‘Provisionally, yes.’ He did not need to justify himself, but he chose to answer fully. He decided that he wanted Holguin to understand the actions he was going to order the fleet to take. ‘Tuchulcha cannot take us all the way to Davin.’

‘Obstacles imply importance,’ Holguin said.

Good, the Lion thought. He sees. ‘Precisely,’ he said. The same is true for Terra, if only we had realised it sooner.

‘What will you command?’ Holguin asked.

‘The astropathic choir must contact my brothers. Let the word be sent. We have found the way.’

The order was given. The word was sent. It did not go easily.

They will kill us all yet, Vazheth Licinia thought. The mistress of the Invincible Reason’s astropathic choir wasn’t sure who she meant by they. She did not question the order from the primarch. She did not doubt its necessity. She would give up her life to see it transmitted.

Even so, the thought sprang to her mind. It was beyond her control, a flare of dark truth she could not suppress. This war, she thought. It tore apart the galaxy, and it tore apart every understanding of reality. The impossible march across the void, and the impossible demanded of every one.

The impossible was asked of her choir now. The message itself was simple and urgent. The way is found. Come to Thrinos. Its conversion into mental imagery was not difficult. To send it, though… That was a different task. That was the impossible.

Licinia stood in her pulpit. An articulated framework attached to her chest held her upright, its servomotor-driven legs giving her mobility when she had to walk. The curved rows of iron astropathic pews before her formed an amphitheatre. Though Licinia was blind, it often seemed to her that she could perceive the chamber as a vague grey space. The first row of astropaths were a hint of phantoms, a false dawn of sight. When she opened her inner, psychic eye, though, the hall became a tempest of energy. Each astropath was a blazing node. Beyond the choir was the non-space of the warp, howling with the Ruinstorm. The mere awareness of the convulsion was a dagger to the mind. Transmitting a message meant staring directly into the madness. It meant being completely vulnerable to its torments.