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The echo of tal rang through the abandoned workshop and faded slowly. The rusted rebar hit the floor with a sharp clatter.
Cullen stared at the giant before him.
No frenzied Chaos taint. Not even the cold disdain you'd expect from a Primarch.
He could feel it, that final pull in the sparring match, the absolute control over muscle and force. It matched the impression he'd carried for ten thousand years, the mory of the Warmaster from the Great Crusade.
The Wolf Shepherd had always been warm toward allies and those willing to talk. Nothing like his gene-father, the Lion. The cold, ruthless Lion cared only whether the enemy was destroyed.
And no matter how much doubt clouded his mind, an Astartes' combat instincts couldn't be fooled.
This Horus Lupercal was no cruel joke played by a Warp-fiend.
A thought had taken shape in Cullen's mind: the Wolf Shepherd of the past had crossed through ti to the present.
"You win."
The veteran lowered his eyes, picked up the power sword from the ground, and sheathed it.
Horus nodded.
"Let's move. The noise will draw gang reinforcents soon. Or sothing worse."
Nearby, Kellen heard the long-awaited electronic chi in his head.
[Hidden mission complete.]
[Reward issued: one set of pristine Mark IV Maximus power armor.]
[Points reward: 1,000.]
He pulled up the system space and looked over the black ceramite gleaming with a cold tallic sheen.
Mark IV Maximus. Top-tier gear from the Great Crusade era. Mobility and protection in perfect balance.
He glanced at Cullen's battered suit, cracked plates, scrap-tal patches everywhere, a walking proof of ten thousand years of running. The timing on this reward couldn't have been better. But he couldn't pull it out now. Too conspicuous.
"Let's go. Back to my other safehouse." Kellen brushed the dust off his coat and waved Horus forward.
The three of them moved single-file through the dark sewage tunnels of the underhive.
Cullen walked last. His gaze kept drifting past Kellen's head to the broad, cloaked figure ahead.
A First Legion veteran's wariness didn't dissolve overnight. But the earlier tension, blades out, every muscle coiled, had faded.
Seven or eight turns. Two rusted blast doors. Then they were inside Kellen's lead-lined safehouse.
The space was tight. With two towering transhumans squeezed in, finding sowhere to stand took actual thought.
Kellen dropped onto a pile of broken cables and let out a long breath.
Cullen scanned the room, found a flat section of lead wall, and sat down against it.
The servo-motors in his power armor humd low, punctuated by the grinding of worn components.
He was exhausted.
Ten thousand years in exile. No logistics, no battle-brothers. Just endless pursuit and flight. Rest had been a luxury for so long he'd almost forgotten what it felt like.
"Eat sothing." Kellen tossed over a block of compressed rations.
Cullen caught it. The rock-hard texture made him frown, but he tore the wrapper open and bit down. Even for a veteran who'd lived on Legion field rations for centuries, chewing through this took real effort.
Horus sat cross-legged on the far side of the room. A thin sliver of light leaked from the ventilation grate overhead. By that faint glow, he studied his own palms and said nothing.
Silence settled over the safehouse.
Cullen swallowed the last of the ration. Exhaustion rose through him like a tide.
A Space Marine's body could go without sleep for a long ti. But the nerves had their limits. He'd confird the two before him held no hostile intent, for now. He finally let himself slip into shallow dormancy.
Dreams took him.
---
Cullen found himself standing in ruins.
He knew this place. The Petitioners' City hive on Terra. Where he was born.
Cold wind swept grit across charred, broken walls. The sky was that oppressive lead-gray he rembered from the Unification Wars.
His power armor was gone. He wore only a basic black carapace suit.
No sword in his hand, but his palm still carried the calluses from years of gripping one. Even a faint trace of blood.
Astartes combat nerves snapped taut on pure instinct.
But there were no enemies. Nothing moved.
Then he turned his head and saw the fire.
At the far end of the ruins, a bonfire burned steadily. The flas held their shape against the cold, driving back the chill around them.
A man in an old brown leather coat crouched with his back to Cullen beside the fire, prodding the wood with a branch, unhurried.
The man's silhouette was not tall. Not imposing.
But one glance at that back, and Cullen's blood turned to ice.
His knees buckled. They hit the ground before he could stop them.
The feeling was more familiar than facing his own gene-father. More awe-inspiring than standing before the Lion himself.
He knew.
That was his liege. His creator.
The supre sovereign above all Astartes and Primarchs.
The Master of Mankind. The Emperor.
"You have co, my son."
The man turned around.
His face was gentle, but the weariness and sharpness of a thousand campaigns lived in every line of it. Those eyes were deep enough to hold an entire galaxy. One look, and they cut straight through every grief and obsession Cullen had buried in his soul across ten thousand years.
Cullen drove one knee into the ground.
He bowed his head. His heart hamred against his ribs like a war drum.
Ten thousand years of grief. Of rage. Of confusion. All of it rose at once and choked in his throat.
In the end, it ca out as a single word. The purest, most devout thing he had left.
"My liege."
"Rise, my son."
The Emperor's voice was quiet.
Yet it cut straight through the howling wind and settled into the deepest part of Cullen's soul.
"You need not kneel before ."
"You have already proven your loyalty — with your sword, your blood, and ten thousand years of suffering."
"I never stopped!" Cullen's head snapped up. His eyes were red. He stared at the man before him, jaw tight. "I am the sharpest blade for you and my father, the Lion. To see you again — I could die without regret!"
"No."
The man shook his head slowly.
"You cannot die. Not yet."
"My liege. Then what must I do?"
"Protect him. Help him." The Emperor's voice was low and steady. "You witnessed his arrival with your own eyes. You have confird he is not the Arch-Traitor from your mories. He is Lupercal. Not Horus."
Cullen's face went rigid. "You need to help the Wolf Shepherd? But he is a traitor."
"In the Great Heresy, he was the first of my sons to die." The man sighed. The sorrow in it was old and heavy. "Despicable enemies plotted against him. Controlled him."
"The one who stands before you now is the Lupercal you and I both rember, warm, but with an edge. Not the Arch-Traitor."
"I need him. The Imperium needs him. Guilliman and the Lion, when they return, will need him too."
At his gene-father's na, Cullen's fists clenched hard. That mortal, Kellen, hadn't lied. The Lion would return. He truly would.
"But stay watchful of the young man beside him."
The Emperor's tone shifted. Sothing rare crossed his face, scrutiny, and a trace of genuine puzzlent, directed at Kellen.
"My liege — you an the scavenger? The one called Kellen?"
"Yes."
The man paused. His gaze seed to reach through the veil between dream and waking as he added:
"But trust him as well. When the ti is right, bring him to Terra. Bring him before ."
➤ Next: Pledging Fealty to Lupercal
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