Chapter 1

Agony.

Ceaseless agony.

That's what his existence was all about. Even ten thousand years after his internment in the Golden Throne, the pain hadn't diminished any.

Thanks to the injury his son Horus inflicted on him he was left in a state of powerlessness.

He could do nothing to comfort the masses of Humanity that needed his guidance. He was left helpless to watch as the Imperium he sacrificed millions and billions of human life to build started to rot from the inside. His ideals of an enlightened empire, based on logic and science, trampled upon. Religion sprung up from the aftermath of what came to be called the Horus Heresy, a religion focused on him. And during ten millennia, the only thing he could do was trying to safeguard the Imperium from further harm. Attacked from all sides, on the Materium and Immaterium, only he, with his incredible power, could protect the realms of Humanity from the depredations of Chaos.

He supposed he should find some irony in the fact that he, who denied himself the use of his psychic might for almost all his life, was kept alive by that same power. All his life, from his adulthood in Ancient Anatolia, to the space age, tried his hardest to use his psyker ability only in time of duress, preferring the strength of his hands and his wit to solve his problems, hoping that the rest of Humanity would follow in his footsteps. And yet... the only thing keeping him trapped in this half-life was the same thing he denied for so long.

The most infuriating thing however, was that he could easily heal himself and take charge once more if there weren't so many things that occupied him all the time.

Thanks to the psychic amplifying technology of the Golden Throne, his already massive abilities were pushed to their maximum and beyond, but even that couldn't help him now.

He had to fight the Four his every moment, their attacks coming from the very wound that lead to this. He had to keep the Warp Gate under the Golden Throne from destabilising even further, while his Custodes and the remaining Sisters of Battle kept the daemons of the Warp from entering Terra. He kept various warp storms from forming in various human held sectors of the galaxy, he had spread his influence to every human in his Imperium, providing a minimum of protection against the sweet promises of Chaos, unless some fools didn't go searching for them. He communicated to various agents in dreams, sending prophetic messages, resuscitated various heroic figures in time of need. He directed the light of the Astronomican, providing a point of reference for the ships of Mankind to travel the dangerous waters of the Immaterium.

There simply wasn't enough time to direct his power to heal his broken body, to purge it of the taint of Chaos. If he let his concentration waver for a single instant, something would give and everything would crumble like a house of cards, taking his beloved Imperium, broken and rotten to the core as it was, and the trillions upon trillions of humans with it.

He felt another soul destroyed in his vicinity, its power added to his own. That's what it came to in the end. Even with the Golden Throne, he was too diminished to keep everything working under his own power and his servants, the ever faithful and dutiful Companions, sacrificed thousands of humans to him to keep the Imperium standing.

He wanted to weep. So many uncountable numbers sacrificed to him every day, for the hope of a brighter future.

Even for a formidable brain such as his, for what could be called a brain in his rotted body, took a moment to realise his pain had ended. There was no pain, there was no pressure from the Four. The Astronomican was absent and his Companions weren't there.

He stretched his awareness to the Immaterium, ever watchful and vigilant of a possible attack... and found nothing. The Sea of Souls was calm, there were no daemons, Terra had no more than six billion people upon its soil. Confusion gave to surprise as the minds of Ancient Terra and the last soul he absorbed gave him the answers he was looking for.

He opened his eyes.

And the Emperor awoke.