He did not hesitate. He had no doubts now. This too, was fate. In the depths of his pain, he experienced a bleak hope, and a bitter joy. He had always been meant to stand at the juncture of timelines, and though there was flux, though there was possibility, he had always been meant, too, to reach this point, and to receive this offer from the one Blood Angel who could make it. There were too many symmetries, too many echoes, for the meaning of this moment to be otherwise.

Once before, on Signus Prime, a son had taken the place of the father. Meros had sacrificed himself. He had become the Red Angel. He had embodied the Thirst, becoming the worst of the Blood Angels’ nature.

On the Red Tear, the herald had banished Sanguinius’ madness. He had confronted the primarch with the best of what he was.

The best was there now. He would suffer for the Angel. He was the perfect offering to the fates.

‘No choice,’ Sanguinius gasped. The pain of the truth was as great as the physical agony that wrenched him across the portal.

Sanguinius turned his back on ruin. He nodded. The herald raised his sword, both hands wrapped around the hilt, the blade pointing downwards. He stepped forwards.

‘Save your servant,’ Madail cried, ‘who trusts in you, oh Four!’ It snatched at the herald. As its great claws came together, the air burned around their contours. It tore the fabric of the materium in the frenzy of its effort. With the power that had shattered worlds, that had enveloped a system with a boneyard, it hurled itself against the gates of destiny.

And found them closed.

It seized the herald, but the herald was already leaning forwards, plunging the sword into the portal. Madail’s grasp moved the Blood Angel into the position determined by fate, and the blade struck the daemon at the point where it was bisected by the portal, into the wound struck by the Spear of Telesto. The herald stabbed the sword down to the hilt, holding the daemon.

Madail screamed with a voice of a thousand agonies. The shriek clawed down the vault. Rubble by the tonne collapsed into the centre of the hall, crushing the daemonic horde even as the abominations recoiled from the scream, moaning their despair. The roof of the temple was suddenly open to the air. The daemon’s torso reared up. Its eyes were wide and staring, and they were as blank as the orbs in its skull.

Madail was blind.

The daemon screamed again and again.