‘Brother,’ Dak’ir croaked warmly, recalling the moment of empathy between them as they’d fought together in the temple.

The warmth seeped away, as a cold wind steals heat from a fire, when Dak’ir saw Tsu’gan’s dark expression.

‘You are unfit to be an Astartes,’ he said levelly. ‘Kadai’s death is on your hands, Ignean. Had you not sent me after the renegade, had you been swift enough to react to the danger in our midst, we would not have lost our captain.’ Tsu’gan’s burning gaze was as chill as ice. ‘I shall not forget it.’

Stunned, Dak’ir was unable to reply before Tsu’gan turned his back on him and left the Apothecarion.

Anguish filled his heart and soul as Dak’ir wrestled with the terrible accusations of his brother, before exhaustion took him and he fell into a deep and fitful sleep.

For the first time in over forty years, the dream had changed…

Sitting in the troop compartment of the Stormbird, Nihilan turned the device stolen from the vault in the depths of Cirrion over and over in his gauntlet. His fellow Dragon Warriors surrounded him: the giant Ramlek, breathing tiny gouts of ash and cinder from his mouth grille as he tried to calm his perpetual anger; Ghor’gan, his scaled skin shedding after he’d removed his battle-helm, cradling his multi-melta like a favoured pet; Nor’hak, fastidiously stripping and reassembling his weapons; and Erkine his pilot, the other renegade left behind to watch the Stormbird, forearm bone-blades carefully sheathed within the confines of his power armour as he steered the vessel to its final destination.

The Dragon Warriors had risked much to retrieve the device, even going as far as to establish the elaborate distraction of the uprising to cloak their movements. Kadai’s death as part of that subterfuge had been a particularly satisfying, but unexpected, boon for Nihilan.

The Stormbird had been primed and ready before the trap in Aura Hieron was sprung. With eager swathes of suicidal cultists to ensure their escape, the renegades had fled swiftly, leaving the atmosphere of Stratos behind them as the engines of their extant craft roared.

‘How little do they realise…’ Nihilan rasped, examining every facet of the gilt object in his palm. Such an innocuous piece of arcana; within its twelve pentagonal faces, along the geodesic lines of esoteric script that wreathed its dodecahedral surface, there was the means to unlock secrets. It was the very purpose of the decyphrex, to reveal that which was hidden. For Nihilan that enigma existed in the scrolls of Kelock, ancient parchments he and Ushorak had taken over forty years ago from Kelock’s tomb on Moribar. Kelock was a technocrat, and a misunderstood genius. He created something, a weapon, far beyond what was capable with the crippled science of the current decaying age. Nihilan meant to replicate his work.