Clad in loops of gleaming black carapace and bonded leather armour, they filled the interior of the skimmer with their augmented physiques. Castana was pre-eminent among the families of the Navis Nobilite and could easily afford the ruinous cost of Mechanicum enhancements for their security personnel. Their faces were invisible behind glossy black helm visors, and each was wired with crystalline psi-dampers – as was the skimmer itself – to shield them from psychic intrusion.

Ostensibly, these men were here as a protective escort, but the combat shotguns gripped tightly in heavy leather gauntlets left no doubt in Kai’s mind that he was little better than a prisoner. He eased his back into the wide seat, finding himself unable to enjoy comfort he had once taken for granted. He cradled a glass of mahogany-coloured amasec, swirling the drink in a cut crystal glass that would cost more than most citizens would earn in a year. Idly he thought of throwing the glass out the window, but decided that such petty rebellion would only irritate him afterwards.

Besides, the liquor dulled the ache of psi-sickness that had plagued him since his return to Terra.

Across from Kai, Bellan Tortega stared out of the window with open-mouthed delight. It was the chirurgeon’s first time visiting the palace, and it showed. He had been naming landmarks and marvelling at the sheer number of people within the palace precincts ever since they had passed beneath the Primus Gate, nearly twenty hours ago. Their route took them over the Brahmaputra Plateau, and Kai kept an artfully bored expression glued to his face. He knew it was an honour to see the cradle of humanity up close, but was too wrapped in his own misery to take much notice of his surroundings.

‘I believe that covered amphitheatre, the one encased in scaffolding, is the Investiary,’ said Tortega. ‘The statues of the Primarchs within are hooded with mourning shrouds.’

‘Why?’ asked Kai.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean why hood a statue? It’s not like it can see.’

‘It’s symbolic, Kai,’ said Tortega. ‘It represents the desire of the Emperor to shield his sons from the treachery of their brothers.’

‘Represents a waste of time if you ask me. I would have thought the Emperor had more to worry about than pointless symbolism.’

Tortega sighed. ‘You know your biggest problem, Kai?’

‘I am well aware of my problems, good chirurgeon,’ snapped Kai. ‘You never tire of reminding me of them every day.’

‘You take no appreciation of how lucky you are,’ said Tortega, as if Kai hadn’t spoken.

Kai bit back a caustic response and took another drink.

‘Patriarch Verduchina would have been well within his rights to have you cast out of the Telepathica, and then what would you have done? You’d have been picked up by the psi-hounds within a day.’

Kai used to try and defuse these lectures while in the medicae facilities of House Castana on the island crag of Kyprios, but time and apathy had made him realise that once Tortega had begun, there was no stopping him.

‘You think you could have afforded those ocular augmetics without the Castanas?’ continued Tortega. ‘Disgrace the House and they’ll take them back, mark my words. You have a lot to be thankful for, young man, and it’s time you realised that before it’s too late.’

‘It’s already too late,’ said Kai. ‘Look where we are, where I’m going.’

‘We’re in the bosom of our species, Kai. And when the Imperium is reunited after this silly war, people will flock to this place,’ said Tortega, leaning forward and placing a hand on Kai’s knee.

The sensation was painful, and Kai flinched at the chirurgeon’s unwarranted over-familiarity.

‘Don’t touch me,’ said Kai. ‘Don’t you know anything about telepaths? Do you really want me to know all your dirty little secrets?’

Tortega snatched his hand back, and Kai shook his head. ‘Idiot. I’ve no talent for psychometry, but you were worried, weren’t you? What are you keeping from old Verduchina? Drug abuse? Illicit liaisons with your patients? Aberrant sexual deviancy?’

The chirurgeon reddened, and Kai laughed. ‘You’re a pathetic little man, Tortega. You think Verduchina values you? Likes you? You’re nothing to him, just another disposable functionary. That is if he even knows your name.’

Tortega’s back stiffened, but he refrained from rising to Kai’s bait. Instead, he returned his gaze to the wonders passing their skimmer.

‘There,’ said Tortega archly, ‘that’s the Hamazan Ossuary. I’ve seen picts, but they don’t capture the grandeur of its scale. You really have to see it to appreciate the harmony of its proportions. And there, I believe that colonnaded archway with the golden finials and weeping domes leads to the Astartes Tower. They say it’s the last place the Emperor and the primarchs spoke before the expedition fleets set off to the far corners of the Imperium. The glorious arias of Kynska’s The Score of Heroestells of each day the Emperor spent with his sons.’

‘I’ll bet he wishes he’d spent longer,’ said Kai idly, finishing his drink and placing the glass on the polished mahogany rest beside him. He wanted another, to drain the entire bottle. Anything to dull the ache.

‘What do you mean?’ said Tortega.

‘Maybe if the Emperor had spent longer than a day with Horus Lupercal, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’

‘Hush,’ said Tortega. ‘You cannot say such things, not here, not in this place.’

‘Who is to stop me?’

Tortega shook his head. ‘What pleasure do you get from being so provocative?’

Kai shrugged. ‘I was just pointing out that had the Emperor spent more time with his primarchs, then perhaps they might not have turned on him. It’s hardly a treasonous thought.’

‘Who is to say what is treason these days?’ sighed Tortega.

‘Just ask the Crusader Host,’ said Kai. ‘I’m pretty sure they could tell you.’

IT TOOK ANOTHER day to reach their destination, and Tortega spent his time cataloguing wonders of the palace he would probably never see again: The Gallery of Winter, Upanizad’s Tomb, the Petitioner’s Hall, the Crystal Observatory, the fire-blackened Preceptory, the Long Room and the Forge of Flesh and Steel, where the historic pact between the Martian priesthood and Terra had finally been sealed. Its double-headed eagle capstone was fashioned from ouslite and porphyry. In the dying sunset it looked bloody.

Kai sensed the presence of the City of Sight long before he saw it over the horizon, a grimly empty space amid this teeming anthill of mental activity. The psi-dampers fitted to the skimmer had blocked virtually every stray thought from the billions of workers, labourers, scribes, technicians, artisans and soldiers within the palace walls, but Kai had still sensed the background thrum of so vast a populace.

Approaching the headquarters of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, there was nothing, no trace that anyone lived in this forsaken part of the palace. Kai knew better, having spent nearly a decade within its bleak towers, learning how to harness his abilities for the betterment of the Imperium. Thinking back to those days, he felt a fleeting touch of nostalgia, but quelled it bitterly, for this was no joyous homecoming.

Where other regions of the palace were celebrations of Unity, the builders of the City of Sight seemed to have gone out of their way to craft something calculated to weigh on the soul. Beyond the domain of the astro-telepaths, the architecture of the palace was raised up in glorification of mankind’s achievements, its statuary fashioned to remind a grateful populace of all that had been rebuilt in the wake of the terrible, world-spanning wars that had almost dragged the species down into extinction.

None of that was to be found in the City of Sight, and Kai felt only aching despair as the skimmer passed beneath the Obsidian Arch in its outer walls. Tortega twisted his head as he stared at the forest of iron towers, lightless garrets and silent thoroughfares within. The streets of the palace beyond the glossy black archway were alive with the heaving, vibrant mass of humanity, but only solitary ghosts in hooded green robes populated these streets.