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"Are you alright, my friend?"
Horus crossed the debris-strewn ground in a few long strides, caught Karen's arm, and hauled him upright.
The Wolf God looked his mortal friend over from head to toe, checking for missing pieces.
Guilliman arrived a mont later, burning greatsword still in hand.
Both demigods stared at the battlefield. Astonishnt was written across their faces. The field was too clean.
Magnus had vanished without a trace. So had the so-called immortal Rubric Marines. So had the daemons that had sward the sky. All of it, gone. Evaporated.
This was no retreat. This was conceptual erasure.
The loyalists had won.
And that victory sent chills down their spines.
Beneath his helt, Grand Master Voldus's eyes locked onto Karen and didn't move. Because in his mory, one second ago this mortal captain had had his skull crushed by the Crimson King.
The next second, the Red Daemon was gone. The mortal was sitting on the ground, catching his breath, perfectly intact.
Not even a primarch could pull off that kind of reality-warping trick.
Inquisitor Greyfax's finger rested on the trigger of her boltgun, nerves stretched to the snapping point. In the Inquisition's doctrine, power that so utterly defied comprehension was almost always linked to the deepest heresy.
"Living Saint." Voldus lowered his voice and turned to Saint Celestine beside him. "Did you sense any warp disturbance just now?"
The Living Saint shook her head gently.
"No trace of psychic flow whatsoever." Saint Celestine's tone was gentle, but threaded with deep bewildernt. "A very pure blankness."
"This is far too dangerous." Voldus drew a sharp breath. The veins on the back of his weapon-hand stood out. "This has completely exceeded anything we can control. We—"
Regarding any unknown variable, the Grand Master's instinct was simple: find an opportunity to dispose of Karen later, or lock him away.
The Harlequin troupe's absurd stage-play flashed through his mind. That "spectator" who had leaped into the chessboard and rewritten the ending at will.
A variable. A variable through and through.
The Imperium could not afford another one.
"Please do not do that, Grand Master."
Saint Celestine said it quietly.
"The God-Emperor's decree is perfectly clear. He nad Mr. Karen. He wishes to see him." The Living Saint looked directly into the Grey Knight's eyes. "We are the blades of the God-Emperor's will. Beyond delivering him safely before the Throne, we have no authority to question or judge him. Do you intend to defy the Throne's command?"
Voldus went rigid. He gritted his teeth and forcibly withdrew his gaze.
At that mont, Karen dusted off his clothes and slipped between the two primarchs.
He dropped his voice to sothing only the three of them could hear.
"I just got sothing good off that One."
Guilliman's brow furrowed sharply. Horus's expression changed in an instant.
Karen kept his back to the Grey Knights and opened his right palm.
A soul-shard floated quietly above his palm-lines, radiating a light that was utterly pure and warm and golden.
No stench of Chaos. Nothing but a sacredness and purity that made you want to weep.
Both primarchs stopped breathing at the sa ti.
That soul-signature. Even if they died ten thousand tis, they could never mistake it.
It was their most perfect brother.
The Great Angel. Sanguinius.
"Your boldness is sothing else, Mr. Karen." Guilliman sucked in a sharp breath and imdiately shifted his body to block the view from behind. "Put it away. Now."
Horus grabbed Karen's shoulder. His voice was tight with barely-suppressed fury and sothing that looked a lot like fear.
"Are you out of your mind? You actually dared to make a deal with Him? If He had tampered with even the smallest thing, your soul would have beco His plaything entirely!"
The Wolf God was genuinely rattled.
He had lived through the Chaos Gods' scheming firsthand. He knew exactly how vicious those things were.
"Relax, my Wolf God. I know what I'm doing." Karen tucked the shard away and gave the back of Horus's broad hand a casual pat. "If He hadn't handed over this shard, I would have erased Magnus completely right then and there. If He wanted the chessboard to keep changing, He had to preserve Magnus as a piece. It was an equal trade."
Karen understood the Changer of Ways perfectly. Tzeentch didn't care about winning or losing. He only cared about change.
And Karen himself, an existence that had stepped outside the rules entirely, was precisely why Tzeentch least wanted to interfere. Because Karen could bring Him entirely new change.
While the group was still talking, the dim sky above Luna was suddenly swallowed by shadow.
One after another, warships in gleaming gold livery, ornate, stately, unmistakably Terran, cut hard into lunar orbit.
Archmagos Cawl had sent the coordinates ahead. The Terran garrison had followed them here.
Several heavy shuttlecraft spewed fla as they touched down at the basin's edge.
Hatches opened. A squad of Custodians in dazzling golden auramite, a full complent of Imperial Fists, and Silent Sisters radiating null-fields descended the ramps in perfect lockstep.
The mont Shield-Captain Ty Ajodnetus set foot on the ground, his gaze swept past the Ultramarines' line and locked onto the towering pearl-white figure standing beside Guilliman.
The next second, every Custodian and every Imperial Fist raised their weapons in unison.
Guardian spears. Boltguns. Every muzzle aid at Horus.
Ten thousand years had passed. Different paint. No bone spikes. Didn't matter. For any warrior who had ever defended Terra, that face was the ultimate nightmare.
The temperature dropped to nothing. The Ultramarines raised their weapons in response. On a battlefield still thick with ash, both sides stood with guns leveled at each other.
"Lower your weapons!"
Guilliman stepped forward and planted himself directly in front of Horus.
"I swear it, as a Loyal Son of the Emperor, as Regent of the Imperium of Man — Lupercal is no traitor! He has returned to atone!"
The Master of Ultramar's voice rolled across the field like a thunderclap.
Shield-Captain Ty Ajodnetus did not move half a step. The hand on his spear was steady as stone.
"Lord Primarch. We honor your return." Ty Ajodnetus's voice carried no emotion at all. "But our duty is to defend the Throne. We cannot confirm the true allegiance of the Arch-Traitor. If you insist on bringing him into Holy Terra..."
He spoke each word with deliberate weight.
"Place this suspect in heavy stasis shackles. That is the bottom line."
What colossal humiliation.
To make a returned primarch set foot on his ho soil in shackles, like a condemned prisoner.
Everyone expected the Wolf God to erupt. Back in the Great Crusade, if anyone had made that demand of the First-Found Son, Horus would have slapped that Custodian's head straight into his chest cavity.
But Horus did not grow angry.
He pressed a hand to Guilliman's shoulder and gently moved his brother aside.
"Fine."
One word. Perfectly calm.
He extended those hands, hands that could tear apart tanks, and held them level before the Shield-Captain.
That made Ty Ajodnetus pause.
There was no humiliation in Horus's eyes. Only the quiet release of a man who had seen through everything.
He glanced at Karen beside him. So his friend wouldn't be harassed by these rigid Custodians. So he could see his father without incident. What were a pair of shackles worth?
The chanical locks snapped shut with a harsh clang. Heavy stasis shackles clamped tight around Horus's wrists.
Karen and Cullen fell in silently at the Wolf God's side. Together, they boarded the transport bound for the Throneworld.
---
Holy Terra.
Humanity's cradle was burning.
The aftershocks of the Great Rift had torn the veil of reality to shreds. Eight Bloodthirsters of Khorne, leading eighty-eight blood-crazed daemon legions, were hamring the Lion's Gate defenses of the Imperial Palace.
Outside, it was a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. Inside the Eternity Wall, the spaceport maintained a deeply surreal kind of decorum.
The landing pad cleared for the primarch's return was packed. High Lords in sumptuous silks. Great nobles. Ecclesiarchy bishops. A choir was praising the God-Emperor at a pitch that could split eardrums. Swarms of servo-skulls and rembrancers clutched parchnt, ready to record this great mont for history.
The shuttle's engines roared. The hatch lowered slowly.
When the majestic figure of Roboute Guilliman appeared on the ramp, the entire landing pad erupted. Hysterical cheering. Countless people dropping to their knees, weeping openly.
Then the cheering caught in their throats.
Because they saw the giant following behind Guilliman.
Heavy shackles. No helt. That face, the face of Horus Lupercal, hit like a warhamr, smashing into the retinas of every dignitary on the pad.
The fat on the High Lords' faces twitched. The bishops' prayer beads clattered to the ground.
There was another primarch?
And why was this one's face so unfamiliar? And why was he in shackles?
Before anyone could react, Custodians and Imperial Fists shoved the crowd roughly aside and swept Guilliman and the shackled Horus into the Palace.
As if even a single second of Horus's face being visible was an act of desecration against the Terran Palace.
Through labyrinthine corridors. Beneath grand archways.
Guilliman and Horus walked in the middle of the formation. Ten thousand years. Even with repairs and renovations, the Palace's layout was still carved into their marrow.
The deeper they went, the heavier the air beca.
The procession passed through a vast morial hall. Lining both sides stood nine towering statues, soaring up into the heights above.
Monunts to the nine loyal primarchs.
Guilliman glanced up at his own statue. The muscles of his face tightened. He looked away imdiately.
The shackled Horus slowed his steps.
He looked at the stone-carved brothers in silence. He saw Dorn. He saw the Khan. He saw Sanguinius.
He said nothing.
A young Custodian assigned to the escort detail noticed.
His golden armor was brand-new and gleaming. He let out a cold laugh, his tone barbed with contempt.
"What are you looking at? You and your traitor brothers will never stand here. The Arch-Traitor belongs on his knees in the mud, begging the Throne for forgiveness."
Horus didn't argue. Didn't even lift his eyes. He just kept walking.
But if he could endure it, soone else couldn't.
Karen, who had stayed at Horus's side the entire ti, turned and hit back without a shred of courtesy.
"Super-soldiers hand-crafted by the Master of Mankind himself, and in ten thousand years they've done a spectacular job of not protecting his legacy. Decorative vases. That's all they are. Good for looking pretty and nothing else."
"Useless trash, the lot of them! Squatting on the latrine without doing anything! Wasting resources! Even the Tyranids know better than to build vases that don't serve a purpose!"
If the Custodian had kept his mouth shut, Karen wouldn't have bothered.
But he'd opened it. And Karen couldn't let that stand.
These golden corn-cobs had genius-level command ability, tactical brilliance, administrative capacity, and for ten thousand years they had done nothing but huddle inside the Palace and guard the Emperor on His Throne.
What the Imperium built by the Emperor and the Sigillite had beco? They couldn't care less.
Karen knew his words were one-sided. In truth, the Custodians had been active all along after the primarchs disappeared, operating in the shadows, handling threats the Imperium never knew about, which was exactly why the impression of them never leaving the Palace had taken hold.
But the Wolf God was his friend. And that was reason enough.
The outburst brought the entire procession to a dead stop.
The young Custodian froze. The lenses of his helt flared dangerous red.
"Mortal. Watch your tongue. This is Holy Terra."
(In truth, the Custodians are far from idle — most of their work is covert, dealing with hidden threats to the Imperium in ways that go unrecorded. GW's portrayal of them has always been sowhat abstract. If there are errors here, please feel free to point them out.)
➤ Next: I Have a Plan — Fit the Old Man on the Throne with a Speaking Device! That'll...
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