A Decree’s Answer
A Warhammer 40K fic
A direct continuation of Sol Resurgens
Summary: The Grey Knights come to enact the Terminus Decree, something different unfolds.
Words: 6,419
“You did not oppose it.”
A bark of humourless laughter escaped the man who had long since forgotten what humour was.
“You think I am in the habit of opposing actions that are not my own for the sake of it? I did not oppose the Inquisitor’s demand for the coronation either.”
“Correct,” Roboute Guilliman replied, voice measured but edged. “But you do have the custom of disputing actions taken by transhumans not of your order—including my own, and especially those of the Adeptus Astartes.”
Tribune Colquan’s eyes hardened as he looked at the Primarch. The two walked side by side down one of the Macragge’s Honour’s upper spinal corridors, fresh from the sealed meeting with the Grey Knights. Their footsteps rang in perfect, mismatched rhythm — one the heavy tread of auramite, the other the resonant boom of the Armour of Fate.
“I do not disobey directives from the Emperor,” Colquan said flatly, “and that is what they brought to us. However ancient and vague the wording, it bears His will.”
“You truly believe it is an order written by Malcador’s own hand and approved by Him?” Guilliman asked, a note of challenge in his tone.
“It is the Sigilite’s handwriting. You attested to it yourself before the Grand Masters. The man would not have written such an order without the Emperor’s purview, and it bears His sigil. You knew them personally, as you have said. Is the decree’s existence so implausible?”
There was the faintest hint of accusation in Colquan’s voice, a razor slipped between the words.
Guilliman’s mouth set in a hard line. They continued down the corridor in silence for a moment, the low thrum of the ship’s reactors vibrating through the deck. The meeting with the Grey Knights had been… intense. Four Grand Masters from different Brotherhoods had arrived in force, accompanied by captains, champions, librarians, and battle brothers. They had come not to pledge aid to the crusade into Imperium Nihilus, but to demand the fulfilment of an ancient, sacred imperative.
The Terminus Decree.
“I find it strange, Tribune,” Guilliman said at last, “that the order calls for a ritual to bind Him back to the Throne when a part of Him has only just been freed from it.”
Colquan answered without hesitation, and might have shrugged had his posture allowed for anything less than perfect, dignified rigidity.
“Perhaps it is a necessary step in the process of His return. Something He took into consideration when all of this was set in motion. It is not for us to question.”
Guilliman knew he would get nowhere arguing the nature of orders from the Emperor with a Custodian. Their kind were physically and spiritually incapable of such dissent. But he was another matter entirely.
He had not such blind faith that this was part of some carefully premeditated plan. He had seen what sat upon the Throne with his own eyes. He had felt the endless agony through the child’s touch. His Father had become something… other. Greater than what He had been, and at the same time far less. A god, an insidious voice whispered in the back of his mind. And what mortal— even a Primarch —could truly understand the plans of gods?
If the ritual succeeded, what then? Would the Emperor return in glory? Would the child become a true avatar? Or would His liberated essence simply return to the broken husk on Terra, leaving nothing but silence once more?
The Grey Knights had no answers. Only duty. And they would see it done, at any cost. Guilliman had seen it in their eyes.
Colquan glanced at him askance.
“Why discuss this, Lord Regent? You have already agreed to their demand. I will not change my mind, and so your misgivings will change nothing.”
Guilliman was exasperated by the Custodian’s bullheadedness.
“I merely seek to understand, Colquan. This is not a path we can return from. The consequences are irrevocable.”
He had indeed agreed. Refusing risked open conflict with one of the Imperium’s most vital assets. And no matter his personal doubts, the decree appeared genuine—Malcador’s hand, the Emperor’s sigil. It was not something to be ignored lightly.
Still, he felt wrongfooted. Events spinning out of his control always unsettled him.
“In the end,” Guilliman continued quietly, “the boy might cease to exist at all.”
He had made one demand during the meeting: the child was not to be harmed. The Grey Knights had agreed, begrudgingly, though they warned the ritual would still be taxing.
“He will not be harmed, Lord Regent,” the Tribune said with absolute certainty and finality.
Guilliman had the distinct suspicion that Colquan was not referring to the boy.
Aneela was a mortal amidst divinity.
The towering forms of the Custodes dwarfed and surrounded her like living statues of auramite. All of the Ten Thousand currently aboard the Macragge’s Honour had come. Their presence filled the Librarius with an oppressive, sacred weight that pressed against her chest. The Primarch himself stood ahead in full battle-plate, the Armour of Fate gleaming with cold authority. Beside him loomed Tribune Colquan, silent and unyielding as ever.
There were no Ultramarines present. Nor other Astartes of other chapters.
No—that was wrong.
There were Astartes present, or at least beings that resembled them. But Aneela had never in her life seen their like.
They stood within the Macragge’s Honour’s Librarius, now proclaimed a most holy site, the very chamber where He had incarnated. No other soul was permitted to witness what would unfold. Only her, the transhumans, and the boy.
The warm little hand clasped in hers served as her only anchor to the present. She looked down at her charge. Those light amber eyes, open and trusting, met hers. The boy gave her a small, shy smile. Aneela returned it, and felt her resolve harden like ceramite in the forge.
What Lord Guilliman had ordered of her was unexpected, unusual, and carried the crushing weight of sacred duty. A ritual of immense importance was about to take place, conducted by an Imperial force so secretive that few souls in the Imperium even knew it existed. She had been told not to speak of it to anyone. Her role was simple yet profound: to accompany the godling, to keep him calm and obedient. He was most compliant with her.
The order had left her limbs stiff and her mind uneasy. She had never seen such a grave, heavy expression on the Primarch’s face—even heavier than the night he had first revealed the boy’s existence to her. There was something at stake far larger than any of them, something the Lord Regent had not fully explained. Not that he needed to. Her only path was obedience. For him, and for the Emperor, as it had always been.
And so she had strengthened her mind and spirit with well-remembered litanies, and walked with the grim procession of demigods into the Librarius.
Now the place felt charged, heavy with the momentum of what was about to unfold. It was dark and cold, save for a myriad of candles placed with ritual precision. They approached the centre of the chamber—the circular open space where He had first been reborn.
Concentric circles had been carved into the obsidian floor, filled with sigils and words she could not read. Candless and relics were arranged with deliberate, almost painful care.
Aneela could now see the silver Astartes fully. Their armour was pure silver, adorned with different patterns and helms unlike anything she had witnessed among the Adeptus Astartes. There were no typical Chapter heraldries on their shoulder plates. Instead, esoteric decorations and scribbled High Gothic runes covered their battle-plate. There were many of them—far more than the Custodes present—and of varying types, as the Space Marines often were.
Four of them approached Lord Guilliman. These were bareheaded, wearing larger, more ornate armour. Their faces were like carved statues, the faces of lords of war.
One of them spoke, his voice deep and resonant, carrying the weight of authority.
“Lord Guilliman, may we begin?”
The Primarch nodded and gestured with one massive gauntlet. The Custodes opened their ring of procession, fanning out into a wider perimeter.
Aneela understood her cue. She stepped forward, the boy’s small hand still clasped in hers, guiding him gently toward the centre of the ritual circles.
The leaders of the silver Astartes watched with quiet, piercing intensity as they approached. Their scrutiny was almost unbearable. Aneela gritted her teeth and focused on placing one foot in front of the other, keeping her pace calm and measured.
They observed the godling without word, without apparent recognition or devotion. She saw faint wisps of ethereal fire coruscating in their eyes. The boy peered at them curiously and waved a small hand in innocent greeting.
With unspoken agreement, the four lords spread out to their positions. One lingered a moment longer to speak with the Primarch and the Tribune.
“It is imperative that none cross the ritual’s outer circle once it begins,” he said, voice grave. “And we are not to be disturbed. He must remain within the inner circle at all times.”
“And our mutual agreement, Grandmaster?” the Primarch asked.
The Grandmaster remained silent for several seconds. Aneela thought he might refuse to answer. Then, at last:
“Yes, Lord Regent. It will be taken into consideration.”
Lord Guilliman observed him coldly for a long moment before nodding. He glanced at her with an unspoken order in his eyes. She understood.
Aneela walked with her charge to the very centre of the ritual place. She took great care that they disturbed none of the precisely placed candles or objects. Around them, the silver Astartes moved into position at regular intervals around the outermost circle. The Custodes formed another, tighter barrier.
She arrived at the centre and knelt before the boy.
“Your Highness,” she spoke softly, though she knew every transhuman present could hear her, “you must remain here. It is very important that you do not move.”
She placed a gentle hand on his dark hair.
“When we are done, we shall eat those sweets the Sisters brought.”
The boy nodded with childish excitement, eyes bright. Aneela smiled, hoping it did not look as brittle as it felt. The coming moment threatened to undo her hard-won calm.
With one final, lingering look at the godling, she forced herself to step back from the ritual circle. Her legs felt leaden, as though the very air resisted her movement. She took position near the Primarch and the Tribune, uncertain where else she belonged. No orders had been given, but standing close to Lord Guilliman felt… right. Necessary. She clasped her bare hands tightly in front of her, knuckles white, and began to mutter a prayer under her breath, the familiar words a fragile shield against the growing anxiety.
The four Grand Masters stood equidistant from one another, forming the cardinal points of the outermost circle. Cowled silver Astartes filled the spaces between them, while others knelt with massive force swords planted point-down into the deck, their heads bowed in solemn concentration. Additional warriors stood ready in the outer ring, bolters lowered but grips tight, silver armour gleaming coldly.
Then it began.
Low chanting rose from the Grand Masters, their eyes closed, voices deep and resonant. The words spread like ripples in still water, taken up by every other space marinet in the chamber. They spoke softly at first, almost reverently, yet the sound pressed against Aneela’s ears like physical weight. It was some form of archaic High Gothic, ancient and guttural, the syllables twisting in ways her mind could barely grasp.
The shadows in the Librarius seemed to deepen, thickening like oil. The candle flames burned brighter, unnaturally so, casting long, dancing silhouettes across the walls. Aneela felt a chill settle into her bones despite the warmth of the chamber. In the innermost circle, a faint bluish light began to emerge from the carved sigils on the floor, pulsing slowly like a diseased heart.
The boy peered at the glowing runes with open curiosity, head tilted, one small hand clutching the edge of his white tunic.
The chanting continued, growing in power. To Aneela it seemed as though thousands of voices now joined the chorus—old and young, male and female, every timbre imaginable. They rasped incessantly inside her skull, clawing at the edges of her thoughts. She had to focus desperately on her own litanies, whispering the prayers of the sororitas over and over, lest she drown beneath the tide of alien sound.
Moments bled into one another. Her only sense of time came from the slow outward spread of light across the concentric circles and sigils, creeping from the centre toward the edge like frost claiming glass.
The demigods of the Grey Knights stood motionless as statues, silver armour reflecting the growing radiance. The air itself distorted at the edges of her vision, warping as if from intense heat.
Finally, all the circles were engulfed in a light so pale blue it appeared almost white. Then, as one, the Grand Masters’ lips stopped moving.
They opened their eyes.
Terrible crackling energy coruscated across their armour, arcs of psychic lightning dancing between pauldrons and helms. Aneela shivered violently at the sight, a primal terror rising in her chest.
One of them opened his mouth and spoke a single word.
Aneela did not recognise the language. The manner in which it was spoken sounded like a name, a command, a condemnation. It echoed unnaturally through the Librarius, lingering far longer than any sound should. The light began to shift, brightening into a harsh, searing yellow. The godling in the centre jerked violently to one side, as if struck by an invisible blow.
Then another Grand Master spoke a second word. The boy jerked again.
It went on. They alternated with increasing speed, spitting words in that unknown tongue. The child thrashed, balance lost, tiny limbs flailing. He tried to crawl out of the circle but could not; some invisible barrier held him fast. His amber eyes turned first to Guilliman, wide with fear, then to Aneela, silently pleading.
She closed her eyes, hands clasped so tightly the knuckles ached, and forced herself to look again. It was ordered. It was her duty. The words echoed like a litany in her mind, the only thing keeping her upright.
She glanced at the Primarch. His visage was carved from stone, the shifting lights and shadows hollowing his cheeks and eyes until he looked like a corpse wearing the face of a demigod.
The godling opened His mouth in a silent scream.
The chanting voices clawed deeper into her ears, changing slowly. Some began screaming, others sobbing, others raging in fury. The Grand Masters’ eyes and ears were bleeding now, thick drops of blood running lazily down their silver armour. Still they continued, lips moving around blood-flecked teeth.
Then, they began speaking words Aneela could understand.
“Imperator… Imperator… Imperator…”
The boy gripped His own head with both small hands, mouth stretched wide in a silent, agonised scream.
Aneela felt the Primarch take a single involuntary step forward beside her.
But then the godling went limp. His head fell forward, chin touching His chest.
When He raised it again, His eyes were shining with pure, molten gold.
Aneela felt an otherworldly presence descend upon the Librarius, vast and suffocating, filling every corner of the chamber. It banished the unnatural cold. The candle flames dimmed to almost nothing. Shadows danced wildly at the edges of her vision. The air suddenly smelled of burnt sugar and sanctified incense.
The Grand Masters fell to their knees as if struck down by an invisible hand. She saw them straining, armour groaning under impossible pressure, coughing blood onto the deck.
She wanted to kneel. Every instinct screamed at her to prostrate herself.
But something held her rooted in place.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lord Guilliman straining enormously, every muscle locked, trying to take another step forward.
That entity now inhabiting the child’s body took a slow, languid glance around the chamber, then examined the ritual circle that held it in place with mild, almost bored curiosity.
It raised a hand and the air around it strained and shimmered, fissures appeared on the carvings in the ground. The grandmasters kneeling groaned. The cowled silver Astartes stood with raised hands, unwholesome energies gathered in their hands. It zapped and flew to their kneeling leaders. With unspoken command all of the Astartes did the same. By their combined effort the grandmasters rose one by one with a roar. Where they chanted before now they shouted in the archaic high gothic.
The myriad of voices that chittered endlessly in Aneela's mind groaned and moaned as if in suffering.
The entity looked at the space marines, a subtle frown in its features. It raised a hand to them and Aneela could see the tips of the fingers looked frayed as if they were vanishing from existence, light gold curling away from them.
The shouted words from blood speckled mouths were making an effect upon it. The entity knelt, fraying hands upon its head.
Suddenly, air from nowhere began to blow in the Librarium, accompanied by claps of distant thunder. The shadows coalesced and flexed like waves. Aneela’s robes were battered by the wind and so strong was it she had to hold firm not to fall. The candles grew brighter like ethereal fire and their lights danced madly with the shadows. It grew cold again but the winds were hot and the difference left goosebumps on her skin.
The entity’s head moved in rapid erratic movements, where it whiplashed after images of different expressions remained for seconds.
Cracks of white light appeared in the circles, growing larger by the second.
“What is happening?” The lord Regent had to shout to be heard above the winds
“We are losing our hold on Him” one of the grandmasters roared back, on the brink of falling to his knees again, his face was encrusted with frozen blood.
“We have to stop this madness” the primarch said. Aneela looked at him, the light from psychic phenomena and the candles danced in his blue eyes, his sculpted face bathed by it. He looked even more godly and terrible, Aneela felt terrified.
Tribune Colquan and the other custodians did not move and weathered the storm. The handmaiden saw something she thought would never see upon their faces: indecision. The tribune looked burdened by it, his jaw tight and posture tense. His brothers would not act if he did not.
Then the tension broke like a taut string stretched beyond endurance.
Half a dozen of the silver Astartes collapsed at once, crashing to the obsidian floor with the resounding clang of ceramite and flesh. They fell like broken dolls, limbs twitching, their ornate armour ringing harshly against the stone. Blood sprayed from helm vents and cracked visors, pooling beneath them in dark, glistening mirrors.
The Grand Masters screamed—a raw, agonised sound torn from throats that had chanted litanies for centuries without falter. One by one they fell to their knees, silver armour buckling under invisible strain, blood streaming from their eyes, ears, and noses in thick rivulets that froze mid-descent in the unnatural cold.
The chanting stopped abruptly.
The sudden, deafening silence left Aneela dizzy, her mind reeling as though she had been struck. That disorientation was only intensified by the pillar of blinding white-gold light that erupted upward from the child-entity like a newborn star, searing through the chamber with unbearable radiance. She threw a hand up to shield her eyes, squinting desperately between her fingers, but it was too late.
She did not see the wave of roiling shadows that came next.
It crashed into her like a physical blow. A tidal surge of living darkness, cold as the void between stars yet burning with unholy heat. The impact lifted her from her feet and hurled her backward through the air. Her robes whipped violently around her body as she tumbled.
Aneela fell hard on her side, the impact driving every ounce of breath from her lungs in a single, gasping cry. She felt and heard the sharp, sickening crack of a rib giving way.
White-hot pain flared across her torso like a brand pressed to flesh. For several agonising heartbeats she could do nothing but lie there, dazed, staring up at the ceiling where light and shadow waged a silent, apocalyptic war, lightning-like flashes battling against rolling banks of unnatural darkness.
Training and raw urgency finally cut through the haze. She pushed herself up on her elbows, spitting a thick mouthful of blood onto the obsidian floor. Another dark wave was already surging toward her. With a painful intake of breath that sent fresh agony lancing through her ribs, she rolled desperately to the side. The shadows whipped past, close enough that she felt their freezing touch brush her robes, carrying within them fleeting fragments of fractured light like thunder trapped inside storm clouds.
Gasping, she forced herself to her feet. The chamber had become a nightmare of distortion. She could barely see more than five feet in any direction.
Illuminated clouds of shadow swirled and billowed everywhere, swallowing form and distance. The Primarch was supposed to be close—she had been standing right beside him moments ago—but his towering form had vanished into the madness. A dull roaring filled the background, something that might have been the howling winds or simply the hoarse, endless scream of reality tearing itself apart.
The handmaiden picked the clearest path she could discern and began to move, one hand pressed tightly to her injured side. She had to find one of the demigods—any of them—or better yet, the boy. Emperor preserve him, she prayed he had not been consumed entirely by that pillar of light.
As she stumbled forward, a hulking figure in silver armour burst from the wall of darkness. One of the Astartes, his massive sword gripped in both hands, was desperately fending off writhing arms of shifting light that lashed at him like talons of broken glass. The warrior roared, striking again and again, but the claws kept coming, relentless and ethereal. Eventually both warrior and attackers were swallowed by another surging wall of shadow.
Aneela quickened her pace, now painfully aware of any bulk that might suddenly emerge from the sides and trample her underfoot.
If her bearings were correct, she was drawing closer to the centre. But it was impossible to be sure in this madness, spatial orientation had become a cruel joke. The uncertainty gnawed at her, but she had no choice but to press forward.
As if to spite her, the lit darkness flared around her like a sudden ring of fire. She staggered back from its grasping tongues of searing light. Above the blazing unlight, she finally glimpsed Lord Guilliman.
He was closer than she had thought. If she could just push through, she would reach him. The Primarch stood with the Custodes, who had formed a protective guard around him, fending off attacking claws of shifting light with their guardian spears. His sword was drawn, and he swatted away any assault that came near. Yet the blade was not wreathed in its usual holy fire. The observation settled like lead in her stomach.
For a moment their eyes met through the chaos. Recognition dawned in his. He barked an order she could not discern over the roaring wind. A Custodian detached himself and began running in her direction.
Hope surged in her chest. But the ring of blazing shadows was closing in, encircling her. The Custodian was getting closer—if only she could break through…
Decision made, steeling herself against the stabbing pain in her side, Aneela ran with a prayer on her lips. She jumped through the ring of flaring darkness, expecting searing heat or cold.
Instead, she felt nothing.
And landed nowhere.
There was no Custodian waiting. No floor beneath her feet. Only darkness itself, absolute and suffocating. Silence reigned, broken only by her ragged breathing and the thunder of her own heart. The only companion she had was the piercing pain of her broken rib.
Aneela rose gingerly to her feet. Above her, a thunderclap of lightning split the gloom for a brief instant, illuminating nothing but more emptiness. She took a few uncertain steps, wondering if she had died and her soul was now lost in some forsaken corner of the warp.
The handmaiden walked on. After a dozen steps, a crunching sound came from beneath her boot. She looked down and saw the splintered remains of old bones. Unease coiled in her gut, but with no other option she kept moving. More bones appeared, until it seemed she walked upon a path paved with them. A susurration began around her—pained moans, distant screams, the collective suffering of untold souls.
Still Aneela pressed forward, one hand pressed to her injured side. She began reciting an old prayer from her days in the Schola Progenium, one about the Emperor’s deliverance of the lost.
After some time, she noticed the ground had taken on a red tint. Not merely the ground— her feet, her legs, her hands. Belatedly she realised it was a baleful red light cast upon her. Uncertain and on edge, she looked around and stifled a scream.
Behind her loomed something monstrous and gargantuan.
It was steeped in impenetrable shadows, faintly illuminated only by a dying red orb that hung suspended in the void like a bleeding, dying sun—the source of the sickly crimson light that bathed everything in shades of gore and rust. It resembled a colossal skull, its impossible curves and planes rising like mountain ridges forged from the bones of dead gods.
Desiccated flesh clung to parts of it in great rotting tatters, peeling away in vast sheets that drifted lazily through the darkness like funeral shrouds caught in a slow, eternal wind. Other indistinct shapes clung to its base and crowns, they were twisted, malformed silhouettes too distant and lost in shadow for her to discern clearly.
The choir of misery around her grew louder, a swelling cacophony of tormented souls wailing and sobbing. Aneela began to take careful, trembling steps backward, one hand pressed hard against her broken rib, retreating from the corpse-leviathan that loomed over her.
Then a pale, enormous thing moved near the red orb.
With growing, soul-deep horror, the Sister realised it was an immense, cataract-covered eye—larger than a hab-block, veined and clouded with milky decay. It moved with an obscene, wet organic sound, like the grinding of ruptured sinew and diseased cartilage, that made her skin crawl and her stomach heave. The opaque, unseen pupil slowly, deliberately settled upon her.
Terror overwhelmed her mind and instinct deeper than reason screamed at her to turn and run.
So she obeyed.
Skulls and bones shattered beneath her frantic, stumbling steps, cracking like brittle porcelain under her boots. Each ragged breath brought fresh, stabbing pain from her broken rib, hot knives twisting deeper with every desperate gasp.
She did not need to look back to know the decayed leviathan was following—slowly, inexorably, like a dying planet pulled by inexorable gravity, its colossal shadow swallowing the darkness behind her, growing ever closer.
Aneela ran harder than she had ever run in her life. Yet still she knew the thing behind her was slowly gaining, shortening the impossible distance between them with the inexorable patience of death itself. The ground of bones cracked and splintered beneath her boots, each step threatening to send her sprawling.
The thundering above intensified, and for brief, merciful seconds the nightmare landscape was illuminated in sharp, blinding contrasts. In one of those flashes, far ahead atop a distant hill of piled bones, she saw a small figure lying motionless, lit by a faint, golden half-light.
The sight anchored what little sanity remained to her. It cut through the currents of horror like a lifeline. She remembered her sacred duty—the boy, her charge—and that memory became her guiding star. She changed direction without hesitation, legs pumping, tears streaming down her face from pain and terror.
She ran, stumbling and falling repeatedly among the broken bones. Sharp fragments tore at her robes and skin, leaving a bloody trail in her wake. Each time she fell she crawled, clawing forward on bloodied hands and knees, only to force herself upright again. The choir of misery swelled behind her, growing louder, closer, as if the hateful carcass stalking her fed upon her desperation.
At last she reached the base of the bone hill and began the agonising climb. The red tint around her deepened—the leviathan was closer now. She could see the mop of dark hair at the summit. So close. Just a little further.
When she was near the crest, the entire pile began to tremble. The bones shifted violently, as if struck by an earthquake. The hill heaved and collapsed forward in a roaring avalanche. Aneela screamed in frustration as she was swept down with it, tumbling helplessly amid the skeletal tide.
When the bones finally stopped moving, she was half-buried, gasping, pain flaring from a dozen new cuts and her shattered rib. But there—only a few feet away—lay the boy. Limp. Unmoving. But seemingly unharmed.
With a desperate sob, Aneela crawled toward him, freeing her legs from the skeletal debris. The baleful red light descended upon her stronger than ever, and the choir of misery lowered to mere whispers, as though the nightmare itself was holding its breath.
With ragged breathing and mounting dread, she looked up.
Like a terrible and hateful planet, the colossal skull loomed directly above her. Its immense, cataract-covered eye had fixed upon her completely. The opaque pupil, vast as a crater, held her in its unseeing, malevolent gaze.
A sound like mountains grinding and flesh tearing filled the void as the gigantic jaw slowly lowered. Waves of pure darkness spewed forth from the maw like a tide of oblivion.
Aneela scrambled forward on all fours, doggedly, frantically, as the shadows surged toward her. God-Emperor preserve me, she prayed silently, her hand stretching desperately toward the boy’s smaller one—a hairsbreadth away.
The shadows engulfed her.
Aneela came back to reality with a gasping, choking cry, every nerve in her body alight with agony.
The impact had driven the air from her lungs and sent fresh fire lancing through her broken rib. For a long, disorienting moment she could do nothing but lie on her back, staring up at the Librarius ceiling where light and shadow waged a frenzied, apocalyptic war. Cracks of searing brilliance tore through banks of roiling darkness, as if reality itself was being ripped apart at the seams.
She rolled onto her side with nothing but sheer force of will, her body screaming in protest. Waves of living darkness, lit from within by fractured, unnatural light, coruscated madly across the chamber like storms given form.
Painfully, inch by agonising inch, she pushed herself up onto her knees. She was at the very centre of it all. Where the pillar of blinding light had once stood, now floated a myriad of shimmering fragments—like broken stained glass torn from the windows of a thousand cathedrals. They orbited erratically around the boy in chaotic, beautiful patterns, each piece pulsing with captured scenes of horror and glory.
He lay prone and limp a few feet away from her, small and terribly vulnerable amidst the madness.
Aneela crawled forward on all fours, teeth clenched against the pain, robes torn and bloodied. Every movement sent fresh agony through her side, but she did not stop.
As she drew closer, the floating shards reacted to her presence. They swirled toward her like predatory insects, each one flashing with a different vision. She saw raging battlefields drenched in blood, heard the deafening roar of war echoing from within the glass. Voidships plunging into the swirling miasma of the warp. Landscapes of impossible colours twisted into nightmarish geometries, with monumental shapes and leering creatures that made her head throb and her stomach heave.
The scenes vied violently for her attention, bombarding her mind. She tried to bat them away, but they simply vanished and reappeared, relentless.
Half-blind and assailed on all sides, Aneela finally reached the fallen boy. With a blood-smeared hand, she pressed trembling fingers to his slim neck.
A steady pulse. Weak, but present.
Relief flooded through her, so profound it nearly broke her.
Then a glare erupted behind her, followed by a violent shockwave that hurled her forward. Aneela cried out and twisted her body desperately to shield the unconscious child with her own. More flashes and concussive blasts hammered the chamber, rocking her again and again. Even with her eyes squeezed shut, the images burned themselves onto her retinas.
She saw a hateful face—sculpted in terrible glory like Lord Guilliman’s, yet twisted beyond recognition. Head shaved, eyes blazing with bottomless wrath, it raised talons of pure darkness as if to strike down the universe itself.
Aneela trembled with terror and held the boy closer to her chest, curling protectively around his small form. She could not shield him from whatever unholy forces the ritual had unleashed, nor from these nightmarish shadows and lights. So she simply held him tight against her body, whispering broken prayers into his hair while the storm raged around them both.
She couldn’t tell how many seconds, minutes, or even hours passed in that maelstrom of madness. Time had lost all meaning. The world had become an endless storm of light and shadow, of thunder without sound and screams without voice.
Blood trickled from her nose and ears. Her robes were torn and soaked with sweat and blood. She had no strength left to move, only the barest will to endure and hold.
But eventually—mercifully—the cataclysm began to subside.
The violent shockwaves grew weaker, farther apart. The blinding flashes dimmed from searing white to flickering amber. Aneela dared to open her eyes.
The waves of unlight were coalescing and guttering like dying flames, retreating into themselves with hissing reluctance. Above, the storm of thunder and roiling darkness gradually receded, until the familiar vaulted ceiling of the Librarius could once again be seen through the fading haze.
The fractured, shimmering glass-like shards that had assailed her so mercilessly were now gathering into one another, merging and fusing into larger, brighter pieces of pure, radiant gold.
Aneela watched with bated breath as reality slowly, painfully reasserted itself around her. She never loosened her grip on the boy, cradling his small form against her bloodied robes as though he were the only rel thing left in existence.
The pieces of light finally coalesced into a single, barely larger than her head, orb of brilliant gold. She could see faint hairline fissures running across its surface, like cracks in a sacred relic. It descended slowly toward her and the child, pulsing once with a final, searing flash.
In that instant, Aneela saw an image that would remain burned into her mind for the rest of her days.
It was a man—older, yet eerily similar to the child she held. His right eye was a ruined, bloody crater, as if gouged out by some terrible talon. Blood matted his dark hair and streaked his face in grotesque patterns. The left eye was dull with exhaustion, the face hollowed by unimaginable pain. For the briefest second, that broken gaze met hers across the gulf of time and nightmare.
Then the joined light surged forward like a crack of golden lightning and entered the boy’s body.
Aneela felt him grow warmer in her arms, a gentle heat radiating from his small frame like the first rays of dawn after an endless winter.
Around them, the last remnants of the nightmare finally dissipated. The unnatural winds died. The shadows retreated. The chamber fell into a heavy, ringing silence, broken only by the low, familiar hum of the Macragge’s Honour’s reactors and the occasional groan of damaged armour joints.
She saw the transhumans at last, like revenants walking out of hell.
The silver Astartes were battered beyond recognition. Their ornate armour was cracked and broken in dozens of places, blood streaking the silver surfaces. Several lay motionless on the ground, including one of the Grand Masters. The surviving leaders stood with grim, blood-encrusted expressions, their faces pale masks of exhaustion and defiance. Nothing remained of the relics they had brought—only a few scattered candles still burned, casting long, wavering shadows across the ruined chamber.
Aneela saw Lord Guilliman and the Custodians. They had fared better than most, none had fallen, but even they bore the scars of the ordeal, their auramite scorched and dented.
The Primarch’s eyes found her immediately where she knelt in the innermost circle, still cradling the unconscious godling. His expression was a mixture of worry and something darker that might have been regret. He strode briskly toward her, the Custodians forming a protective ring around them both.
She spotted Tribune Colquan beside the Primarch. A thin line of dried blood crossed his face from temple to jaw, stark against his perfect skin. There was an amalgamation of unreadable emotions on his eyes that made him seem almost mortal. It broke the usual mask of iron composure.
Aneela, bloody and bedraggled, looked up at the towering figures, the boy limp in her arms.
“Is He alive?” Guilliman asked, his voice low and grave.
Aneela nodded numbly, too exhausted to speak.
The Primarch’s expression eased by the smallest fraction. She caught the shadow of regret once more before he schooled his features back into iron control.
He turned toward the surviving Grey Knights, who were tending to their fallen and helping the wounded to their feet.
“Have you fulfilled your duty?” Lord Guilliman asked, his voice cold and heavy with command.
There was a long, painful silence. Finally, one of the Grand Masters, the left side of his face a ruined mess of blood and scorched flesh, stepped forward.
“The Decree has been answered,” he rasped, voice raw and final.
Guilliman waited for him to elaborate but whatever answer the warrior seemed to have received remained unspoken.
As the silence dragged on, Aneela felt small arms tighten around her waist, holding fast in the unbearable quiet.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/86245496
