Chapter Summaries

Zhou Yun persuaded Cicero to obtain ashes from the witch and other sacrifices in exchange for five thousand Denar. At the casino, Zhou Yun met Archon Jarlan, whose extraordinary luck matched his own, and recognized him as the man destined to murder Roboute Guilliman’s foster father.

• Zhou Yun confronted Cicero about his debts and urged him to gamble again, using Cicero’s own past arguments for pleasure against him.
• Zhou Yun offered Cicero five thousand Denar for a box of ashes from the sacrificial site, and Cicero agreed to bring them when they applied for positions at Marcus Guilliman’s home.
• Zhou Yun won over five thousand Denar at the casino with his Strange Luck psychic technique.
• Archon Jarlan challenged Zhou Yun to a dice game, and both men rolled three sixes.
• Jarlan left with Caepio after telling Zhou Yun to claim fifty thousand Denar in his name, and Zhou Yun recognized Jarlan as Roboute Guilliman’s future foster-father’s murderer.

Zhou Yun received the ashes from Cicero and questioned him about Consul Jarlan before the tutors’ selection began. Marcus Guilliman’s six-year-old son interviewed the candidates and left eight scholars shaken; Cicero entered next, unaware that Euten and the child had already judged him.

• Cicero handed Zhou Yun a box of ashes, and Zhou Yun asked whether Consul Jarlan belonged to Cicero’s group.
• Quintus Guilliman announced that Marcus’s six-year-old son would interview the tutors seeking to teach him.
• The first eight teachers returned from their interviews pale, furious, trembling, or emotionally shattered.
• Cicero confidently went in for his interview, believing he could enlighten the child.
• Euten decided Cicero’s decadent thoughts made him unsuitable, while the child watched his red shoes and welcomed him.

Zhou Yun challenged Cicero’s belief that wisdom and pleasure brought happiness by telling him about a contented gardener and questioning what Cicero’s own philosophy had given him. Cicero fled in terror after glimpsing a storm of blue and gold in the mirror, while Zhou Yun watched with mild curiosity.

• Cicero prepared to enlighten a ruler’s heir, but the young man behind the mirror asked him whether an infant or an ordinary centenarian was happier.
• The young man described a gardener whose modest life, family, and painting hobby had left him fulfilled and happy.
• Cicero claimed the gardener’s happiness came from ignorance, and the young man argued that Cicero was no wiser and had gained no happiness from his wisdom.
• Cicero saw a vast blue-and-gold storm in the mirror, called the being behind it a monster or god, and fled.
• Zhou Yun watched Cicero rush past him in the corridor and wondered why he was so scared.

Zhou Yun confronted the mysterious presence behind the mirror and saw a vast blue-and-gold storm of ordered will spreading from Macragge across the stars. Within it, he sensed a blood-and-sand world on the storm’s edge and a body there that he could enter.

• Zhou Yun noticed a dwarf watching him from a tower and entered the room where Marcus Guilliman's fortieth illegitimate son was staying.
• Zhou Yun spoke with the voice behind the mirror about Cicero’s beliefs and argued that real pain would make ordinary life seem like happiness.
• Zhou Yun sent his psychic will through the mirror, despite warnings from his instincts and precognitive sense.
• The child’s presence halted the room’s movement, and Zhou Yun’s will met the child’s gaze in a storm of blue and gold.
• Zhou Yun saw the storm spread across worlds and sensed a blood-and-sand world at its border, where he could enter a body.

Zhou Yun discovered that the child beyond the mirror was Robert Guilliman and cautiously tested his thoughts about Ultramar. Guilliman revealed his vision for the Five Hundred Worlds, then condemned the prospect of Ultramar breaking away from a future unified human Imperium, leaving Zhou Yun privately amused by the contradiction.

• Zhou Yun confirmed that the child beyond the mirror was Robert Guilliman after sensing the immense Warp power within his mind.
• Guilliman asked Zhou Yun what he thought of Ultramar, and Zhou Yun realized Guilliman had already planned the Five Hundred Worlds.
• Zhou Yun described Ultramar as a beacon and model for humanity that could become a new human Imperium, and Guilliman approved.
• Zhou Yun asked how Guilliman would judge Ultramar seceding from a unified human Imperium during a crisis.
• Guilliman called such secession a betrayal and the act of an opportunist, while Zhou Yun wished he could record the answer.

Madam Euten questioned the child about his reactions to Cicero and Zhou Yun, learning that the child believed Zhou Yun knew his true nature and might be a psyker. After returning home, Zhou Yun ate Tita’s Thalassa Tomato Eggs and planned to visit a church that night.

• The child told Madam Euten that Cicero wore shoes made of human skin and criticized slavery as wasteful and harmful to humanity.
• The child said Zhou Yun understood who he was, suspected he was a psyker, and had agreed to a mutual pretense while they assessed each other.
• Madam Euten took the child home and promised to cook Thalassa Tomato Eggs to celebrate his finding a suitable teacher.
• Tita served Zhou Yun Thalassa Tomato Eggs and told him an apartment Senator Caepio offered was cheap because two people had died there.
• Zhou Yun agreed to ask Lord Marcus about apartments and told Tita he planned to go to church that night.

Zhou Yun avoided revealing himself to the Broken Lighthouse Temple and chose not to approach the Shattered Lighthouse until he could trust Roboute Guilliman. After returning to the blood-soaked arena through the Golden Throne, he survived his wounds and stood up before the cheering spectators.

• Laganon First to Eat introduced Imhotep to Zhou Yun while the Broken Lighthouse Temple and the Semuneta Temple waited for a meeting in the Catholic church.
• Imhotep suspected Zhou Yun might serve the Eagle Crystal Flipping Pigeon and used a Blackstone device to disrupt his projected will.
• Zhou Yun decided to keep his distance from the Broken Lighthouse Temple and the Shattered Lighthouse until Roboute Guilliman was strong enough to trust.
• Zhou Yun endured the Golden Throne's burning pain and projected his will to a world of blood-red sand.
• Zhou Yun rose from the sand, and the spectators cheered that the new gladiator slave had survived.

Zhou Yun woke in a gladiator’s body in Desia’s arena and used Warp abilities to kill a beastman. After surviving an attempt to capture him with anesthetic, he recognized the arena as Nuceria and collapsed.

• Zhou Yun recovered from the psychic impact of the thin Veil and killed his beastman opponent with a Warp-enhanced strike.
• Old Bear Onomammus defeated his own opponent, and Worm's Eye announced their victory to the crowd.
• Worm's Eye fired a bolt of electricity at Zhou Yun, but it struck Old Bear Onomammus and knocked him unconscious.
• Zhou Yun tried to escape with Old Bear Onomammus as the Veil thickened, but he was hit with anesthetic mist.
• Zhou Yun failed to metabolize the anesthetic, recognized the place as Nuceria, and collapsed.

After waking in Nuceria’s gladiator cells, Zhou Yun met the gladiators and discovered that the Veil there was unusually thick, while he could sense a connection to Macragge. Angron welcomed him as family, but their meeting revealed a future of blood, rage, and Nails.

• Zhou Yun realized Nuceria would join Roboute Guilliman’s realm and that its High-Riders had enslaved Angron and driven Nails into his skull.
• Zhou Yun woke beneath Dacia City’s arena, where Onomammus and Kleister praised his survival and fighting in the arena.
• Zhou Yun studied the heavy Veil and sensed that he might navigate between Nuceria and Macragge, whose forces could potentially aid the gladiators.
• Kleister welcomed Zhou Yun into the gladiators’ family, and Angron gave him a helmet as a token of kinship.
• When Angron clasped Zhou Yun’s hand, Zhou Yun foresaw their brotherhood and a future for Angron filled with blood, rage, and Nails.

Zhou Yun met with Marcus Guilliman, who stressed the importance of teaching the gifted child Roboute Guilliman, then began their first lesson by presenting numerology as mathematics. Guilliman questioned the lesson, but Zhou Yun continued with warnings about the numbers six and seven.

• Marcus Guilliman praised Zhou Yun for becoming the extraordinary child's teacher and warned that the future of Macragge depended on teaching him well.
• Quintus Guilliman interrupted to tell Marcus that Elder Caepio had arrived, and Zhou Yun went to the classroom alone.
• Zhou Yun greeted Guilliman behind the mirror and announced that their first lesson would be mathematics, the foundation of all sciences.
• Guilliman asked about advanced mathematical topics, but Zhou Yun wrote the number six and described it as a warning sign of depravity and Chaos.
• Guilliman called Zhou Yun's numerology feudal superstition, and Zhou Yun insisted it was rigorous science before introducing the number seven.