The man beside the fire does not move, and the void of His gaze holds unblinking.

‘Illumination…’ says Horus. ‘That is what you used to call our goal. Truth and light… Well, I have seen it, father. I am illuminated. All is revealed to my sight and there is no veil between me and the flame of truth.’

Horus shifts, and for a second he does not seem a man, but a shadow of something vast and hunched and furred caught in the light of a blaze much brighter than the fading embers before them.

‘You still have some strength,’ says Horus and raises his ringed hand. Slowly, he reaches down into the fire and grips a glowing shard of wood. He lifts it, smoke fuming from where his skin chars. Horus holds the ember up, and the red fire glow lights his face. The heat in the fire fades, becomes cold black, then powdered ash. Horus looks at the Emperor for a long second and then stands, his presence stretching up into the bare branches and night sky. ‘But you are not strong enough. You never were.’

The Emperor looks back to the dead ash of the fire before Him. Then He closes His eyes, and the image of the forest and fire and the face of His false son flee away into the distance, and there is only the voice of Horus, cold and laughing as it echoes after.

‘Run,’ it calls. ‘Run, father, and know that I am coming. Run!’

Afterword

“‘I remember, and for years I have tried to hold on to that memory.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Because it matters.’”

Because it matters… That was the thought that ran through my mind as I was working on The Solar War. A part of me could not believe that we were here, at the Siege of Terra, and another part of me thought that, of course, it was inevitable. One thing, though, was absolutely clear to me, this story was more important than anything else I had written for Black Library.

Why, though?

The answer seems obvious, doesn’t it? I mean, the first book in the most anticipated part of the biggest science fantasy series ever – that matters, right?

Yes, but as I started in on a long process of research and planning I found that reason was not at the heart of why it mattered to me, or why I felt it mattered to the universe that it is set in. The answers that I found to those questions became the blood and bones of the book that you hold in your hand.

Cosmic and eternal conflict

“He is waiting. He has always been waiting. In this place there is no time, not truly, not unless the forces within its tides dream it into being. Here, eternity is truth.”