The Imperial Palace on Holy Terra.
This was the heart of power in the Imperium of Man, the Emperor's own eternal sanctuary, a place that should have shone with the supreme radiance of civilization, order, and hope.
Yet today, as Lorgar walked beneath its endless galleries and towering vaults, he felt only a stifling weight of murderous tension, like invisible ice soaking into every golden stone weathered by ten thousand years.
The air seemed to have frozen.
The faint hum once audible here, the sound of the Imperium's vast machinery at work, had vanished.
In its place lay an absolute, taut silence, ready to snap at the slightest touch.
His footsteps echoed alone through the astonishingly empty corridors.
Beside him, a squad of Adeptus Custodes flanked him, silent as golden statues.
Along the way, Lorgar saw more golden figures.
Clad in golden armor, their towering bodies far larger than ordinary Astartes, the Custodian guards stood at every critical junction and before every heavy gate, like guards of the Deity stepping out of ancient murals.
They stood utterly motionless, even the rise and fall of their breathing barely perceptible. Only their guardian halberds, inscribed with the Imperium's Holy Word and bearing blades whose cold gleam pierced the gloom, proclaimed that the highest level of lockdown was in force.
Accompanying the Adeptus Custodes were the Sisters of Silence.
They stood equally straight, but their armor was closer-fitting and more streamlined, its matte gold surface decorated with stark, simple patterns.
They wore no helmets, revealing beautiful female faces as cold as frost, devoid of any flicker of emotion, their distinctive topknots neatly bound behind their heads.
Instead of halberds, they carried longswords shimmering with the blue glow of Force Fields.
Even the few mortal officials fortunate enough to work here hurried about like