He was going to die.

In his final moments, Guilliman began to panic. He did not fear his death, but what it meant for the Imperium.

Andros had been right. And now Andros was dead.

I cannot die, he thought. I cannot die! I will not!

He exerted his formidable will to keep his body alive.

A fruitless effort.

His dispassionate nature did not desert him, not even at the very end. As he railed against his fate, he rationally noted the failure of his organs, the dark ring thickening about his sight and the pleasurable pain that faded into a numb bliss creeping towards his hearts. It was as if he were reviewing progress reports on the construction of new public buildings.

Faces crowded around the narrowing well of his vision. Helmets were cast aside to reveal harrowed faces.

They mourn me already, he realised. I am dead. I cannot die now, not now. There is too much to do. Too much, too much. What will Russ do without me, or the Khan? Too much…

Ultramarines shouted for their Apothecaries. Something tugged at his ruined breastplate. A white gauntlet flashed past his dimming eyes. The cool relief of drugs pushed back the exquisite burn of Fulgrim’s poison for a breath, but they could not stop it and it surged back anew. His pulse slowed. Coloured spots whirled around his eyes.

‘Father,’ he mouthed. Poisoned blood frothed at the gash in his neck. ‘Father, who will guide them now?’

‘What is he saying?’ cried an anguished voice. ‘What does he say?’

Father, thought Guilliman. Save me.

His hearts quivered one last time, drawing themselves in for a further beat that would not come. The voices of his sons sounded far away.

Darkness enveloped him.

His hearts relaxed.

The flow of blood ceased.

He stood upon a precipice. A roaring, terrifying sea of souls haunted by the laughing of mad gods churned all around, red and ugly.

‘Father!’ Guilliman shouted, his voice free from the prison of his flesh. His sons could not hear him now, but he was heard.

There was a cold, golden light, and an end to pain. The roaring sea vanished. Sorrow engulfed his soul.

Roboute Guilliman was no more.

The immensity of the void is impossible to understand; the layered infinities of the empyrean even more so.

Only death can encompass them both.

Part Two

Part Two

Crusade’s End

The 41st millennium

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Guilliman Lives

Roboute Guilliman drew in a deep breath, then another.

He lived.

Blood rushed around his massive frame. Air passed in and out of lungs four times the size of a baseline human’s, gusty inhalations and exhalations that moved with the power of tides.