The blast wave of Kerberos’ death killed two hundred and five ships. Void shields vanished. Armour melted. Chunks of wreckage the size of mountains tore through hulls. Static rolled through the vox-channels. Seconds later, Hydra and Charon followed their brother. The magazines and fuel of hundreds of warships added their fire to the inferno. Detonations leapt between the vessels manoeuvring too close to the moons. Explosions chained all the way back to the Khthonic Gate. Ships at the edge of the blast scrambled to get clear. Order vanished. Mayhem and death ringed the last planet of the Solar System, and Pluto shook in its orbit.

Out in the reach, towards the sun, the ships of the Imperial Fists turned. Thrusters flipped them back over in mid-flight. The Sons of Horus vessels pursuing them ploughed onwards even as the realisation of what had happened rippled through them. On the bridge of his ship, Horus Aximand saw the fleet that had been fleeing but a moment before turn and roar back directly towards him. At his back, the shouts of officers and servitors filled his ears. Behind his mask of flayed skin, understanding slid into him, cold and sharp.

The guns of his ships roared as the fleet of the First Sphere met them head-on.

Bhab Bastion, The Imperial Palace, Terra

‘Admiral…’

‘Yes?’ Su-Kassen blinked, not looking at where Archamus stood just inside the closed door out of her quarters. She could almost feel the Space Marine’s discomfort.

‘There is a signal,’ he said.

‘Of course there is.’ She was still staring into the open pistol case on the stone mantle. The weapon’s pepper-pot barrel gleamed blue-black in the low light of the single glow-globe she had lit.

Why had she come back here? She was needed in the command bastion. There were things that needed to be done. Time would not stop or slow for this instant. Why would it? Death was history, its tread and pulse. No one death would shake it from that course.

But here she was.

Archamus had gone with her when she left Malcador’s chamber. She had begun to walk, and the Imperial Fist had silently followed. She had not questioned why, but a part of her mind that felt like it belonged to someone else wondered if Dorn had asked him to go with her, to watch over her in this moment. She did not consider it for long – there was no space in her for thoughts, just the words of the recent past ringing in her ears. So she had let the Huscarl walk with her and did not think about why.

It was quiet. The last weeks had stripped the continent-city of its crowds and bustle. Nothing moved in its halls except the twitching guns of the weapon servitors that watched everything with crystal eyes. Stab-lights washed across the high windows of the Silesian Cloister as they crossed into the Northern Circuits.