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My lord?’ Guilliman did not look up. ‘Three dead,’ he said softly. ‘Lorgar’s boasts were true. Three.’ ‘My lord.’ Guilliman shook his head, eyes still on the display. ‘The stories they bring to me, Euten. That Horus, or any of them, should turn against us, against me, against my father… I cannot begin to process it. My only consolation… My only consolation at all, as I have learned through our bitter fight with Lorgar, is that something has overtaken them, contaminated them. The warp is in their brains. It hardly excuses their actions, but it explains them. They are run mad and are no longer of themselves.’ He looked at the elderly chamberlain. She was upright and slender, supported by her tall staff. Her short hair was as glacial as her gown. ‘It is a hard thing to accept, my lord,’ she said. ‘I thought it would be the hardest,’ Guilliman agreed. ‘But what are brothers turned traitor compared to the death of three loyal sons? The survivors cannot refute it. Ferrus is dead. Corax, Vulkan, loyal all, and dead. Then, from the mouths of others, this news from Prospero. Magnus defying our father so much that they set the damned Wolves upon him? And now we hear from the Phall System, confirmation that Perturabo has indeed betrayed us…’ He rose to his feet. ‘What else? What else, I wonder? Is Terra already burning? Is my father already dead? If half of my brothers have turned to follow Horus’s treachery, then who remains? Three of those who might be counted loyal are already dead. Who else? Where is the Khan? Does Dorn burn along with Terra? Sanguinius and his Legion are said to be lost. The Lion has gone into the dark. Have the traitors hunted down the Wolf King and torn him to shreds? Am I alone now?’ ‘My lord, you–’ Guilliman held up his hand. ‘I am just thinking out loud, mam. I will be composed by the time I reach the hall. You know I will.’ She nodded. ‘All I can count upon is what I know as solid fact,’ said Guilliman. ‘Macragge still stands. My Legion still stands. While those two facts remain, there remains an Imperium.
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