The Angel unleashed another strike of light from the Spear of Telesto. The daemon deflected the blast with its staff and trained the blade at Sanguinius. The head of the weapon crackled with energy the colour of nightmares. Sanguinius folded his wings, accelerating into the dive. He struck with the Blade Encarmine. The blow would have cut a Rhino in two. The daemon took the sword in its shoulder. Sanguinius spiked and cut deep through the armour plating of the hide. Madail hissed, turning, and thrust its staff at Sanguinius’ chest. It stabbed through his armour and through his flesh. In the moment before the full shock of pain and warp fire seized him, Sanguinius stabbed the Spear of Telesto into the abomination’s central eye.

Angel and priest trapped the other’s weapon in their body. The vortex spun them. Power burst around them. They clashed in the heart of a crucible where reality was made and unmade, where futures birthed and died. The enginarium vanished from Sanguinius’ sight. The spike in his chest, the icon of the priest’s office, sent the torments of the future through him. Psychic waves shook him, seeking to detach him from purpose and throw him into an abyss of unfettered pride. He balanced between two tempests, abstract storms of triumph and of the fall into the blackness. He could barely make out the shape of the daemon before him. He held on to the reality of his foe. He cut deeper with the Blade Encarmine. The spear grew hot in his grip as it burned the daemonflesh.

‘The choice remains,’ said Madail. At last there was pain in the monster’s voice. There was the first hint of desperation. ‘Fall and rise, or stand and fall. To fall is written. Fall to power. Fall to glory.’ Its staff flared again. The blackness rushed closer. The dark thing was not just part of him, it was linked to his choice to stand against Madail.

Cracks appeared in the armour of his purpose.

Madail laughed. It reached out with its free hand. Its huge talons seized Sanguinius’ skull. ‘See and know!’ the daemon bellowed. ‘See and choose!’

The blackness took him. His rage transformed. His consciousness split. He disappeared into the dark, and he remained detached from it, a sliver of his identity preserved in the suspension of choice. He split into madness and agony, because now he saw the true nature of the darkness.

‘This is the consequence,’ said Madail. ‘Wrath of the future. Flaw of origins. Doom of sons.’