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Governor's Palace, VIP suite.
Through an entire wall of blast-proof glass, the streets of Macragge were packed solid. Countless pilgrims and ordinary civilians surged through every avenue, hoisting giant portraits of Guilliman, screaming themselves hoarse in celebration.
"He actually didn't attend the parade they held for him after his awakening?"
Visarch stood at the window, watching the overly enthusiastic crowd below. His voice carried a note of genuine puzzlent from beneath his mask.
"This is a perfect opportunity to stabilize public morale. In our experience, this is exactly the kind of surface-level pageantry that monkey civilizations love most."
He turned from the window.
Yvraine sat elegantly on a velvet sofa at the center of the room, a glass of Macragge's local red wine in hand, swirling it slowly.
"I don't know either." She took a sip, her tone perfectly even. "Perhaps he has his reasons. But that isn't what concerns us."
She set the glass on the table, rose, and stretched.
"We should return as soon as possible. Macragge is decent enough by monkey-civilization standards, their bathhouse culture in particular left quite an impression on . But compared to our craftworld, it falls far short."
Visarch let out a short scoff, fingers drifting to the short blade at his hip out of habit.
"That boy needs sothing from us right now. We can't extricate ourselves just yet."
The mont the words left his mouth, he stopped.
He stared at his own Emissary.
"Yvraine. Did you just call Roboute Guilliman... a boy?"
Even for the proud Aeldari, applying that word to a living demigod over ten thousand years old, standing more than 3 ters tall, who had torn apart dozens of Chaos Space Marines with his bare hands, it was genuinely unsettling.
"In truth, his age is far younger than mine. By Aeldari lifespans, calling him a boy is perfectly reasonable."
Yvraine replied without missing a beat.
She moved to stand beside Visarch and glanced out at the sea of people below. A faint, unreadable curve touched the corner of her mouth.
"But you're right. That form of address isn't quite appropriate." She paused. "I should call him 'big boy.'"
"Big boy?" Visarch shook his head.
"Don't you think it fits? In this dark, devouring universe, after everything he has lived through — all that betrayal, all that despair — he still clings to the sa pure idealism he carried ten thousand years ago."
She thought back to her brief exchange with Guilliman in the sanctum. The way he had spoken of order, law, and hope. That stubborn, unshakeable conviction. It had struck her as almost absurd. And yet, sohow, admirable.
"That kind of untily naivety is truly too childish for words."
Visarch shrugged, noncommittal. "What does he want with us now? Follow-up alliance negotiations?"
"Who knows? Perhaps sothing else entirely, such as—"
Knock. Knock. Knock.
asured. Unhurried. Each knock placed with deliberate precision.
The knocking cut Yvraine off mid-sentence.
From beyond the door ca High Gothic, stiff and formal:
"Greetings, honored guests. Our Lord Primarch has an urgent matter and requests both of you co to confer."
The two exchanged a glance, set aside their easy postures, and walked out of the VIP suite.
The mont Visarch stepped into the corridor, his body went rigid.
Lining both sides of the hallway, every ter of the stretch from the suite to the conference room, stood fully ard Ultramarines Honor Guard. Veterans, every one of them. None spoke. Even their breathing was controlled to near silence.
But the hostility was anything but silent.
It was targeted. Concentrated. Almost solid enough to touch.
Every Ultramarine was locked onto the two xenos. Especially Yvraine. This female Aeldari had drawn a bone knife and killed their gene-father in front of all of them.
The fact that it had later been proven a necessary step in his resurrection did not matter. Not to the sons of Guilliman. In their eyes, it remained an unforgivable desecration.
Yvraine's expression did not flicker. She walked with light, unhurried steps through the gauntlet of bolter barrels on either side.
The conference room doors were pushed open by the guards.
They stepped inside.
No attendants. No retinue. Just two figures.
Guilliman sat at the head of the table. Horus leaned against the massive floor-to-ceiling window, arms crossed, the sunlight stretching his shadow long across the floor.
Two Primarchs.
Visarch drew a quiet breath. The battle in the sanctum was still fresh, those Chaos Space Marines torn apart like tin cans by two demigods moving in concert. He took pride in his swordsmanship. Against two Primarchs, that pride ant nothing. If they turned hostile, he would not even be able to protect Yvraine.
"Good day, Lord Primarchs."
Yvraine bowed with practiced grace.
"Good day to you both." Guilliman did not waste ti. "We called you here because there is an urgent matter to discuss."
"My brother, my friends, and my armies will be traveling to Holy Terra. We need the two of you to open the Webway for us."
"I believe there is a Webway exit on Luna, near Holy Terra."
Yvraine and Visarch exchanged a brief glance. How did they know about the Luna exit?
Guilliman pressed on, and offered Yvraine a direct assurance.
"Rest assured, Emissary. We will not dispatch an overwhelming force, I have no interest in creating unnecessary friction between our two sides. What do you say?"
Yvraine did not refuse.
She nodded.
"No problem, Lord Primarch."
Her reasoning was straightforward. The Ynnari needed an alliance with the Imperium of Man, and within the current Imperium, Guilliman was the most functional piece on the board. Cultivating goodwill with him cost nothing and could pay dividends.
The faster Guilliman took control of the Imperium, the faster Horus could shed the stain of his fall, the faster the Imperium could mobilize against Chaos, and the more ti the Aeldari would have to summon Ynnead.
And if Guilliman was simply using this as a pretext to seize the Webway with a large army? Yvraine was not afraid. Control of the Webway was hers. Even if a human army flooded in, she could seal them inside and leave them to rot.
Weighed against all of that, agreeing was easy.
"One question, if you would indulge us. How did you learn there was a Webway exit on Luna?"
"My father, the Emperor, told ."
Guilliman delivered the line without a flicker of guilt, neatly offloading the entire matter onto the Emperor.
The old man couldn't exactly contradict him right now, could he?
It also served as cover for Kaelen.
The two Aeldari found it strange, though. Guilliman was a psychic blank. How had he received a psychic signal from the Master of Mankind? But the question was secondary. Getting these people back to Terra ahead of schedule was what mattered.
"Very well. I will grant Webway access."
"Please mobilize whatever armies and supplies you require within the next few days."
Guilliman nodded.
Then a sharp sting bit into his neck.
The wound Fulgrim had left him. His brother. The fallen serpent-daemon, ten thousand years gone and still reaching across ti to hurt him.
The pain was a familiar discomfort now, but Guilliman was quietly grateful he had stayed out of the parade these past few days. Kaelen had warned him: Fulgrim would leave him a gift. A gift that would make him acutely aware of his own pride, his sense of accomplishnt, his desires, and the danger of indulging any of them.
A mont of pain against losing all of that. The Primarch knew which mattered more.
Yvraine caught the shift in his expression. She smiled, soft and unhurried.
"Cawl's technology is sufficient to heal your flesh. But you and I both know the truly fatal wound runs deeper than that, it is a wound of the soul. He alone could never have nded it, no matter how skilled. Primarch, you walk among the living again because of Ynnead's grace."
Her voice did not harden, but the weight behind it was unmistakable.
"Rember this: if you value your life, never remove your armor from this day forward. But there is no need for dread. That armor is far sturdier than you imagine."
Both Guilliman and Horus felt the irritation rise in them.
Their fates, and the fate of a brother, held in the hands of xenos. Xenos gods, no less. It sat poorly with both of them.
Neither showed it. They saw the two Ynnari representatives out with asured courtesy, and once the doors closed, Guilliman turned to Horus with a tired, rueful smile.
"It seems I'm in about the sa position you were back then, brother."
"Don't say that, Roboute. At least your mind is still your own." Horus put a hand on his shoulder. "Kaelen told what I did after my fall. Looking back at it now, from where I stand... I can barely believe it was ."
He let the silence sit for a mont.
"But your concern is valid. A xenos god is not sothing we can trust. Think about how many xenos we encountered during the Great Crusade. Think about their gods."
Guilliman said nothing for a long mont.
"Perhaps we'll encounter even more in the days ahead," he murmured at last. "Gods more powerful than anything we faced during the Crusade. We're in the middle of a ga played by gods now, brother."
➤ Next: The Wheel of Fortune
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