She focused on her breathing, and then on standing. The blare of sirens still echoed across the bridge, but there was no gunfire, no scream of blades. She still had her gun in her hand. She snapped its magazine open. It was empty and her fingers found the reloads gone from her belt. She looked at her hand. Blood caked her palm.

‘Admiral.’ The voice brought her head around.

Rogal Dorn was climbing the stairs of the dais.

There was shouting coming from the other side of the torn bulkhead doors, the clang of armoured feet, the whine as guns in the hands of the surviving Huscarls built charge. There were more Imperial Fists moving onto the bridge now. Some of the warriors bore the twin axe emblem of the elite Assault Cadre, others the black-and-white heraldry of the Templars. Holo-projections were blinking to life again, painting the sulphur-spiced air with a story of blood and disaster out in the void.

‘Admiral,’ said Dorn again. She focused on him. His face was streaked in soot and blood. The gold of his armour was scorched almost to black. But something in his presence held still the rush of her thoughts.

‘What happened to–’

‘The walls of heaven have fallen, admiral.’ She looked at him. ‘And so I must send you from my side.’

Loken limped onto the deck of the grey ship. It seemed untouched, as though the tide of neverborn had passed over it without realising it was there.

His broken hand rested on the pommel of his sheathed sword. His armour growled with every step.

‘Cast off,’ he said to the robed crew who glided forwards to meet him. ‘Full speed to Terra.’ The crew bowed assent but did not speak. He limped on step by step. Light shifted in the corridors he passed through. The hull rang as docking cradles unlocked and engines woke to full life. He walked on, silent, hollow.

He reached the sanctuary at last.

Wide eyes looked up at him as he keyed the door release.

Noon shifted from where he had been curled on Mori’s lap. The girl just looked at him, fear in her eyes. The boy took a step towards Loken, and looked up.

‘Where is Mersadie?’ the boy asked.

Loken found that he could not reply.

Sigismund looked up as the image of the Phalanx became a golden speck in the darkness of the Persephone’s viewport. Before them, Terra shone. Shells burst in the night around them. The view hazed. It would be a short race to the Throneworld, a last journey to a final war.

He turned and saw Rogal Dorn standing a pace beside him. The Praetorian had sent his flagship out into the battles that still burned amongst the planets, but returned to Terra in person, the master of the citadel returning to its walls. The Persephone would carry him there, outrunning the tide as it rolled in.