The warp screamed.
It began like static across the hull — a deep hum that rolled through the Watcher Above's spine, shaking the lumen lines into fits of color before they collapsed to a dark, blood-red glow. Every bulkhead, every deckplate, every cogitator hummed with the sound of something vast, ancient, and wrong.
Kael felt it before the alarms. The shadows on the walls twitched. They reached toward him, like frightened animals. The ship's intelligence core flickered, the mechanical voice trembling as it broke through the storm's interference.
"Translation fracture. Warp interference exceeding safe tolerances. Reality bleed detected."
"Stabilize it," Kael said, voice calm, absolute. "Now."
Threx's binharic prayers spilled through the vox. "Engines resist! The immaterium shifts beneath us, Captain. Something—someone—is calling!"
Kael's eyes narrowed. He looked into the void beyond the glass. The warp should have been a flowing ocean of sickly light — instead, it was rippled, folded in on itself like a wound in space. A symbol of fire and lightning pulsed far in the distance, immense and alive.
"Malchion," Kael said. "Status."
The Astartes appeared at his side, helmet mag-locked to his belt. His jaw was set, eyes black mirrors. "Astropathic channels just died. Every one of them."
Joras entered next, dragging a deck officer by the shoulder. "We caught this before the feed collapsed." He placed a dataslate on the console. The message was broken, eaten by distortion — only fragments remained:
> "— betrayal— Istvaan— Warmaster— Emperor— slaughter—"
Kael read the single unbroken word that burned through the static: Horus.
He said nothing for a long moment. His shadow stood tall and still beside him, waiting.
Then he exhaled. "So," he murmured. "That's the word."
The ship's lights flickered again, this time brighter, defiant. The warp's roar deepened, carrying with it the echoes of dying men, dying worlds, dying dreams.
Joras clenched his jaw. "Istvaan… the Raven Guard, the Iron Hands, the Salamanders — they were our brothers."
Kael didn't look at him. "They still are. They just don't know it anymore."
Malchion's voice broke the stillness. "Orders, Captain?"
Kael's gaze drifted to the hololithic table. Terra flickered there — a beacon surrounded by the flickering flame of betrayal.
"We move," Kael said. "Plot a course for the Sol System. Full burn."
Threx's mechanical voice crackled through. "Captain, we are deep in the warp. A direct translation could—"
Kael cut him off. "Do it. The Emperor needs every ship still capable of choosing loyalty."
"Aye, Captain," Threx said, the Mechanicum lilt stripped bare.
Veyra's voice came softly from the comms pit. "Kael…"
He turned. She had refused her rest again, wrapped in a blanket, eyes dull but still endless. "You knew this would come."
"I hoped I was wrong."
She nodded slowly, a sad, proud motion. "Hope is a dangerous habit."
He walked to her side, one armored hand resting gently on her shoulder. "You'll stay on the bridge. I'll not have you out of my sight again."
She smiled faintly, the skin around her mouth trembling with the effort. "Then you'll finally listen when I tell you to eat."
A whisper of laughter passed through the bridge — not joy, but solidarity.
Kael straightened. "All stations. Battle alert. If the warp comes for us, we'll bite back."
The Watcher Above roared. Its experimental gravitic engines flared with a black light that hurt the eyes to watch. The hull shimmered, like shadow given motion, bending the warp around it in rippling waves.
The ship dove forward, tearing through unreality, dragging a trail of darkness that burned cold instead of hot.
---
Hours — or days, time no longer mattered — passed in violent silence. Kael stood unmoving before the forward glass, eyes locked on the storms ahead.
Through the chaos of the warp, he saw visions flicker and die:
Corax bleeding in the ash of Istvaan V.
Guilliman shouting orders through a broken helm.
Curze, laughing and crying at once in the dark.
Five seconds of each. Always five seconds. Always just enough to understand, never enough to change.
The ship screamed as reality folded. The blackness of the warp split open before them, showing Terra's distant light like a candle behind smoke.
"Translation vector locked," Threx's voice echoed. "Brace."
Kael clenched his fist. "Engage."
---
The Watcher Above tore back into realspace above the Sol System, her hull bleeding heat and warp-flame.
The defenses of the Imperial Palace were already shifting — fleets mobilizing, loyal Legions answering calls, the early tide of the Siege gathering.
Kael stepped forward as the alarms stabilized into silence. "Status?"
"All systems holding," Malchion said. "We made it."
Kael nodded once. "Good. Transmit Malcador's cipher. He'll be expecting us."
Joras frowned. "You think he's alive?"
Kael's eyes hardened. "He's too stubborn to die before the end."
Veyra's breathing had grown shallow. She sat watching Terra's light with a strange peace. "Home again," she whispered. "You've come full circle."
Kael turned to her. For a moment, the war and the darkness fell away. "Not yet," he said. "Not until this ends."
The ship dimmed around them, the shadows bowing low as if in mourning.
The storm had spoken its first word.
And Kael Varan — Captain of the Watcher Above, last loyal son of the Night's Children — heard the echo of destiny calling him back to the Throne.
He straightened his shoulders, eyes black and bright.
"Ready the company," he said. "We're going home."
The ship's lights flared once — like a heartbeat. Then the Watcher Above turned her daggered prow toward Terra, slipping into the light of a dying sun, carrying its shadow faithfully behind her.