‘No,’ Sanguinius said, keeping his voice level. ‘You are not. And you are not what he has become. But remember, brother. Remember what he was. I remember. I remember how wise I thought our father was to make him Warmaster. I remember Horus’ doubts, how he wondered if he was worthy of the task. How could this brother turn on us? Remember that none of us saw his treachery coming. Our father didn’t see it coming. Remember all of this, and remember that here is where Horus fell.’ He paused. ‘Now tell me you are certain there is nothing below.’

‘He’s right,’ Guilliman said. ‘I would like to know what happened to Horus.’

‘You think I don’t? And if Sanguinius is correct, what then? Is our strategy to replicate Horus’ error?’

Guilliman turned back to Sanguinius, an eyebrow raised.

‘Where do you stand, Roboute?’ Sanguinius finally demanded. ‘Why won’t you tell us?’

‘I wanted to hear you both out. We have a lot of data, but it does not point in a clear direction.’ He gestured towards the exterior of the hull. ‘We have just come through unambiguous evidence of the importance of Davin. But the necrosphere tells us nothing about how we should deal with the problem this world presents.’ He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘On balance,’ he said, ‘I agree with the Lion. Our enemy isn’t here. It is somewhere in the necrosphere. You saw it, Sanguinius. You’ve done battle with it already.’

More than you know, the Angel thought. ‘We can’t fight it until it declares itself,’ he said.

‘I agree. Destroying Davin may bring it out. In any event, I think a landing here will be a distraction.’

‘It will not be,’ Sanguinius insisted. ‘We have to know what is down there. We have to go.’ He stared at the centre of the map, thinking about the journey, how barriers immense beyond comprehension had tried to stop them, and how they had broken through. Their victories appeared to him as both impossible and inevitable. We are going planetside, he realised. We have no choice. Fate decrees it. The moment the thought crossed his mind, he doubted it. He had been doubting fate since Pyrrhan.

He was torn between certitude and hope. He didn’t know which to embrace. He looked back and forth between the Lion and Guilliman. Neither of them had his experience of time. Neither had lived their own deaths. Neither could truly perceive destiny concretely. They didn’t fully understand the implications of being here, now, where everything had begun. They thought they did. They could appreciate the symmetry of returning to the source of the war. But they could not feel, viscerally, the chains of inevitability and fate that were drawing them to this nexus, this singular point in space and time.

Where fate might be in flux.

No. They could not understand. There was someone who would, though.