Guilliman fell silent, absorbing the implications.

‘Roboute,’ the Lion said again, ‘beware of yourself. Do not trust your impulses. Be sure of your decisions. I almost destroyed us.’

The Lion walked on. His steps were heavy. Horror at what he had almost done warred with his anger at Sanguinius, and his mistrust of himself. He longed to strike a blow against the enemy that had manipulated and shamed him. Perhaps the foe was the shadow Sanguinius had seen in the warp.

Unwillingly, he looked back at every step of the journey since Macragge. Everything he had seen, every battle and every victory had led to this point. Events had shaped him. Events had shown him the need to destroy Davin.

He didn’t know what he was fighting. He marched faster to prepare for war. He could not escape the shadow that followed him, eroding every certainty, spreading doubt like plague.

Beware of yourself.

Though the Lion’s words were intended as a shield, they stabbed like daggers.

‘Ready our ships,’ Guilliman ordered. ‘We launch for Davin immediately.’

‘What should we prepare for?’ Gorod asked.

‘The worst.’

He left them then, and made for his quarters, where the athames waited. He had kept his turmoil from his face and words. The effort had been considerable. His blood was running cold. Be sure of my decisions? he thought. You have no idea how long I have been second-guessing them.

And he had been right to do so. The Lion had almost made the worst possible one. We are so fragile. We command this much might, and we can fall so easily.

He touched his neck where Kor Phaeron’s dagger had pierced the flesh. He reviewed decisions, questioned logic and saw the pattern. The reasoning that was pushing him to ruin was always strong. Its strength was its temptation. It disguised its true nature.

Some decisions he might never be able to judge properly. Imperium Secundus would, he was sure, pursue him with doubts until his death. Others, though, he saw clearly in this moment of crisis. He had used the Word Bearers’ Navigators, and because he had used the enemy’s weapons successfully once, the urge to keep the athames had grown stronger. He wondered how long the voice in his head had been speaking to him, shaping his thoughts even though he did not hear it.

He arrived in his quarters and opened the vault. He turned off the stasis fields and took out the daggers. He handled them with care. They were inanimate, simple crude daggers, and yet much more than that. He placed them on the central flagstone of the chamber’s deck.