~ Every 100 Power Stones = Bonus Chapter! Your votes keep this climbing. Thanks!
The Warp is a reflection of reality.
When Guilliman awoke, the Sea of Souls surged again. It had already been churning from the Wolf Shepherd's return. Now it heaved with fresh violence.
Had the Wolf Shepherd not been present, the servants of the Dark Gods would have welcod Guilliman's return with open arms.
Two Primarchs. Two demigods.
Two sons of the Emperor who had each carved their legend across the Great Crusade — one through iron command, the other through the kind of charisma that made n follow without question.
The Imperium of Man was about to change forever.
The fallen Daemon Primarchs lost their minds.
Fulgrim smashed his way through piles of priceless artwork in the Palace of Pleasure, that depraved serpent-thing consud by jealousy. Those two perfect beings had walked together without reservation, without hesitation, and hadn't invited him.
Mortarion roared across his plague world, the toxic miasma thick enough to choke stars. The old brotherly bond had been a knife, and soone had just driven it ho. The Plaguebearer's fury went sowhere past rage.
Magnus the Red, one-eyed and crimson, sat in the deepest chamber of the Crystal Labyrinth and tore through threads of fate with frantic hands, hunting for anything that could destroy those two, or at least drive them apart.
Angron answered with the only language he knew. Eighty-eight worlds on the Imperium's fringe were annihilated in an instant. He swore both their skulls would sit on the Blood God's throne.
Perturabo? The Iron Lord didn't care. Didn't bother.
Abaddon was more practical than all of them. He heard the news, spent thirty seconds cursing every commander under his authority as an incompetent waste of armor, then opened a channel to the Tzeentchian Greater Daemon Kairos. The two of them got to work imdiately, weaving the most vicious trap they could build for two Primarchs walking the sa road.
---
The psychic null Guilliman knew none of this.
He knew two things.
First: his forr brother, Horus Lupercal, had co back. Not as the Warmaster of Chaos. Not as the monster that had nearly ended everything. He had co back as the Wolf Shepherd of the Great Crusade, the one everyone had loved, the one full of honor and light.
Second: what ten thousand years had done to the Imperium, and what was happening to Macragge right now. Chaos forces were at the gates.
Guilliman didn't waste ti picking at old wounds. He extended the invitation imdiately, Horus would join him in taking full command of the planet's defense.
Two Primarchs working together. Every loyalist present got a front-row seat to what pure tactical annihilation actually looked like.
Horus locked down the macro offensive axes and the breakthrough points. Guilliman, with that terrifying computational mind of his, filled in everything else: firepower configurations, logistics, contingency plans stacked three layers deep. They barely needed words. A few hand signals, and a purge plan took shape that was almost cruel in its efficiency.
Optimal solution after optimal solution got cramd into the frontline units' execution sequences.
One mont the loyalists were barely holding the line. 3 hours later, they were launching organized counter-charges.
Calgar and First Captain Agemann felt like a pair of trigger-pulling servitors. No thinking required. Just follow the routes their gene-father and the Wolf Shepherd had marked, charge up, empty the magazine, repeat. Victory was practically handed to them.
On the battlefield, Cullen fired steadily and murmured to Kaelen at his side.
"If the Lion were here, the heretics on this planet would be finished even faster."
"The opposite, actually." Kaelen picked off a fleeing mortal traitor with his lasgun and smiled. "He'd argue with Guilliman first. Efficiency would drop. Because the Lion would call for Exterminatus."
Less than 24 hours. The Chaos forces on Macragge's surface were gone, evaporated, every last one.
The two Primarchs turned their attention to the orbital fleet and handed down a new tactical fire plan.
The war was over. The Fortress of Hera's sanctum was cleared.
Under the eyes of every Imperial commander, every chanicus adept, every Aeldari emissary present, Guilliman walked back to the great master throne and sat down. The Living Saint Celestine stood before him, cradling the halo in both hands, and completed his coronation.
Horus stood in the throne's shadow.
The Warmaster who had once nearly shattered the Imperium of Man stood with both hands resting on his greatsword, still as a sentinel, guarding the Master of Ultramar's flank.
The Ultramarines in the hall were twitching. Every single one of them. But not a word was said. Not a sound.
Their father held no grudge. Who in their right mind was going to bring up the Great Betrayal?
Even an Ogryn could read the room. Guilliman had forgiven Lupercal.
Isn't that right, Magnus?
Standing in the corner, Kaelen thought of that one-eyed crimson daemon and felt the corner of his mouth pull upward. The atmosphere was too solemn for a laugh. He kept it to a smirk.
The ceremony ended. Guilliman withdrew to his private command chamber and began receiving representatives one by one.
His sons from ten thousand years on, the Archmagos, the High Marshal of the Black Templars, the Grand Master of the Grey Knights. The Living Saint and the Inquisitor. Two from the Aeldari Ynnari.
Conversation and the occasional asured laugh drifted through the door. Every guest who walked out wore the sa expression: the deep, settled satisfaction of soone who had been seen, respected, and taken seriously.
Kaelen leaned against a load-bearing pillar in the corridor and watched it all.
He knew every bit of that composure was a performance.
Every piece of intelligence from the last ten thousand years was tearing into this materialist Primarch's sanity, one fact at a ti.
And then there were the cherubim. Those things drifting back and forth overhead, constructs deliberately shaped in the image of human infants, bobbing through the corridor right in Horus's line of sight.
One glance was enough. The Wolf Shepherd turned away, jaw tight, stomach visibly turning. Whatever Guilliman was enduring inside the room was worse.
Inside that superhuman chest, sothing was building. Piling up. Getting heavier.
Guilliman had reached his limit.
The final guest, Inquisitor Greyfax, stepped out of the room. She gave a brief nod to the three in the corridor and walked away without slowing.
The command chamber doors began to close.
Guilliman clearly ant to seal them. Lock himself in. Digest alone whatever grief and fury had been accumulating behind that mask, the kind that could tear a soul apart.
The doors swung toward each other.
CLANG!
A broad hand in Terminator armor shoved itself into the gap. The door hinges scread.
"Do you mind if I co in, brother?"
Horus stood in the doorway. His gaze cut through the gap and found Guilliman on the other side, the mask right at the edge of breaking.
The Master of Ultramar went rigid.
The line of his jaw worked. Then he let go of the door handle.
"Co in." A pause. "My brother."
The hoarseness in Guilliman's voice was unmistakable. So was the exhaustion underneath it.
He turned his head and looked at the other two in the corridor.
"Bring your friends in as well. I have sothing I want to ask them."
Kaelen and Cullen looked at each other.
Neither hesitated. They pulled off their standard-issue lasguns and power swords and shoved them into the arms of the nearest honor guard, then walked in.
The great doors slamd shut behind all three of them. Every sound from outside — the noise, the eyes, the politics — cut off completely.
The air inside was suffocating.
Guilliman had his back to them. Both hands were dug into the edge of the massive wooden table, fingers gouging into the exquisitely crafted surface, leaving five deep indentations in the wood. His enormous fra was shaking. Not slightly. Uncontrollably.
He turned around.
The face that had been gentle and resolute for every guest, every ceremony, every watching eye, that face now had blood in the whites of his eyes and veins standing out at his temples.
Guilliman looked past his brother.
He looked directly at Kaelen.
"Whatever else may be said," Guilliman's voice ca out low and deliberate, "I must express my gratitude to you, Mr. Kaelen."
"Thank you. For bringing my brother back."
➤ Next: Don't Be Afraid, Brother, You Are No Longer Alone
— .—— .—— .—— .—— .——
Enjoying the story?
Read 60 chapters ahead on Patreon.
Join the free community tier for early access to the latest updates:
patreon(.)com/DarkGolds
Reviews
All reviews (0)