The fate Sanguinius had declared he would accept unfolded again. Horus killed him again. This time, he looked on at his death from a remove. Even so, he felt the fatal blow. As he saw himself die, he witnessed the birth of the darkness. It was a howl of rage, summoned by betrayal, forged from that which was broken in his blood. It was a rage of terminal darkness, and its shriek of birth sounded down the long millennia, to be heard by all his sons, until the final Blood Angel should fall. The moment of his death froze. It became eternal. It could never be expunged. It was the final expression of his soul. It was his scream, his anger, his fury at betrayal, and it would live in the blood of his Legion forever. His lost time on the Red Tear returned to him.

He remembered.

He remembered holding Mkani Kano, and not seeing the Librarian. He had seen Horus. He had not seen the bridge of the Red Tear. He had seen the Vengeful Spirit. From the abyssal depths of fury, he had sought vengeance for his death by changing time. He had been about to kill Kano, hallucinating him as the author of a crime yet to come.

That was his legacy for his sons. The Black Rage would come for them and tear reality from their grasp. Roaring hate, they would slip to the moment in their past that marked the beginning of their long fall. They would seek vengeance upon Horus, and see him in whoever stood before them. Their fury against evil would turn them into mad butchers.

‘This is the choice!’ Madail boomed. ‘This is the choice!’

Sanguinius had thought his sacrifice was his alone. He had stood at the precipice of despair at the thought his death would have no meaning. But it would. It would have dreadful meaning. He did not know if through his death Horus would be stopped. He did not know if this choice meant the fall of the Imperium. He did know that the sacrifice would be that of his entire Legion. If he accepted his fate, the blood of his sons and of those they would kill would be on his hands.

The Angel screamed in agony, and the daemon grasped its prize.

And suddenly there was thunder.

Eighteen

Eighteen

The Choice