In the soul-sight.
The Hope Primarch—the Savior—stood crowned in resplendent glory, shoulder to shoulder with the Emperor Himself, a vision at once sacred and commanding.
Since the Imperium's founding, no one had ever stood beside the Emperor. To do so now was the highest recognition—and the true sign that Imperial power had found a living heir.
"Devourer of Daemons…"
The silver-haired angel, Saint Celestine, stared at the Hope Primarch and couldn't help the small smile that touched her lips.
She had seen him again.
Perhaps she alone in the Imperium could call the Savior by so intimate a title.
Yet even Celestine's gaze was inevitably drawn to the Hope Primarch's figure; color rose in her cheeks. With a soft rustle, her white wings drew in to veil her face.
At the same time, the Saint's twin handmaids—the two immaculate angelic maidens—were granted the same soul-sight.
The pair gasped in unison, as if some private, unspoken memory had flashed before their minds; their embarrassment only deepened.
Dong… dong… dong—
High in the Himalayan Mountains, engines buried in the bedrock thundered to life. The palace's heavy bells crushed the silence. One by one, adamantine gates carved with reliefs swung open.
Golden-armored Custodians marched out in full panoply, filing forth beneath a solemn hush.
Captain-General Laesias had summoned every Custodian who could stand to muster, assembling them upon Heroes' Plaza.
It was perhaps the first time in millennia that so many of the Ten Thousand had gathered together.
VWWMM!
Power fields hissed to life. Guardian spears struck the marble as one, ringing a bright, resonant clangor.
"By the Golden Throne as witness— we are the blade in Your hand, our spears guided by Your will.
No xenos nor heretic who profanes Humanity, no daemon crawling from the abyssal deeps of the Warp, shall shake the Custodes' oath.
For the Emperor… and for the Savior!"
The Captain-General and every Custodian warrior sank to one knee before the Hope Primarch's holy icon. Even the Custodian Dreadnoughts bowed their adamant heads.
In obedience to the Emperor's will, they swore fealty to the Hope Primarch, the Savior.
Among the Custodes there was no dissent at all. It felt inevitable.
In truth, long before the Emperor's formal proclamation, the Ten Thousand had already been acting on the Savior's directives. Now, that authority was simply made lawful and absolute.
"A new charge awaits us…"
Captain-General Laesias raised his eyes to the Savior's icon.
He understood: the Custodes would henceforth take a broader hand in the Imperium's affairs—and stride to war more often.
The Emperor's Companions, silent for an age, would again range across the galaxy, as in the Great Crusade of ten thousand years ago.
Sunlight poured through the stained glass of the palace vaults, clothing the Hope Primarch's icon in a gauze of gold.
And it was not only the Custodes.
Throughout the palace precincts, Ministorum priests, Mechanicus techno-clerics, and tens of millions of pilgrims offered worship to the Great Emperor—and to the Savior—in rites both grand and humble.
Many of the faithful had once trod the Savior's own domains and already held him in reverence. They knelt with fervor; among them, a group of white-haired pilgrims, each wearing the Savior's badge, bowed with especial devotion.
By grace, they too were granted the soul-sight and beheld the Hope Primarch's countenance.
The vision brought tears to their eyes. They praised the Savior through trembling lips:
"Great and generous Savior, at last we behold Your true visage once more…"
These were the pilgrims of the arkship Pious. Decades ago they had been received by the Savior himself and had seen him face to face.
Centuries past, their ancestors had drained their homeworld's last resources to build that ship and set out for Holy Terra.
The road of pilgrimage was cruel—an unending trial of fate and will.
They birthed and died aboard their vessel, generation upon generation—the voidborn—shunned everywhere they went.
Each new passage demanded payment in suffering and in lives.
Decades ago, worse befell them: a Warp storm corrupted the Pious; they nearly perished in agony.
But the Hope Primarch, the Savior, delivered them, cleansed their ship, and in mercy allowed them to enter the Urth Sanctum to venerate relics of the Emperor.
From that moment, the pilgrims' fate changed.
The Savior lavished them with supplies, freeing them from hunger and disease.
With dignity restored, they set their prow for Holy Terra.
At last the Pious reached the Throneworld, that world haloed by legend and glory.
Under the Savior's benediction, they were granted the grace to tread the Imperial Palace itself—the holy ground countless forebears had yearned for but never touched.
They worshipped with hearts laid bare.
In that hour, they felt their souls brush the souls of their ancestors and complete a sacred vow—answering centuries of hope from their homeworld's dead and living alike.
When the rites were done, many among the Pious made a final, momentous choice: they would remain on Holy Terra and give what life remained wholly to the Emperor.
They knew this was the highest honor left to them—the truest answer to the Emperor's sheltering hand.
So for the decades that followed, they walked the Throneworld and measured its sanctuaries with their feet.
They knelt and prayed—each genuflection laden with boundless reverence.
They left their marks in every sanctum's corner; in devotion their souls were refined.
Years passed. Many of the Pious pilgrims slipped away with age; others grew from youths into the dusk of their lives, hair gone white.
They witnessed the changes the Savior brought to the Throneworld:
the once-barren heart of the Imperium renewed; the smog of industry scourged from the air; precious water made plentiful.
Treacherous pilgrim paths were repaired; Ecclesiarchy rations were no longer corpse-starch bricks or mold-specked sawdust loaves.
New protections were raised.
All this let pilgrims offer purer faith—without starving or dying by happenstance on the road.
More and more, the Pious saw smiles on Terran faces where once there had been only pain and numbness.
And new-arrived pilgrims carried yet more tales of the Savior's generosity and mercy.
They did not know what it would mean for the Savior to become the Imperium's ruler.
Yet deep within, they felt it would be good.
Humanity would fare better.
One white-haired pilgrim smoothed the patched white robe upon his shoulders, then carefully polished the Savior's badge at his chest—gifts of the Savior, all.
Even so, piety could not banish all worry.
From other pilgrims he had heard that heresy festered along the border marches of the Shrouded Sector—and that the soulless xenos Necrons had been sighted.
The Dark Angels of the Great Emperor had already sailed to strike them down.
His homeworld lay within that region. He prayed it would be spared. A world so drained could not endure another war.
The old pilgrim pressed his brow to the marble and begged the protection of the Great Emperor and the Savior.
Gradually, Holy Terra itself grew loud.
Word that the Great Emperor had chosen the Hope Primarch as the Imperium's new ruler raced across the Throneworld, provoking a storm of astonishment.
The proclamation was so sudden that the Imperium's administrators had no time to prepare.
It upended the present order—heralding a return to the centralized rule of the Emperor's own age.
Until now, even with Lord Regent Roboute Guilliman's regency and the Savior's seizure of the First Seat, power still flowed through the Imperium's supreme institution—the Senatorum Imperialis.
But now everything had changed.
The Senatorum would no longer be the Imperium's highest authority. Supreme power would concentrate in one person.
In the Hope Primarch, the Savior.
It was as if, after countless years of a republic, someone had risen overnight to declare the restoration of absolute monarchy.
Many High Lords and senior officials could not accept it— even though the decree came from the Emperor Himself.
Some within the Imperial hierarchy already feared the consequences. The Throneworld, tranquil for so long, might soon boil with unrest, even bloodshed.
In short, the Hope Primarch's coronation would not be simple.
In a sealed chamber, several High Lords concealed their faces and forms, whispering over how to meet this sudden upheaval.
They feared only one thing—that they would lose their power.
Before, they tolerated the Hope Primarch because, no matter how the winds blew, the Senatorum Imperialis would still exist, and the High Lords could still act in their offices…
But with the Emperor's proclamation, the balance of power had been overturned.
That Savior had become the new "Emperor," poised to rule the Imperium outright. No one knew what changes he would make—would he abolish the Senatorum Imperialis?
"Gentlemen, this may be our last chance to oppose him…"
The crimson High Lord's phantom rasped, "Once Holy Terra enforces the appointment, nothing will stop that monster from Urth from taking the reins of rule.
Are you prepared to lose everything?!"
He could barely conceal his loathing for the Hope Primarch, spitting the word "monster" like venom.
The pink High Lord's phantom—clearly a woman—nodded. "Yes. That unspeakable demon-king is closing, step by step, upon supreme authority.
He will devour all power from our hands."
"Perhaps that despicable usurper exploited the Emperor's corpse. The Emperor cannot possibly awaken.
He deceived us—deceived every soul in the Imperium. He should be spat upon by all.
Can we not attack him from this angle?"
The azure High Lord advanced his own scheme. He put no stock in gods, and he certainly refused to believe the Emperor had awakened—or perhaps he simply would not.
To him, the Emperor was no more than a dry husk upon the Throne. As long as that august being could not walk out of the Palace, anyone with the voice and the levers could dictate the "truth."
The meaning of the Emperor's words belonged to the Ecclesiarchy and those who mastered public power. Whoever held the reins of authority and opinion would write the narrative.
"But… the Ecclesiarchy and the Custodes are firmly in the Savior's grip. How do we bypass them to deny the divine oracle the Emperor has delivered?!"
The yellow High Lord's phantom named the fatal threat with wary precision.
The others knew it as well.
For a long moment, the chamber froze.
And yet they were not ready to yield.
"So what?"
The High Lord's phantom bristled, a restrained fury in his voice. Without realizing it, even his form of address had shifted: "The Hope Primarch may hold part of the Ecclesiarchy and the Custodes in hand, but neither is his slave!"
"Exactly. We're here to find counters, not to sing the Hope Primarch's praises.
Will we just sit and watch that being strip us piece by piece?!"
The pink phantom had lost her earlier edge; her breathing turned ragged.
She fixed the yellow phantom with a glare. "You—organizer of the Secret Brotherhood—have you lost your nerve before the Savior?"
The yellow phantom was indeed the first instigator of their clandestine circle, though all held equal rank within it.
Some resented what they read as cowardice—even if it was only the truth.
What they needed now was courage—and a way to check the Savior, to curb his hand if only in part.
That was the last hope.
"I am merely assessing the risks. Do not forget: the Savior has stationed Redemption Titans across Holy Terra…"
The yellow phantom ignored the jabs and pressed on.
He raised a finger toward the ceiling. "In the Ecclesiarchy, the Administratum, the Departmento Munitorum, the Inquisition, even the Adeptus Astra Telepathica—everywhere there are Redemption Titans on guard. Those things loom over every one of us.
Nothing can stand before those engines of war; even the strongest bastions would be pulverized.
No one wishes to share the fate of Violetta, the former Lord-Director of the Interior, do they?!"
A chill passed through the room.
All Terra knew Violetta's end. The Hope Primarch had once vowed to use a Titan to squeeze the traitors' brains from their skulls—
—and then the traitors' brains had been squeezed from their skulls.
Every High Lord present had witnessed the execution. The memory lingered; Violetta's death-screams still seemed to scratch at their ears.
They tasted fear.
To chase the intoxication of power, would they truly throw their lives and fortunes upon the altar?
For schemers, it was a bitter calculus.
Worse: could any "safe" plan even be found—did victory exist at all?
Silence swallowed the chamber.
Unmoved by their mood, the yellow phantom continued:
"In truth, even this very conclave is perilous. The Savior established an Inspectorate and seized the Inquisition through it.
Our colleague on this very council—Grand Inquisitor Deville—is the Savior's most loyal hound. He has laced the Throneworld with eyes beyond counting.
Nothing escapes his gaze.
I even fear he already knows of this meeting; Inspectorate and Inquisitorial forces may be en route as we speak."
Dread tightened the air. All knew Deville for what he was—the Savior's dog, a pitiless butcher.
How many heretics had died at his order these last years? No one could say.
Worse were his informants, threaded through Terra's every artery. Even High Lords could not fully evade his net.
With that thought, the will to plot fled them. Each wondered if Deville's gaze had already pierced this safehouse—if they had already been marked.
A fatal mistake.
They were afraid.
The azure phantom drew a long breath, trying to ease the tension. "Everyone, let us not overthink it. The Savior's cur is not omniscient.
We have acted with utmost secrecy—he cannot possibly know."
He gave a dry laugh, attempting levity. "No one could know what we've discussed, unless that cur were hiding among us this very moment—inside this chamber."
For years they had managed their affairs in secret, layering countermeasures upon countermeasures.
They had gathered like this a dozen times—trading favors, forming cliques, carving up influence.
They had never been caught.
His words loosened a few shoulders. Several even exhaled.
But before the relief became laughter—
the yellow phantom spoke:
"You are right. I am Deville. And I have been among you… for a very long time."
The yellow phantom snapped off his holo-mask. In its place stood a figure in a severe black coat, a red armband stark against the sleeve.
His hawk's eyes drank them in, bloodthirsty, as if he might devour them in the next instant.
The chamber died to absolute silence.
The High Lords could not believe it. The Secret Brotherhood's very founder—Grand Inquisitor Deville—was the Savior's hound?!
Such perfected entrapment left them white with terror.
The fever of power broke. If he had been among them from the beginning, then every "secret" deed had been performed beneath his gaze. Had the Hope Primarch known it all along? Would judgment now fall?
Deville could not order High Lords executed on his own authority—but he could report everything to the Savior, and let that being pass sentence.
Their only comfort: this conclave was conducted by remote hololithic avatars. At least they would not be seized here and now.
An instant later, one projection after another winked out. Each scrambled to erase tracks, to make arrangements—
—anything to avoid a tragic end.
Only one phantom remained: the azure High Lord.
"Why have you not left?"
Grand Inquisitor Deville regarded him with almost playful curiosity.
"I am leaving now."
The azure phantom stood straight, voice firm—and his stance toward the Savior turned on a dime:
"Your Excellency Deville, permit me to take my leave.
The Supreme Hope Primarch will today rule his loyal Holy Terra—
I must go prepare the rites for that august one's coronation…"
He steadied the tremor in his limbs, offered a graceful bow, and extinguished his projection.
…
The City of Supplicants, Central Avenue.
News of the Savior's impending rule had churned the populace; crowds massed in the streets.
Some bitter grandees of the Imperium knew they could not withstand the Savior—yet even so, they set small schemes in motion, hoping to disgust him, to smudge the sanctity of his coronation with blemish.
The Solar Auxilia received the alert and mustered at once. Heavy tanks rumbled onto the boulevards.
To them, any attempt to profane the Great Emperor or the Savior was unforgivable!
(End of Chapter)
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