Millions had died to make this possible. Tens of thousands had been bled into offering vats or been jettisoned from hangar bays into the warp. Most had died with pleas for mercy on their lips. Some had spoken prayers of thanks to the gods. Slaves taken from conquered worlds, helots from the deep decks of the ships, even some chosen from amongst the soldiery that had sworn loyalty to Horus, all had died, their blood and souls poured into nothing to make this possible. The powers that Horus had bound to his cause had seen his ships through the warp, and now they had slid them back into being well past the Mandeville point of the Solar System – that invisible barrier created by a star’s gravity past which it was unsafe to translate ships to and from the warp. There had been a price, of course, a price and a limit. The price had been paid in blood, and the limit was that for all the neverborn could bend the rules to place these ships deep within in the Solar sphere, they could not violate them utterly. They had not been able to return the Warmaster’s ships directly into Terran orbit. Not yet. But what the blood and death had bought was what some would have called a miracle, even so.

The jagged shadows in the coiling light faded momentarily. A fork of green lightning whipped across the void, branching across thousands of kilometres. The light froze for an instant. A shiver ran across Abaddon’s skin under his armour. His gaze was locked on the scene beyond the glass. He felt his twin hearts each beat once.

The frozen flash of lightning exploded. He blinked. Ships filled the void around the War Oath, tens of thousands of vast, dark metal shapes fuming pale smoke. The stars swirled, and the aurora light folded over and over, caressing their hulls as thousands of vessels shivered into full reality. Sons of Horus, Word Bearers and the New Mechanicum, enough to conquer star clusters, all hanging above the sun like daggers.

Abaddon watched the ships settle and the ghost-light fade from their hulls. Behind him, the image of Ahriman faded too. A moment later he heard the door release, and Layak and his bodyguards withdraw. Abaddon turned when he heard the doors reseal. He inhaled, bringing emotion to a point of focus. He loathed how they had come here. He loathed more the weakness of his own Legion, implied by the aid given by the Thousand Sons and Word Bearers to make this impossibility a reality. But here and now, his loathing did not matter. All that mattered was the weapon that his father, his Warmaster, had placed in his hand. He heard his oath then – not the oath he had knelt and given at the foot of Horus’ throne, but one given long ago beneath the light of the sun that waited for him at the end of this path.