She was being too forthcoming. Guilliman did not trust the eagerness with which she answered his questions. It felt like mockery.

Experimentally, he said, ‘You will serve my Legion now. You will take us where you are ordered.’

‘Of course,’ said Nekras. Yathinius’ laugh was wet and gargling. He started to choke on his blood, then laughed again.

This was all mockery. What was worse, though, was that Guilliman did not think Nekras was lying. There were no telltale micro-expressions on her face that might suggest evasion. Instead, when she agreed with his demand, her face became even more open with a fanatic’s enthusiasm.

‘You would serve your enemy so easily?’ Guilliman probed.

‘We would,’ Nekras said, and Yathinius nodded, drooling blood. ‘What choice do we have?’ Nekras continued. There was a pause, during which her features shifted. ‘What choice do any of us have?’ she asked. The humour was gone from her voice now. She spoke with cold fire, a disciple enraptured by the sublime. Her gaze turned to Guilliman. She did not blink. Though her pupils had almost vanished, it was as if she was seeing him clearly. Or seeing through him to an even greater clarity. ‘We all walk the assigned path.’

There was something wrong with her voice. There was a distortion, a very slight echo, as of a second voice entwined like a parasite around hers. It was the voice from Quor Vondor’s psychic flame, striking out at Guilliman again through another willing instrument. The thing was an infection that had entered the ship with the splinter. It was poisoning his blood, flooding his mind with doubts. He could feel it building into something larger. There was the seed of a cancerous revelation, and he did not know how to excise it. It attacked and grew through truth, damnable truth. Nekras would not stop speaking the truth even under torture.

A heavy tread stopped just outside the interrogation cell. Guilliman turned from the prisoners. The door rattled as it slid aside for him, its sensors keyed to respond at once to his proximity, then closed behind him with a deep clang. Prayto stood in the hall. ‘You wanted no vox communication,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Guilliman. And he had chosen to conduct the interrogation personally. He told himself that to form the practical for the fleet’s movements, he needed the data first-hand. That was all. ‘What is it, Titus?’ Guilliman asked.

‘An astropathic message from the Lion. The Dark Angels have found a way through the storm. They are calling on the fleets to muster.’

‘I see. We are not surprised that my brother was the first to forge the path, are we?’ The Lion had been able to find his way through the warp before the light of the Pharos had been lit.

‘No, we are not. Though I would give much to know how he accomplishes these feats.’