—present. Not coming—already here. In the high district of Holida Primum, where the statues are dressed in wreaths and candles flicker in the snow, a gunshot rang out not an hour ago.

The lights are still glowing in the upper spires. The gift halls are still decorated. The choirs haven’t been told to stop singing—yet. But the Angels have vanished from the streets, and gunships move without running lights. Some say the southern hive has gone dark. Whispers say worse is coming. What’s certain is this: Across the Hepa system, Dies Wintarum is giving way to something far older than peace.