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The blinding light made Kallen throw his arm up over his eyes.
The system's translucent prompt box shoved itself dead center into his vision.
[Beep! Salvage successful!]
[Two soul nodes intercepted from the Vengeful Spirit.]
[Deploynt Target One: Great Angel of Baal · Sanguinius (Unconscious)]
[Deploynt Target Two: Last Luna Wolf · Garviel Loken (Unconscious)]
Holy shit.
A double yolk.
Kallen lowered his arm and rubbed his stinging eyelids. A grin split his face. If he weren't standing in the middle of a solemn, cathedral-silent Throne Room, he probably would have jumped up and scread.
The pull rate on this thing is genuinely touching.
He couldn't help it. He gave Abaddon a ntal thumbs-up.
Thanks, Brother Abaddon. Your lifespan really ca through.
The light faded. The hall settled back into its usual dim amber gloom.
The Golden Throne said nothing. Old Yellow, who'd been running his mouth nonstop just monts ago, had gone completely silent. Even the faint static hiss from the vox-speaker had died.
Kallen crossed the floor in quick strides and stopped at the base of the Throne steps.
Two bodies lay on the ground.
The first was a primarch. Even flat on his back, apparently lifeless, the sheer beauty of him hit like a physical force.
Golden hair fanned across the floor. Features that could only be called perfect. All of it buried under a thick, congealing mask of blood.
The great white wings on his back, his most iconic feature, had been nearly torn off at the root on the left side. A few feathers hung there limply, trailing shreds of flesh. The golden power armor that should have been magnificent was shattered beyond recognition. Dead center in his chest was a hole the size of a fist, the edges scorched black.
The Great Angel of Baal. The eternal grief of the Imperium. Gene-Primarch of the Ninth Legion.
Sanguinius.
Pressed close against Sanguinius's leg lay the second figure.
Smaller by a full order of magnitude, a standard-frad Astartes, nothing more. He wore a suit of Mark IV power armor so battered its original color was gone, though the Luna Wolves insignia was still faintly visible on the pauldron. Short golden hair, cut clean. Hard features with the rough-edged quality that marked a Cthonian. His cheeks were split open in lacerations deep enough to show bone.
The Mournival's Crescent Moon. Garviel Loken.
Both n were lying in a pool of blood that was still spreading.
Kallen dropped into a crouch without hesitating, ignoring the sticky warmth soaking into his knees, and pressed 2 fingers against the carotid arteries of each man in turn.
The pulses were barely there. Either of them could stop breathing at any mont. Especially the Angel, the wound in his chest was still seeping.
Kallen was just pulling his hand back to look up and ask the Emperor about ergency dical supplies when,
SLAP!
A blood-soaked hand shot up and locked around his wrist.
Sanguinius.
The Great Angel was awake.
He forced his eyes open. Those eyes, which should have been clear and luminous, held nothing but a scattered, unfocused stare. He couldn't stop himself from coughing up a mouthful of bloody froth.
Kallen went still. A primarch's vitality wasn't a myth. Torn apart like this, and he'd still clawed his way back to consciousness.
Sanguinius looked at the blurred shape crouching over him. From his throat ca a few hoarse, broken rasps.
"Go... get out of here..."
"It's not... safe..."
His mory was still on the Vengeful Spirit. Still on the mont Horus had punched through his chest.
He thought Kallen was so Imperial mortal who'd wandered onto the flagship by accident. Against a mad Warmaster and a ship crawling with Chaos daemons, a mortal had exactly one outco. So he'd burned the last scrap of strength he'd just recovered, not to beg for help, but to push this stranger toward the exit. If he could manage it, he was even willing to drag his ruined body upright and buy a few more minutes, just to get this one ordinary person clear of Horus's reach.
Sothing slamd into Kallen's chest. He didn't have ti to sit with it. He yanked up the system shop, spent the last of his points on 2 repair serums, grabbed the Angel's arm, and injected them both.
"Sanguinius? Sanguinius?"
"Can you hear ?"
He shook him gently. The serums hit fast. The wounds across Sanguinius's body began closing, the bleeding stopped, and granulation tissue writhed and knit together in rapid, almost frantic pulses. Damaged organs were forcibly sutured. Color crept back into the white face.
His breathing steadied.
He opened his eyes again. The focus had returned. He looked up at the ceiling, no warp-tainted distortion pressing down on the air, no biting stench of Chaos. Just the stale, old sll of incense.
Then he turned his head and looked at the mortal crouching beside him.
"Thank you." His voice was still weak, but the warmth had co back into it, along with a faint note of apology. "I don't believe I know you."
"Is this the Vengeful Spirit? Is that Lupercal's court?" He asked quietly, reaching for the sword at his side.
"No. You're safe. This is Holy Terra — the foot of the Golden Throne."
Terra. Golden Throne.
Sanguinius went still.
He closed his eyes and opened his psychic senses wide.
Half a second.
He felt it. Vast. Blazing. Blinding as a sun. A psychic presence unlike anything else in the universe.
His father.
Sothing flickered across Sanguinius's pale face. Panic.
"Help up." He grabbed Kallen's arm, his voice suddenly sharp.
"You're still in bad shape. Those serums close wounds — they don't restore blood loss. You should stay down." Kallen tried to hold him back.
"No."
The Great Angel shook his head. That perfect face was set with absolute stubbornness.
"I have sensed Father."
"I cannot go before him like this. I lost. I failed to stop Horus." A pause. "I can at least... face him with so dignity."
That was his pride. Simple and immovable.
Kallen let out a long breath.
"Fine. Alright. You win. Hold steady — I've got you."
He worked both hands under Sanguinius's arms. The demigod weighed like a small mountain, and the ruined wings dragging behind him didn't help. Kallen's face went red. He set his teeth and hauled, and with a grunt that echoed off the vaulted ceiling, he wrenched the Great Angel's upper body off the floor and got him sitting upright.
Once Sanguinius was stable, Kallen turned and pressed the second serum into Loken.
The Great Angel drew a slow breath and straightened his back. He raised his head and looked up the long sweep of the steps.
He had expected his father. The golden armor blazing like a star. The presence that no mortal could look upon directly. He had already assembled the words in his mind, the confession, the apology, the accounting of every failure.
His gaze climbed past the edge of the Throne and reached the top.
A withered, charred-black corpse.
A hole broken through its skull. One eye gone.
Rusted, blackened tubes and cables driven into the body from every angle, pinning it to a crumbling chair that leaked black smoke.
That was his omnipotent father.
Sanguinius crashed. His mind went white. His breathing stopped.
Before he could surface from that devastation, the Emperor spoke.
"I don't know what words could describe how I feel right now. Or what to say about you, my son."
"Welco ho! Seeing your daddy again, no hug? Oh, right. I'm just a piece of air-dried old jerky at this point, cold as a tomb. Hugging would feel like hugging a dead tree. But seeing you, I'm really fucking happy. I'm going to go kick that bastard on the Brass Throne right in the ass to celebrate, then burn down the green fat one's house, then go punch that dead freak in their own palace. The blue bird-man? Next ti."
"Yeah."
It should have landed as absurdity. The Emperor of Mankind, speaking in the cadence of a street-corner drunk. The words bounced off the vaulted walls and ca back as echoes.
But Kallen saw it.
From the hollow eye socket of that withered corpse on the Throne, a single tear had ford. Bright. Impossibly bright against all that char and ruin.
It traced down the blackened cheekbone in silence and fell onto the dust-covered, desiccated chest.
The Great Angel sat with his head tilted back, mouth open, pupils blown wide and trembling.
"Father?"
➤ Next: The Emperor Issues You a New Commission
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