Lemuel felt his dislike melt away in the face of Vithara’s winning smile and natural charm. He forced himself to smile, knowing he was no longer needed.

“Nice to meet you too, Captain Vithara,” he said, rising and scooping up his coat. “I’ll leave you two alone now.”

He gently lifted Kallista’s hand and planted a kiss and said, “I’ll come and see you later, my dear.”

She gripped his shoulder and pulled him close, whispering urgently in his ear.

“I want to leave Prospero,” she said. “I can’t stay here. None of us can.”

“What? No, my dear, you’re in no state to go anywhere.”

“You don’t understand, Lemuel. This world is doomed, I’ve seen its death throes.”

“You don’t know for sure what you saw,” said Lemuel, pulling himself upright.

“Yes I do,” she said. “I know all too well what it was.”

“I can’t leave,” said Lemuel. “There’s so much I’ve yet to learn from the Thousand Sons.”

“You can’t learn if you’re dead,” said Kallista.

LEMUEL LEFT KALLISTA and Captain Vithara together and made his way from the neuro-wing. Though he had no desire for Kallista beyond friendship, he had to admit to a pang of jealousy at the sight of her handsome suitor.

He smiled at the thought, recognising how foolish it was.

“You are a hopeless romantic, Lemuel Gaumon,” he said. “It will be the death of you.”

As he made his way to the exit, a door slid open ahead of him, and his good mood evaporated in an instant as he saw an Astartes warrior who looked like he’d just returned from a war zone. His armour was scorched black in places, and numerous barbs jutted from his shoulder-guards and thighs. He recognised Khalophis, but it wasn’t his appearance that halted Lemuel in his tracks.

He carried Camille in his arms, and she looked dreadful.

Blood matted her hair and clothes. Her skin was a painful red, and she held a hand pressed to the side of her chest, stifling pained gasps with every step Khalophis took.

“Camille!” cried Lemuel, running over to her. “What in the world happened?”

“Lem,” she wept. “We were attacked.”

“What?” asked Lemuel, looking up at the hulking form of Khalophis. “By whom?”

“Get out of my way, mortal,” said Khalophis, moving past Lemuel.

He turned and jogged to match the warrior’s pace.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

“She was exploring the ancient ruins, even after I told her it was dangerous, and we disturbed a nest of psychneuein.”

Lemuel’s blood chilled at the mention of Prospero’s indigenous psy-predators.

“Throne, no!” he said, standing directly in front of Khalophis. The Astartes glared down at him, and Lemuel thought he was going to walk straight through him.

“Camille, listen to me,” said Lemuel, lifting her eyelids. Her pupils were dilated and almost entirely black. He didn’t know if that was good or bad. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been ran over by a Land Raider,” she snapped. “Any more stupid questions?”

“How is your head?” he asked, speaking slowly and clearly. “Do you have a headache?”

“Of course I do. Thanks to Khalophis, I think I breathed in a lifetime’s worth of smoke.”

“No, I mean… Do you feel any different?” asked Lemuel, struggling for the right words. “Is your head painful in a way that feels, I don’t know, strange?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, catching the edge of his panic. “Why? What’s wrong with me?”

Lemuel ignored her question and spoke directly to Khalophis, “Get Camille to a bay right now, and send for Lord Ahriman. Hurry! We don’t have much time!”

THE REFLECTING CAVE was filled with light, myriad pinpricks of soul-light that flickered form precisely shaped crystals held by the thousand Thralls standing at the intersection points of the cavern’s energy lines. Located almost a full mile beneath the city of Tizca, the crystal cave was enormous, fully three kilometres across at its widest point, and its stalactite-hung roof chimed with the sound of soft bells.

Fireflies danced within the walls, throwing back the lights carried by the Thralls and illuminating the figures and apparatus at the centre of the enormous cave.

An elongated bronze device, like a gigantic telescope, descended from the central point of the roof. Its surface was graven with unknown symbols and studded with vanes of silver, while a polished green crystal fully three metres across terminated the base of the bronze mechanism.

Magnus the Red stood directly below the device, looking up through the crystal into the night sky directly above the centre of Occullum Square. He was naked but for a loincloth, his flesh bare to the elements and gleaming with oil.

Ahriman watched as Amon massaged a mixture of sandalwood, jasmine and benzoin oil into Magnus’ flesh. Uthizzar scraped the excess oil from the primarch’s body with a bone-bladed knife as Auramagma held a smoking censer that filled the air with the fragrance of cinquefoil. Phael Toron stood next to Ahriman, his body language stiff and awkward.

Phael Toron’s 7th Fellowship had spent the majority of the Great Crusade on Prospero, missing much of the great learning undertaken by the Legion since Magnus had led them from their adoptive home world. His warriors had quickly accepted the new teachings, but it was going to take time for them to fully adjust.

“Is this all necessary?” asked Toron, indicating the strange paraphernalia arranged beneath the bronze mechanism. A rectangular white slab like an altar was hung with a heavy chain of magnetised iron. At each of the cardinal points around the slab were four concave mirrors that focussed the light from the crystals carried by the Thralls. Five concentric circles enclosed the altar, and within the circuits of the four outermost circles were unknown words that left a bad taste in Ahriman’s mouth when he had tried to read them.

“The primarch tells us so,” said Ahriman. “He has looked long and hard into the necessary rituals to hurl his body of light halfway across the galaxy.”

“This smacks of unclean spirit worship to me,” said Toron.

“It is not,” Ahriman reassured him. “We have learned much since leaving Prospero, Toron, but there are things you have yet to fully understand. This is absolutely necessary if we are to save Horus.”

“But why here, hidden from sight in a cave?”

“Look to your history,” said Ahriman. “The first mystical rites were conducted in caves. We are the initiates of Magnus, and when we are finished, we will emerge into the light of the stars, reborn and renewed in our purpose. Do you understand?”

Toron gave a curt bow, cowed by the aetheric flare in Ahriman’s aura. “Of course, Lord Ahriman. This is all very new to me.”

“Of course, forgive my choler,” said Ahriman. “Come, it is time.”

They stepped forward, and their Thrall attendants moved in to drape white chasubles over their armour, tying them at the waist with narrow gold chains.

Ahriman received a crown of vervain leaves threaded with a silver cord, and Toron was handed a glittering athame with a silver blade and obsidian handle.

Together, they walked to Magnus as Uthizzar stepped away and retrieved an iron lantern from his Thrall. Amon cleaned his hands of oil with a silk cloth, and robed Magnus in white before lifting a charcoal brazier that smoked with the aroma of alder and laurel wood.

“Your flesh is anointed, my lord,” said Amon. “You are untainted.”

Magnus nodded and turned to Ahriman.

“The Crimson King requests his crown,” he said.

Ahriman approached Magnus, feeling the heat of his master’s skin and the meditative power churning within him. Magnus lowered his head, and Ahriman placed the crown of vervain leaves upon his brow, letting the silver cord settle around his ears.

“Thank you, my son,” said Magnus, his eye glittering with violet fire and hazel flecks.

“My lord,” said Ahriman with a bow. He retreated from Magnus, and turned to receive a heavy book bound in faded leather and stitched with gold. An iron pendant, worked in the form of a snarling wolf’s head against a crescent moon, lay along the valley at the meeting point of its pages.