Abaddon looked into the rows of glowing eyes running down the cheeks of Layak’s horned mask.

‘It is done?’ he asked. Layak nodded.

‘By the will of the Four and the Eightfold star.’

Abaddon felt his lips pull back from his teeth.

‘You do not have faith in the gods?’

‘I have faith in our Warmaster,’ growled Abaddon, and opened a vox-link to the ship’s command echelon. ‘Report readiness condition.’ Static chopped through the replies. He listened, his mind folding each report into a precise map of the ship’s current strength and capability. Satisfactory. If needed, they could fight and kill now. The need was unlikely, if all had gone as it should, but you always drew a blade before stepping into the dark. The fingers of his right hand twitched, curling for an instant before he stilled them. For a second, he had felt the ghost of his false-father’s knife bite into his forearm as he squeezed.

‘You are a fool, boy!’ He could see the eyes above the bloodstained teeth, could feel his fingers digging into the neck beneath them. ‘It will… slip through… your fingers…’

‘You were not born under that light, were you?’ asked Layak. Abaddon blinked. The Word Bearer had come to stand next to him in front of the view of the sun. ‘But in a sense, I suppose we all were. This is our cradle, is it not, brother?’

The Luna gene-wright rose, chromed and cold, its six bladed limbs opening above his naked flesh in a spider embrace.

‘You will be born anew…’ it had whispered as it began to cut. ‘Moon-wrought and blooded.’

‘You are not my brother, priest,’ said Abaddon, and the threat in the words was enough to bring Layak’s bodyguards forwards, their blades drawing, cracks of fire spreading over their armour.

Abaddon looked at them, his eyes glittering above a cold smile.

Layak stilled them with a twitch of his head. The pair paused and nodded once before stepping back.

A blurt of data filled the vox for a second. Abaddon listened, and then cut the link.

‘The Thousand Sons ship translated successfully.’

+It did, and we are here,+ said a voice that rolled in Abaddon’s skull. His teeth clamped shut as he shrugged the telepathic communication away.

An image unfolded in the air, translucent and shimmering: crimson armour, edged in ivory. The eyes set in the smooth face shone with a cold, blue light. Ahzek Ahriman nodded once to Abaddon and walked closer, his ghost image trailing light and frost in the air. Layak’s bodyguards had begun to draw their blades once more. Ahriman’s image turned to look at them. They met his gaze. The light of their eye-lenses had begun to burn red, and yellow embers were trickling from the splits that had opened in their armour. Ahriman tilted his head. Ice ran across the floor.