The Red Tear, the mighty flagship of the Ninth "Blood Angels" Space Marine Legion, glided through the surface of reality. As if on cue, the stars snapped back.

In the core of the great vessel, where the starship's shifting out of Warp was nothing more than a slight change of psychic pressure, a meditation chamber hung. Within it, an angel perched. He was never more avian than in this place, and yet his visage did not suggest a bird. It suggested perfection.

Sanguinius knelt in the private chamber, gazing into omnieternity; yet the future was more elusive than usual, and the stars guided him backwards instead of forwards. There was wisdom in reflecting on one's actions, the angel thought.

There was wisdom in-

The stare of a disheveled beast.

Angron, the Red Angel, did not look like a Primarch now. He barely even looked sane. Yet his butcher's glare concealed an understanding, a momentary, full understanding of the way the universe worked. Seven brothers stood around a golden self-called god; six stood accepting. And as the Emperor laid out his doctrine, Angron stabbed the poisoned spear he was holding as a gift into his father's heart.

His father said too much.

The pyramids of Prospero, intact.

They stood, and in front of them Magnus the Red, the Crimson King, wove the last of the threads in the spell that would sunder the planet of the sorcerers from a universe gone mad. Roboute Guilliman was at his left side, holding the banner of fallen Macragge, the banner of a wild dream called Imperium Secundus. Sanguinius himself was at his right, four bands of mourning on his arm- for his father, for his brothers, for his homeworld and for his Legion.

His brother stayed loyal.

Chambers buried under sand.

The fortress-monastery of Baal was ruined forever, now; the attack of the World Eaters had leveled the planet. In a deep catacomb, the renegade Warmaster was tracing scorch marks towards two bodies lying tangled in the dust. The Red Angel and the Blood Angel, utterly indistinguishable in death after Chaos consumed the former, and the Flaw the latter.

His father feared him enough to send the executioner.

The nanostructure of gold.

The Custodians' gleaming, elaborate armor surrounded the indistinguishable Emperor as the core of humanity prepared for war. Above, the heavens screamed with the final invasion, even as Amon handed Constantine Valdor Arbilent. The Emperor of Mankind, the God of Order, chuckled.

His uncle was assassinated.

The war rooms of Macragge.

Roboute Guilliman stood side-by-side with seven-winged Emperor Sanguinius, glaring at the map of the galaxy, a jagged line separating Imperium Secundus from the endless Warp storms of Terra. A wolf skull marked the last battle of Horus Lupercal. The Mark of Prospero was running, still going strong, on the massive clock dominating the chamber's rear wall; it showed a time two thousand millennia from war's dawn.

His brother compromised with the Ultimate Warrior.

Skull-filled catacombs.

Mortarion and Magnus stared at each other over the body of eight fallen Astartes in horned leaden-gray armor, violently gesticulating. The body of the greatest Eldar warlock was thrown off to the side, head crushed. In the skies, an aphotic sphere burned on its way into the system's star, the first casualty of a total war between humanity and the Eldar.

The Eight Swords fell.

The last broken promise of a traitor.

A Death Guard in decorated armor hung from the vaulted arches of the flagship, suspended by the feet. His father stared at him in disgust- tempered only by the knowledge that the heresy had been stopped before deep damage was done- as the Captain muttered a final curse, then dropped to the pit below. A faint buzzing arose from the hole, then calmed.

The spy was uncovered earlier.

Sanguinius rose once more, wings fluttering upright. He had seen enough; even to a Primarch, observing what could have been was disturbing. Besides, there were more important tasks at hand.

The Angel swung the door open, revealing his brother.

"Horus," Sanguinius said with a grin. "It is good to see you again, in the real."

The Warmaster smiled, and the brothers embraced, a small crystal of serenity in the writhing ocean of the Milky Way.