The Emperor greeted Guilliman not as a father receives a son, but as a craftsmen who rediscovers a favourite tool that he thought lost. He behaved like a prisoner locked in an iron cage who is passed a rasp.

Guilliman had no illusions. He was not the man who brought the rasp; he was the rasp.

While the Emperor had walked abroad, He had cloaked His manipulations in love. He had let His primarchs call Him father; He had let them call themselves His sons. He had rarely spoken those words Himself, Guilliman now realised, and when He had He had done so without sincerity. Buffeted by the full might of the Emperor’s will unclothed in flesh, a cloak had been ripped from Guilliman’s eyes.

The Emperor had allowed them to love Him, and to believe He loved them in return. He had not. His primarchs were weapons, that was all.

Though His power was immense, perhaps greater than it had been before He ascended, the Emperor’s humanity was all but gone. He could no longer mask His thoughts with a human face. The Emperor’s light was blinding, all encompassing, but finally – finally – Guilliman had seen it as a whole. The being he had thought of as a father could hide nothing from him.

The Emperor did not love His sons. They were things. Guilliman, all his brothers, were nothing but a means to an end.

Mathieu smiled. ‘My lord, He is father to us all now. Did your father not speak with you of His divinity when you received your revelation?’

The primarch’s scowl was calculated to reveal enough of his anger to shut the priest up, and no more. ‘My other militant-apostolics learned very quickly not to ask me what occurred in the throne room when I returned to Terra,’ said Guilliman warningly. ‘Take this as your lesson. Now, enough of this theological debate. It is time to remove some of the enemy’s advantage upon Espandor.’

Guilliman smoothly drew his father’s sword. Mathieu gasped. He had seen the Sword of the Emperor drawn on several occasions. Every time, he bore witness to a miracle. On leaving the scabbard, the blade burst into flame.

Guilliman did not begrudge the priest his awe. There was great warpcraft in the weapon. When the blade was removed from the Emperor’s withered knee and presented to Guilliman by the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, it had somehow fit his primarch’s stature. Guilliman frowned. He tried to remember how tall the Emperor was, but His living image refused to be caught and examined. In some memories, He was as tall as Guilliman; in others, no bigger than a mortal man.

‘I can feel His presence!’ said Mathieu. With wide eyes he stared into the flickering shadows made by the fire as if he could see the Emperor looking back at him. ‘He is all around us, right now. I can feel His power!’