The air in the lower sanctums was wrong.
It pulsed. It breathed. Every few seconds, it exhaled a faint, wet sound, as though the Palace itself were alive and struggling to draw air through lungs made of stone. Kael could taste the metal of it on his tongue — like blood turned sour.
They moved deeper, stepping over the bodies of the Blood Angels. None of the corpses decayed normally. The flesh had begun to crystallize, fragments catching light like rubies. The sight sickened even Malchion, who had long ago stopped reacting to death.
"What kind of rot shines?" Joras muttered, scraping a sample from the wall.
"The kind that pretends to be holy," Kael said.
They reached a collapsed corridor — a gash in the Palace's understructure where daemons had chewed through the material of reality itself. It opened into a vast maintenance vault, now warped beyond recognition. The ceiling pulsed like a beating heart. Cables and pipes hung down like veins, dripping black ichor.
"Contacts," Malchion voxed. "Dozens. Maybe hundreds. All moving toward the inner sanctum."
Kael adjusted the grip on Veilrender. "Then we move faster."
They entered the vault.
The first daemon lunged from the dark. It was a blur of teeth and claws, too fast for the eye to track. Kael's foresight flared — five seconds ahead, the monster's strike coming for his head. He pivoted before it even moved, bringing his blade up. Veilrender sheared through its arm and split its skull in one motion.
The corpse dissolved into vapor, the stench like burnt copper and rot.
The others came after.
Warp-spawned beasts of every description — some winged, some crawling, some little more than hunks of screaming meat. They poured from every vent and fissure, shrieking praises to nameless things.
The Silent Company formed a defensive wedge, bolters thundering. Shells tore into the daemons, blasting ichor and smoke into the air. The roar of their weapons mixed with the endless, awful chanting that bled from the walls themselves.
"Left flank, hold!" Malchion barked. "Push them back into the breach!"
Kael moved at the center, his blade a black arc that carved light from darkness. The shadows responded to his fury — streaming from him like smoke under pressure, forming spears that impaled daemons mid-charge.
Every movement was calculated, precise, each step guided by precognition measured in fractions of heartbeats.
Joras' Confession burned in great sweeping arcs, bathing the vault in searing white fire. Every daemon caught in the flames howled like a choir of the damned.
But for every creature they felled, two more crawled through the rift.
A claw the size of a Dreadnought tore through the ceiling, scattering debris and corpses alike. A new creature forced its way through — vast and skeletal, its ribcage stuffed with screaming human faces. Warp-light leaked from its mouth in waves.
Kael felt its presence before he saw it. His armor's machine-spirit screamed warnings. His mind recoiled from its scent — a mixture of rot, lust, and hunger for memory.
"Captain," Malchion voxed, "that thing's a warp-engine given legs!"
Kael's eyes flashed blacker than night. "Then we cut the power."
He sprinted forward, the shadows boiling behind him. The daemon's claw smashed down, pulverizing the floor. Kael slid beneath it, carving Veilrender across its limb. Black blood sprayed, hissing where it hit armor.
The daemon shrieked — a sound that made the lumen strips explode in showers of sparks. Its jaws opened, spilling light so bright it cast shadows behind the shadows.
Kael charged straight into it.
He leapt, driving his blade into its throat. The daemon's hand swatted him midair, hurling him into a wall hard enough to crack the stone. His armor's internal systems flared, compensating for broken bones.
"Kael!" Malchion's voice roared through the vox.
"I'm fine," Kael hissed, rising. "Kill it."
He thrust his hand forward. The darkness around him surged, solidifying into tendrils that wrapped around the daemon's head. The creature clawed at them, howling, its flesh dissolving under the pressure of unnatural cold.
Joras ignited another burst of flame, the white fire merging with Kael's shadows. Light and dark twisted together, coiling around the daemon like a storm given form.
The beast began to come apart.
First its wings melted into black mist. Then its ribs cracked open, spewing vaporized souls that screamed their way into oblivion. Kael drove his blade upward in one final motion, cleaving through what passed for its heart.
The daemon's death cry split the vault, a psychic detonation that dropped several Astartes to their knees. When it ended, the vault was silent except for the drip of liquefied stone.
Kael staggered, coughing blood inside his helm. His vision swam, his foresight flaring wildly. For a moment, he saw every possible death of every man under his command. The weight crushed against his mind like an ocean.
"Captain?" Malchion's hand gripped his shoulder. "Talk to me."
Kael forced a breath. "Still here."
Then, faintly — a sound over the vox, unlike the screams and static that had dominated the airwaves for days.
It was a voice. Calm. Beautiful. Familiar.
"Kael Varan."
Kael froze. "That's—"
"Blood Angels' frequency," Malchion said. "But—"
The voice came again, serene even through distortion. "Hold your men. The angels come."
And then he was there.
The light arrived before the man. A golden glow filled the vault — not the warped brilliance of daemons, but something purer, sharper. Wings unfolded from the darkness — white, vast, unburnt by the filth that surrounded them.
Sanguinius landed among the corpses, the light of his presence banishing every shadow save Kael's own. His armor was dented, his blade streaked with ichor, but he stood radiant, untouchable.
Every Astartes present fell to one knee, even Malchion and Joras. Kael remained standing.
Sanguinius turned toward him, eyes like molten sunlight. "You are the one they call Night's Son."
Kael inclined his head. "The Emperor's servant."
The Angel's lips curved in a faint, weary smile. "Even now, in all this ruin, you stand in the dark so others can see."
"I stand because there's no one left to do it," Kael said.
Sanguinius looked around the vault, his expression distant, mournful. "This place… it has forgotten what it was built for. The Palace has become a heart that only knows how to bleed."
"Then we'll keep it beating until He wakes," Kael said.
The Angel's gaze softened. "You speak as though you do not expect to see that dawn."
Kael gave a short, humorless laugh. "I don't fight for dawns, Lord. I fight for minutes. And I count each one."
Sanguinius studied him for a long moment, then stepped closer. The golden light reached Kael's armor, making the black ceramite gleam like oil on water.
"Your faith is strange," Sanguinius said quietly. "It smells of grief… and of truth."
Kael met his gaze, unflinching. "Faith without grief is blindness. Truth without blood is cowardice."
The Primarch nodded slowly, as though hearing something familiar in the words. "Then I envy you, Night's Son."
He turned to the Silent Company. "You have held the line when others faltered. You have bought more than minutes — you have bought hope."
Kael said nothing. His silence was its own salute.
Sanguinius lifted his sword. "The daemons press inward. The inner sanctum must hold. I will take my brothers and meet the next wave."
Kael nodded. "We'll clear the way."
The Angel's wings unfurled again, filling the vault with light. "Then let the shadows and the light march together once more."
He rose, leaving trails of luminescence that faded into the air like prayers.
Kael watched him go, the echo of wings lingering long after.
Malchion exhaled slowly. "You just talked to a Primarch."
Kael's black eyes narrowed. "No. I talked to the only man left who remembers why this matters."
Joras looked up at the broken ceiling. "Think he'll make it?"
Kael said nothing for a long moment. Then he answered. "He'll make it where he's meant to. We all do."
He turned, raising his blade. "Back to work."
The Silent Company moved once more into the ruins — the last shadows hunting what nightmares remained.
And somewhere, far above, Sanguinius ascended toward his final battle, wings already burning with destiny.
Kael didn't look up. He didn't have to.
He felt the world trembling. The light of an angel was dying, and the shadow of mankind's reckoning was nearly upon them.
He whispered to no one, "Then let the night remember."
And the darkness obeyed.