The bell tolled and tolled. The daemons rushed the Blood Angels and fell back, rushed and fell back again. When their forms lost coherence and they could no longer fight, the fire burned their remains faster than they could deliquesce. The Exaltatio Angeli descended into a tempest of devastation. Sanguinius hurled blasts from the spear without cease, mourning the knowledge and the art he destroyed, but made resolute by the necessity of what he did. The flames rose, and he was standing in the heart of a furnace. It roared, destroying what should not exist, bringing absolution to the tainted space of the Red Tear.

In the midst of his sorrow and anger, Sanguinius sought the solace of victory. He spread his wings. They beat the air, sending smoke curling in violent eddies. He rose straight up through the rage of flame and battle until he reached the dome of the Exaltatio. He wheeled around its circumference. The firestorm reached up for him and he looked down at the struggle between his sons and the daemons. At this height, the figures were small, yet the majesty of the Blood Angels shone brightly. They cut down the abominations with resolution and glory. There was anger in their attacks, but it was controlled, honourable. There was no sign of the blood thirst. He saw only discipline. He saw his sons as they could be, as the best part of himself, and for a short while he could believe in the illusion that the flaw was not just beneath the surface, waiting for its chance to erupt again.

He gazed at the daemons with contempt. There might always be new horrors for the warp to reveal, but the Blood Angels had the measure of these, and they would all be destroyed. We have faced worse, he thought. We have defeated worse. The loss of the librarium was a blow, but Baal still lived. The Imperium still lived. There was hope, and so the chance to rebuild, to create new art, new know­ledge, new chronicles. He vowed there would yet be a new dawn. And from the peak of the dome, he sent the beams of the Spear of Telesto stabbing down into the abominations, fuelling the fire. The Exaltatio’s pyre blazed with purifying light.