‘You have a very bleak view for someone claiming to be trying to help save the last fortress of humanity.’

‘I have seen Horus,’ she said. ‘I have heard his voice. One day everyone who can say that will be gone, and no one will remember. But I remember, and for years I have tried to hold on to that memory.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Because it matters. What I saw mattered. Horus was greater and more noble and more terrible than any human could ever be. It was not just the armies, you see. It was not just his sons. It was that he was something beyond us, something that spoke like us and wore a face that was like ours, but was from another order of existence. He existed in a greater way. The smallest things he did, and choices he made could send cracks across the shell of life. He was a creature who turned, and half the galaxy turned with him…’

‘And burned,’ said Vek, and began to rise. He could feel a headache building at the edges of his eyes. This was not what he had come for, but it was his fault that he had come here at all.

‘I can’t lie to you,’ she said. ‘You have done too much for me not to tell you what I believe before you can choose what you believe. I can tell you that I am carrying information from my old friend, who is now the saint of a rogue cult that worships the Emperor as a god, a friend who spoke to me in dreams. You can hear that and believe that I am carrying a message from the divine to a primarch, that I am chosen, that this is something only I can do, that I do the will of the Emperor and that He protects us. You can believe that you are doing good, that it will mean that everything is going to be all right…’ She trailed off, shrugged. She looked very tired, he realised, drained in a way that he thought was deeper than a lack of sleep. She gave a half-smile. ‘Or you can believe that I am insane and dangerous. That it was the worst mistake of your life to help us, that it is all going to end badly. You can believe that, instead.’ She stood up and went to the samostill, and filled her cup again. ‘And all of those things might be true at the same time.’

‘But you believe…’ he said.

‘I know I need to do what I can. And yes, I believe… I believe that we are small, and that our dreams cannot change the stars. But sometimes our deeds can change the universe, even if it is only by accident. If you want to, you can find your hope in that.’

Vek found that he was smiling.

‘And that is enough?’

‘It is all we have,’ she said.