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Kaelen took in every detail, the two figures before him, every word of their exchange.
Celestine's reaction to Horus had probably been briefed in advance by the Old Man on the Golden Throne. Otherwise, the mont she laid eyes on Horus, her sword would have already been swinging.
Still, the radiance pouring off this Battle Sister was sothing else entirely.
Kaelen grumbled inwardly.
Worthy of the Emperor's champion, the light blazing off her was practically solar. No wonder those Khornate daemons on the battlefield turned and ran the mont they saw her. Because this Living Saint could annihilate daemons in the most literal sense of the word.
Celestine and Horus spoke for a while. It seed brief on the surface, but in truth they had exchanged a vast amount of information through psychic communion. Horus possessed a certain degree of psychic talent, though he rarely let it show. From the Living Saint, he learned of the many crises rotting the Imperium from within, and the state of the Emperor himself. That knowledge sank the Warmaster's heart straight to the bottom of the sea.
When she finished with Horus, Celestine exchanged a few pleasantries with Cullen, mostly gratitude for his service as the Warmaster's guardian. Then the Living Saint turned her gaze toward Kaelen.
"Greetings."
She paused for several seconds. Then she produced the phrase she had clearly been weighing for so ti.
"Audience beneath the stage."
Stage, this galaxy soaked in warp-spawned horrors and the fires of endless war.
Audience, an outsider, standing apart from the machinations of fate.
Horus instinctively looked at Kaelen. Through the mouth of his father's emissary, a corner of the veil over Kaelen's identity had just been lifted. He truly was no ordinary mortal.
Cullen looked over too. In that mont, his eyes were sharp with vigilance.
Kaelen, for his part, felt remarkably calm.
The Old Man on the Golden Throne had been reduced to sothing neither fully man nor ghost, but his mind hadn't dulled one bit. Having his cover as a transmigrator seen through wasn't necessarily a bad thing. At least in this universe, it gave him a certain level of backing, and might spare him from other factions quietly moving against him later.
"That's ." He acknowledged it without hesitation, no deflection, no evasion.
The Living Saint reined in the psychic halo bleeding off her and settled into a posture of asured inquiry.
"Thank you for your intervention. Bringing the Warmaster into this world has profoundly rewritten the board. However, my master has sent to ask you for a final answer."
She spoke slowly, each word deliberate.
"What is it that you intend to do?"
Horus and Cullen, two giants, held their breath and waited.
Kaelen t the Living Saint's scrutiny head-on.
For one fleeting mont, it was as if he could see straight through Celestine's eyes to the figure seated upon the Golden Throne.
Lie? Before the Master of Mankind, everything would be seen through.
Honesty was the only way forward.
"Walk the path I'm ant to walk," he said. "And wrench things back onto the right track."
"My position is simple. I stand on the side of human civilization. Always. As for the Emperor himself? I don't worship him. He's a great tyrant. A leader who made catastrophic mistakes. I won't treat him as a god."
"But I will do everything in my power to uphold the legitimacy of his seat as humanity's supre commander, because I know, without him on the Golden Throne, the human race ends up looking a lot like the Eldar do now. Maybe worse."
Then he turned to face the Warmaster directly.
"And at the end of the day, I'm Lupercal's friend."
"I made him a promise. I'd help him clear away the wreckage he left behind, help him reclaim his na. And I want to pull him along with , patch up this broken, leaking wreck of an Imperium before it sinks completely, and carve out a real future for humanity."
"That's what I'm here to do."
The Living Saint was silent for a long ti after that.
She reached out with her psychic senses, her perception cutting through the mortal shell before her, driving straight down to the core of his soul.
What she found there was rare. Kaelen's soul was colorless and stable, a form she had almost never encountered.
No stain of Khorne's brutality. No mottling of Tzeentch's scheming. No trace of Nurgle's rot. No shadow of Slaanesh's delusion.
Every breath he drew, every word he had spoken, ca from the sa place. It was a compassion born from clear-eyed understanding of his entire species, fused with the ambition to reverse their fate.
Celestine stepped back half a pace. She lowered her posture and gave a slight bow.
"Even in the dust, a spark may be hidden," she said softly. "Even in the ordinary, legend may take root."
"The curtain of this stage will continue to rise before you. The Master of Mankind awaits the answer you will one day deliver. May the spark never go out."
"Hope persists. Long live humanity."
Kaelen rendered an Aquila salute.
Not to Celestine. To the Old Man on the toilet.
"Saint — will you reveal who we are?"
He gestured to himself, then to Horus and Cullen.
Celestine shook her head.
"Revealing your identities now would only ignite needless conflict and infighting. The great enemy stands before us. We must unite every force that can be united."
"Lord Lupercal's influence is too significant. His position in both camps is deeply precarious. To move freely within the Imperium, he will first need the endorsent of another loyal Primarch." She paused, fixing Kaelen with a steady look and a faint smile. "Though I suspect you already know which Primarch that would be."
As a powerful psyker, the Living Saint possessed a degree of precognitive sight. Kaelen was certain she had seen the sa future he knew, the resurrection of the Lord of Ultramar.
"Lord Roboute will provide that endorsent," she continued. "However, the key figure — Archmagos Belisarius Cawl — has not yet arrived."
"He will be here soon. Wait with patience. When the ti cos, I will introduce you to him."
"Thank you, Saint."
Celestine inclined her head and withdrew the psychic barrier that had been sealing their conversation from the outside world.
She was almost gone when she stopped. Turned back.
"Personally, I would prefer you call Sister. Not Saint."
She left behind a smile that hit like a weapon, spread her wings, and was gone.
Whether it was her natural beauty or the amplifying effect of her psychic presence, Kaelen felt his heart skip a full beat, then imdiately start hamring.
How to describe it? Like soone had shoved a piece of candy into his mouth without warning, and it turned out to be the romantic kind.
"Hmm."
A low, knowing hum ca from beside him.
Horus had one hand propped under his chin, studying Kaelen the way a collector studies a rare find.
"My friend," he said, "I detect a rather distinct surge of hormones coming off you. The affectionate variety."
"You haven't gone and developed feelings for the Living Saint, have you?" Cullen added.
Absolutely unbelievable. A gene-forged Primarch who once commanded a galaxy-spanning crusade, and a ten-thousand-year-old interstellar popsicle, both of them abandoning whatever serious business they had to pick apart a mortal's love life.
"Both of you, shut it." Caught red-handed, Kaelen's face went red. He shot them both a glare that could strip paint.
But once he cald down, the whole thing did seem strange. Why had his heart started racing like that out of nowhere?
There was only one explanation. This was almost certainly a sche by the Old Man on the Golden Throne, a deliberate move to keep him invested and on the hook.
Kaelen snorted.
Trying to use a honey trap on ? Old Man, you really think I'd fall for that? And honestly? I'm a little insulted by how little effort you put into it.
➤ Next: The Archmagos — Words Unspoken
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