And Omegon, standing nearby...
He stared blankly at it all.
Crack.
It was as though the clear sound of shattering glass rang out deep within his soul.
That worldview built on calculation, conspiracy, the absolute exchange of interests, and cold-blooded sacrifice-that icy fortress he had struggled to hold together through countless days and nights in this alien hell-the moment Eli closed his eyes...
Came crashing down.
He looked at the guileless smile on Eli's face, untouched by any thought of gain or loss, which had remained even in death.
At last, he understood what that light in Alpharius's eyes had been when his brother crossed the sea of stars to find him at the camp-a light he had failed to understand, even mocked as weakness.
It was the warmth he had once felt, then forgotten.
It was a faint light kindled for the weak and for one's brothers, a refusal to abandon the fundamental decency of being human, even in the darkest abyss, even surrounded by betrayal and lies.
Omegon slowly sank to his knees.
He reached out with hands covered in calluses and scars from years of slaughter and, awkwardly, clumsily, took Eli's hand where it lay in the muddy water.
So cold.
Yet that cold miraculously melted the ice that had encased Omegon's heart for untold years.
Acid rain raged, and it seemed that nothing remained between heaven and earth but the howling wind and rain.
The two identical primarchs, possessed of minds among the greatest in the universe, knelt silently in the mud. They kept vigil over the remains of a mortal with neither fame nor power, saying nothing for a long, long time.
One month later.
The Alpha Legion's vast, secret fleet hung motionless in deep space.
Inside the flagship's enormous assembly hall, large enough