She pushed her way up the steps towards him, dropping to her knees to better fight against the gales of energy and howling ghosts that swarmed the dais.

'Jonas!' she called, reaching out to him.

She couldn't reach him and crawled, inch by inch, towards him. His screaming was undimmed, the words flooding from him so fast in an ululating howl of pain. Fire blazed in his eyes, crackling with ancient power, the power of something far greater than anything mankind had ever known.

At last Dalia reached the top of the dais and saw that the storm of psychic energy swirled around the throne, yet never touched it, as though some invisible, antithetical barrier was holding it back.

The throne shone as though illuminated from within by some vast elementally powerful force. Though she and her compatriots had struggled so hard to create it, she now wished they had failed utterly.

She wished to be rid of her gift and the consequences of what it had done.

Even as she formed the thought, her limbs jerked and she rose to her feet in the manner of a marionette lifted by its puppeteer. Dalia cried out as her limbs obeyed the unknown imperatives manipulating her body and she stared into the face of Jonas Milus.

The fire that burned in his eyes spilled outwards to engulf his entire body, pouring over him like blazing mercury. Her screams matched his, and the restraints that had bound him to the throne fell away, unmade by the silver fire that crawled over his flesh like a living thing.

The empath rose from his throne, a living being of illuminated silver with the light of unknown suns burning in his eyes. Dalia could not meet his gaze, fearful that the power there would consume her were she to stare into it for too long. Beneath the inner luminescence that filled his body, she could see his flesh disintegrating like ice before a flame.

'I have seen it!' he hissed, his voice sounding as though echoing from somewhere impossibly distant and deep. 'All knowledge.'

'Oh Jonas, I'm sorry.'

'Sorry? No, Dalia, I won't have your pity,' said Jonas, fire writhing in his mouth as he spoke, his voice growing fainter with every word. 'I have seen the truth and I am free. I know it all, the Emperor slaying the Dragon of Mars… the grand lie of the red planet and the truth that will shake the galaxy, all forgotten by man in the darkness of the labyrinth of night.'

Jonas Milus stepped towards Dalia, and the psychic winds were pushed away from her as though by his very presence. As he drew closer to her, Dalia heard the whine of great machinery powering down and the thump of closing relays as power to the Akashic reader was finally shut off.

The light of the Astronomican still filled the chamber, and the winds of psychic energy still roared and seethed at its edges, but their power was diminishing. The mundane features of the space began returning, the marble floor, the sensation of mass and solidity, the heat of the air and the smell of burned flesh.

'Quickly! Look at me, Dalia,' said Jonas with desperate urgency. 'Look at me and know your destiny.'

She forced her head up and stared into the face of Jonas Milus as the light in his eyes was extinguished and the last of his human flesh faded away to oblivion.

The connection lasted the briefest fraction of a second, but that was enough.

Dalia screamed until she had no more breath, and took refuge from horrors that should never be borne by mortal brains in the black sleep of unconsciousness.

Princeps Sharaq followed the inbound tracks on the Manifold. The Imperator Titan was closing fast, surface scans of its identity markers revealing its name to be Aquila Ignis, an engine constructed in the Daedalia forge yards far to the south of Tharsis.

Its princeps, if such a vast machine could be commanded by just one man, was making no effort to conceal its power, and Sharaq fed the flow of data being collected on the terrible engine into the gunbox recorders of his war machine.

If the time ever came when they had to fight this engine, it would pay to be prepared.

With the unmasking of the Imperator, the howling binary interference had lifted, the storms that had whipped the dust into the air with such force dissipating as though they had never existed.

The vox crackled as the engines of Tempestus restored communications, each one filling the airwaves with excited chatter at the incredible sight marching towards Ascraeus Mons. Raptoria and Astrus Lux shadowed the Imperator, keeping a safe distance from it and its escorting Warlords.

'Do you have firing solutions to that engine?' asked Sharaq.

'Yes, my princeps,' said Bannan hesitantly. 'But if we open fire, it'll vaporise us in an instant. We can't fight something that big.'

The Imperator blotted out everything around it, a walking mountain that impossibly moved closer with thunderous footsteps. Sharaq wished the rest of his Legio were here alongside him.

To be standing directly in the path of such a titanic creation, a fearsome miracle of construction and innovation, was a prospect no man should have to face alone. Raptoria and Astrus Lux would fight alongside him, and the Skitarii weapons platforms would add their weight of fire, but they would be of little real use when the mighty engines started shooting.

For all intents and purposes, Sharaq was alone… his greatest fear as a princeps.

With Princeps Cavalerio's battle group they would at least have a chance of wounding the beast, and might even best it, but without them…

'Time to the Tempest Line?' asked Sharaq, sweating profusely despite the cool air in the carapace cockpit.

'Three minutes, my princeps,' said Dolun.

'Come on, turn away, damn you, turn,' hissed Bannan, and Sharaq echoed his sentiment as the seconds ticked by with the inexorably slow slide of thick engine oil.

Then the Manifold crackled and the blessed voice of the Stormlord came over the vox.

'Engines of the Legio Mortis,' said Princeps Cavalerio, his voice stentorian and unequivocal. 'You are on course to cross the Tempest Line, whereupon you will be in breach of the Tharsis non-aggression pact as signed by Princeps Acheron of Legio Mortis and Princeps Bakka of Legio Tempestus at the First Council of Cydonia. Turn back now or you may be fired upon.'

Sharaq watched the Manifold as Cavalerio's engines marched up through the western pallidus, billowing clouds of dust swirling in their wakes. To have reached Ascraeus Mons in such time must have torn the hearts from their reactors, but they were here and that was what mattered.

'Engines of Legio Mortis respond immediately!' demanded Cavalerio, and Sharaq could hear the strain in the Stormlord's voice. He checked the Manifold, getting elevated biometric and reactor readings from the Victorix Magna.

The thunderous form of the Imperator did not slow and Sharaq saw that it was moments from crossing the Tempest Line, whereupon it would be in the territory of Legio Tempestus. His mouth was dry and he took a sip from the hydration straw at his cheek.

'Legio Mortis, respond!' demanded Cavalerio, and Sharaq's heart swelled with pride as the stately form of Victorix Magna marched to stand alongside Metallus Cebrenia, firm in the path of the colossal Imperator.

'Fifteen seconds to the Tempest Line,' warned Moderati Bannan.

Tharsis Hastatus, Arcadia Fortis and Vulpus Rex took position alongside Cavalerio's engine, and the entire strength of Legio Tempestus on Mars stood before the mightiest war engines of Legio Mortis.

'This is your final warning. Mortis!' bellowed Cavalerio.

Dreadful terror settled in Sharaq's gut as Moderati Bannan said, 'Tempest Line breached, my princeps.'