Admiral Spire

Just as the Thunder Warriors were about to open fire, Bona raised a hand to stop them.

With that slight movement, the incoming lasfire and Bolts froze before them, as though time itself had stopped.

"We mean you no harm," Bona said.

The next instant, the lethal munitions before them exploded, and a shock wave knocked everyone onto the deck.

The Imperium's soldiers tried to raise their weapons again, but Bona closed his hand into a fist. Everything from daggers to the automated defense cannons that had just deployed was crushed into fragments.

Admiral Spire watched Bona, his expression calm.

With a Psyker of this caliber right in his face, resistance was essentially useless.

"If you think these little tricks will make me submit, you've miscalculated, you Chaos scum."

Captain Dakan moved to step forward and teach this mortal the meaning of respect, but he was stopped again.

Bona looked at Spire.

"We only want to return to realspace. We have no other intentions."

"Once we leave realspace, we'll be gone immediately. We won't trouble you."

For some reason, as Spire gazed into those black eyes, he felt as though his mentor had returned to his side and was speaking to him, slowly and deliberately.

Every word carried a powerful persuasiveness. Though Spire knew he should not believe a single word from Chaos, he found himself agreeing despite himself.

"All right."

The Rebel Company was assigned to an outer deck. On one side were shuttle bay doors that could open at any moment to cast them into the void; on the other stood five full regiments of boarding troops.

Only Bona, Horus, and the Inquisitor remained on the bridge.

Arlith glanced around. Seeing Bona and Horus engaged in some conversation she could not hear, she walked over to Spire.

"Admiral, I never imagined you had been in the Warp all this time."

Spire glanced at Arlith, then fixed his gaze on the rosette at her chest.

"Is this another one of your Inquisition's schemes?"

Seeing that Spire still did not know the Inquisition had branded him a heretic, Arlith continued to string him along.

"Yes. This is one of our... special operations."

Spire said nothing. He closed his eyes, thinking.

Meanwhile, Bona and Horus had reached the end of their conversation.

"This is your last chance before we leave the Warp."

Horus drew a deep breath, rubbing his fingers together uneasily.

He looked down at Bona.

"Are you really in such a hurry? Isn't there any..."

"If you want me to use that much psyker power in realspace, I might very well lose control, turn into an oversized daemon, and hack you to death."

"Oh, no, wait. That amount of psyker power would be enough to tear an entire sector apart. Our Warmaster wants to slaughter innocent subjects of the Imperium again."

Horus shrugged helplessly, then tried to straighten his clothes.

Finding nothing to straighten, he could only stand there awkwardly with his fingers interlaced.

Bona knelt and brought his hands together in the Aquila Salute.

He reached out with his psyker power, probing in that direction and slowly searching his way toward it.

Suddenly, the multicolored Warp beyond the bridge shuddered violently. The ever-shifting Veil began to churn, becoming dangerously unstable.

Then a thread of golden light pierced the Veil. More light followed, penetrating that dark, dreamlike curtain and violently tearing it apart. Vast swathes of sunlight spilled across the bridge, so bright that it was almost impossible to keep one's eyes open.

Yet that sunlight held no warmth. If anything, it carried a trace of cold.

When Arlith looked out the window, her knees buckled. She fell to her knees, trembling all over.

"Holy Emperor."

An immense golden Throne had appeared outside, with a majestic figure seated upon it.

Golden light enveloped him, leaving his face impossible to discern. Yet everyone knew who he was.

The great and holy Emperor.

Even the Guardian of Justice, that immense Lunar-class Cruiser, was no more than a child's toy before the Emperor's towering form.

Aboard the Guardian of Justice, everyone from the slave laborers on the lowest decks to Admiral Spire himself fell to their knees. The ship's priests trembled as they chanted prayers, their faces alight with fervor. Mortal soldiers wept bitterly as they repented their past sins, while the Thunder Warriors silently performed the rites of ten thousand years ago.

The Lunar-class Cruiser that had suddenly appeared here drew the Emperor's attention. Though he made no movement, everyone knew he had turned his gaze upon them.

His gaze lingered only briefly. He made no gesture and could even have been called gentle. Then came only a long, ancient sigh.

His attention turned elsewhere, to worlds blazing with fire, each being mercilessly swallowed by a black tide.

Horus had imagined meeting his father countless times, and had envisioned his own fate just as often.

Furious rebukes, orders to atone for his sins-Horus had considered all of it.

Even if his father executed him outright and hung him from the gates of the Imperial Palace to dry into a corpse for all to see, Horus would have accepted it.

But that single sigh shattered every defense Horus had built around his heart.

It was a father's sigh, the helpless sigh of a father whose child had done wrong.

He wept.

His heavy body dropped to its knees. Horus closed his eyes and lifted his head, letting the tears run down his cheeks.

Bona, meanwhile, was still watching the Emperor.

His eyes were filled with sorrow, compassion, and anguish.

He understood his father's suffering more deeply.

He saw the heaps of white bones beneath the Throne. Skeleton after skeleton struggled upward like ants, clinging to his father and dragging him down.

His father said nothing. He simply bore that crushing burden, silently facing an ever more chaotic universe.

The Emperor did not love individuals. He loved humanity as a whole.

For that, he had sat upon that golden cage and endured ten thousand years of suffering. It was not only the unceasing torment of his flesh, but also the anguish of watching the Imperium decay further with each passing day, powerless to stop it.

He did all he could to save everyone, but there were simply too many humans. Almost all of them were begging for the Emperor's help.

Whenever he saved one soul, another entire soul would cry out for rescue.

He could never save them in time. The surging tides of the Warp crushed those pitiful souls as easily as ants, making them part of the Warp.

And so the Emperor did not squander his strength on saving individuals. He committed as much of his power as he could to the places where countless lives across the Imperium hung in the balance.

And the Emperor's gaze came to rest upon Cadia.