The wall was an aurora of blood. It billowed with such violence that the Lion could hear the roar of tortured existence in his soul. Cyclonic currents the size of gas giants collided, merged and broke asunder. The engines of the fleet strained to move the ships away from the embrace of disaster.

Beyond the barrier, the Ruinstorm boiled across the void. A violent bruise of eye-searing colours filled the darkness. No stars were visible. The auspex officer was in communication with Lady Theralyn Fiana, the Chief Navigator, in her cell. They were struggling to get a fix on the fleet’s location with almost no viable data.

‘Your disapproval is deafening, Lady Fiana,’ the Lion said.

‘I have not spoken, my lord,’ she said over the ship’s internal vox.

‘Even so.’

‘I have no control over our journey,’ she said. ‘I therefore have little to go on to discover where we are. I think the means of our jump would be the first place to turn for answers.’

‘I want your evaluation first,’ said the Lion.

He doesn’t trust it, Holguin thought, and was glad. Some distance between the primarch and the thing in the dark chamber would be welcome.

In the near space of the barrier, between it and the Dark Angels fleet, was a graveyard of ships. Metal corpses tumbled slowly, caught in the random currents and bursts of gravity. Holguin saw two ships collide. They disintegrated, fragments spinning lazily off, glinting dully in the glare of the Ruinstorm. ‘Do we know anything about this wreckage?’ he asked.

‘The craft are not warp-capable,’ Fiana said. ‘Beyond that, we can’t tell. If we could identify where they came from, proximity might suggest where we are now.’

The Lion’s gaze was fixed on the warp storm. Holguin could not look at the vortex for more than a few moments at a time. The colours and movements ate at his mind, filling his thoughts with monstrous irrationalities, the fragments of waking nightmares. The Lion stared at the storm as if he would pierce through its secrets by will alone.

‘This system,’ said the Lion. ‘It is so far gone. The event here is immense. Its traces must be felt from this location.’

‘I agree,’ said Fiana. ‘If we had any readings at all of other stars, we might be able to factor in the distortion and form a hypothesis. The upheaval might even be detectable by others, much further away.’

‘A dark beacon,’ Holguin muttered.

‘Exactly. But we are too close.’

‘So there is nothing you can tell me,’ the Lion said.

‘That is correct.’

The primarch glared at the oculus a few moments longer, the green of his eyes going beyond ice, becoming sharp as a rapier. ‘Keep at it,’ he ordered. He turned on his heel and strode from the bridge.