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A thunderous peal snapped the stillness of the valley as a portal forced the fabric of reality apart and violently spat out its summoner. A towering figure with coppery-red skin, holding a struggling Aggregia in his massive arms, quickly walked free from the roaring portal and bade it to close after him. The tear swallowed itself up with a loud crack, leaving the giant to fend himself alone against the enraged girl.

"Unhand me, fiend!" Aggregia shrieked, beating at the giant's arms until he finally let her drop to the snowy ground. She lifted her burning gaze to the red cyclops, not even taking into account that this was no ordinary kidnapper but a god among psykers not to be outright contended with, and hurled a bolt of biolightning at his face.

Magnus staggered back in surprise at his niece's assault, though otherwise remaining unharmed by the elementary spell.

"You bastard, send me back!" Aggregia shouted upon realizing how far from her family the giant had taken her.

"No." Magnus replied, crossing his massive arms across his chest as he stood to his full height. He towered above Aggregia by several feet, and the sight of him should have caused any sensible person to waver, but not Aggregia. She didn't care even if what stood between her and her way home was the Primarch of the Thousand Sons, one of the most feared traitors in the Imperium and master of the arcane arts, she only cared that she had to go back. Magnus knew this to be the only thing that concerned her, but there was a reason why he dragged her out of Y'ttetia with him, and he would not have her leave until she saw why.

Aggregia, however, would not take no for an answer. She threw all she had against the giant, all she had been taught by her father, in an attempt to force him to submit to her demands. "Send me back!"

Again, Magnus refused. "No."

He bent down and gently grasped the girls' arms, ignoring the gouts of flame spewing out of her hands, until he had her trapped in his grip. Aggregia struggled in futility, until the frustration welled up and came streaming down her cheeks. He bore her baleful, teary gaze with firm resolve as he spoke to her. "If I send you back, Aggregia, you and all you love will die at Kor Phaeron's hands. I did not bring you here because I wanted to keep you apart from your family, but because I wanted to help you save them."

"Save them?" Aggregia's voice shakily echoed her uncle's words, "While you speak of good intentions, my family dies at the hands of traitors- what is left to save while you keep me here too far to spare them that fate?!"

"They are not dead, not yet." Magnus answered, "I have made certain of that."

Aggregia took a minute to process what he said, then warily asked. "What do you mean?"

"Will you stop attacking me if I explain?"

Aggregia glared at him but nodded slowly. When the giant released her arms, she clenched her fists and allowed the lightning to course through her fingers, ready to strike again if she did not like what the giant had to say. It didn't matter to her if anything she did had any effect, the storm inside her needed an outlet.

"We are in a realm beyond time. Nothing from the material realm matters from here. Centuries may pass, while not even a split-second expires on the other side. Such is the nature of the Warp." Magnus stood up and walked away, stopping only to beckon his niece to follow. "And the Warp answers to whoever holds the will to wield it. This, I have mastered long ago. Your worries for your family can be put to rest, for they remain as you have left them."

Aggregia followed him, but kept her distance. "But my mother...she was stabbed."

"She's a Living Saint, is she not? The blessing or curse, depending on your perspective, of an ascended being is that they always comes back. If she died in battle, take heart that she will rise again." It was hard to take comfort in the assurances of one her father taught her not to trust, but take comfort she did. Magnus saw this and was relieved that he was making progress. However, he also noticed the girl's unease at his words. "You do not trust me, child."

"Why should I?" Aggregia retorted, "You are an enemy of mankind, you've aligned yourself with the forces of ruination and betrayed all that you once stood for."

"I, the traitor?" Magnus said, wide-eyed. "I betrayed mankind? This, your father said to you?"

"You might mock me for echoing my father's words, but I'm not so easily fooled." Aggregia replied, "Yes, my father told me all about you. Magnus the Red, King of Prospero, Father of the Thousand Sons and Daemon Prince of the Dark God Tzeentch. By your hand untold billions of souls were needlessly snuffed out, while another untold billions suffer daily in this endless war-"

Magnus interrupted her, "You've left out the most important part. Yes, I am Magnus the Red, King of Prospero, Father of the Thousand Sons and Daemon Prince of the Dark God Tzeentch. Yet I am too Magnus the Betrayed, Magnus the Fugitive- Magnus the Slave!" He knew his patience would be tested by venturing to save this stubborn girl, but he never thought it would be tested as much as this. Her words were like a hot iron pressing at old wounds, opening them up to tear at his tormented soul. But still, he focused on his task. "I am not the villain your father or the Imperium brands me as such. I am the victim, forced to take arms against everything I helped build. How convenient, that your own father would forget that it was by his hand I was driven into this path of damnation!"

Aggregia was stunned by what she heard, but recoiled and fought against what she thought was a lie. "You twist my mind with lies, daemon!"

"It is no lie." Magnus said sadly, "It is the truth, the truth that had remained unspoken as I carried it with me throughout my life. I dare assume your mother told you about how the dark gods possessed your father at the height of his power, seizing him as he was blinded by hubris and turning him against his father? Yes, Aggregia, he was not called the Arch-Traitor for nothing. I was the one who tried to warn the Emperor of his treachery, only to be branded as a traitor for using every means left to me to accomplish that! I watched as my own brother- that thrice damned furball Leman Russ- rained fire down upon my world and butchered my sons before me!"

Magnus' chest was heaving, and he took a deep breath to recompose himself. "I watched as all I loved and built went up in flames. When Tzeentch whispered to me of salvation, I took it to spare my sons their suffering. Yes, I am damned for saving my sons. But wouldn't you do the same if that was all that was left to you? Would you not do all you had to do for the sake of your family? Is this too hard to grasp?"

The two stood in silence for a long time. The howl of the wind blowing through the wilderness echoed across the valley, until the silence was broken by Aggregia's inquiry.

"Why did you save me, then? Why not save all of us, if all you wanted to do was convince us of this truth?" She asked, "Is it not because you think I am easily swayed compared to my father?"

"No child." Magnus answered in all honesty, "I saved you because...because I saw in you my first step on the road to redemption. I saved you by bringing you here, so that I can prepare you to better fight Kor Phaeron and save your family. I do not do this for my master's nefarious schemes, but for my own. I will teach you to master the arcane arts and guide you to seize your true potential as a psyker, this I will do if you will have it so."

"And if I don't?"

Magnus threw up his hands in exasperation, "I was hoping you would!"

"The Warp is the enemy's domain." Aggregia said, looking up at the skies that looked like it wasn't of anything of the Warp. "Just by being here I expose myself to the powers of corruption. Accepting help from you further endangers my family should I be unleashed upon the material realm- why would I even think of taking you up on your offer?"

"Because you and I both know that nothing you have would ever be enough to stop Kor Phaeron. As long as you're with me, I will not let you fall to corruption." Magnus replied, "Now, we can debate over this matter over and over again for the next thousand years and still get nowhere. Do you want to save your family or not?"

Her resolute stare was enough of an answer, and Magnus led his niece into the gates of Tizca, the City of Light.

"What is this place?" Aggregia asked as the gates of the city opened to her and the returning Crimson King. Men and women dressed in scarlet and stark blue robes greeted the both of them at the city gate. They received Aggregia with all the best their hospitality could offer. Since the girl had little interaction of the outside world, the attentions of these strangers was enough to disarm her and she let her guard down. Yet, she had this vague feeling that there was something unnatural about this place, and its people.

"You feel it, don't you?" Magnus pointed out. "Yes, I was not lying about us being in the Warp. This city, a memory of my beloved Tizca, once stood as a beacon of hope for those of our kind. All that you stand upon, everything that you touch- they all exist by my will alone."

"A memory made material?" Aggregia said in amazement. She took in the marble pyramids, the towering obelisks and onyx sphinxes that made up the breathtakingly beautiful city. Ivory towers were set alight with colorful fires that burned with every shade of orange, red and green. Wingless dragons glided through the air, carrying tittering children across the sky. Birds of every species flocked to the massive fountains that stood on almost every square, and even landed on the girl's shoulders and outstretched hands. "This is Prospero?"

Magnus' gaze fell, and his voice softened. "This was Prospero, or rather, how I choose to remember it."

"So you built all of this, thinking it would make me more agreeable?" Aggregia said later as she sat at the edge of the fountain, absentmindedly playing with the water pooling at the fountain's basin.

"Hmph." Magnus grunted, "Your father has taught you well, to be wary of a stranger's promises. And yet, you know that I am no stranger."

"You are not?"

"You carry part of the Emperor with you, his very blood runs through your veins- as it does through mine. And as a psyker, you are gifted with the power to read minds. If taught by a proper teacher, you would know that all I've said is truth." Magnus sat down next to her and sighed, "I didn't build this memory of my home for you, though I wish you would come to appreciate it for the beauty it once held. I built it to keep what remains of my sanity, and to remind me what I'm fighting for."

"What are you fighting for?" Aggregia asked.

"I fight for the day when a psyker would be feared no more nor less than the average man, for an age where we would all master the Warp and take our rightful place as rulers of the galaxy. This was my dream, what my father dreamed- what we should all have dreamed."

"He who seeks to conquer everything, conquers nothing." Aggregia echoed her father's words.

"Unless he conquers himself." Magnus finished, surprised at how sharp the girl was for one so young. "I have spent the last ten thousand years wrestling with forces beyond even my comprehension, and all that I have loved paid the price for it. Ten thousand years, and all I have gained is perspective."

He sounded so sad that Aggregia's heart went out for him and her suspicions slowly melted away as she listened to his lamentations. "Do you truly see salvation in me?"

"If even the worst of traitors, my brother Horus, was pardoned by my father..." Magnus reflected on his brother's good fortune, and bemoaned the apparent favoritism shown by the Emperor. "...why can't I be granted my own hour of redemption?"

Aggregia took pause at his words and considered carefully what she would say next. "Where do we begin?"

Magnus smiled in relief and stood up, "Come with me, there's something I want to show you."

Magnus brought Aggregia to the gates of the Great Library of Tizca, the largest repository of human history and culture in the galaxy containing all the knowledge and collected works the Thousand Sons had gathered over their long crusade in the 31st Millennium and beyond. The vast library contained hundreds of thousands of books, scrolls and tablets stored within rows upon rows of towering shelves that formed a maddeningly twisted maze from one end of the library to the other.

"You remember even these?" Aggregia asked in shock as she grabbed some books off the tables and skimmed through the pages. Every leaf held the secrets of bygone eras, the works of long dead scholars, even knowledge bordering on the heretical. How he even managed to retain the memories of books, right down to the last stroke of the pen on their pages, it amazed her to no end.

Magnus snatched up many of the tomes out of his niece's hands and reduced them to ash with a flick of his wrist, chuckling nervously as she stared up at him in surprise. "Well, yes. I've written every tome, every scroll and page you see here. Though I have to warn you, some of these books contain knowledge that no one should ever see, especially you." He clapped his hands twice, and the next few seconds were filled with random books flaring up where they sat in each shelf. All those Magnus deemed too dangerous for his niece to see, all those he knew would result in her corruption- he destroyed completely. All that remained of them, the memories, were locked safely inside his head and he endeavored to keep them there forever.

"Now, let's start with the basics." Magnus paused to inspect some of the shelves and picked out a few books for Aggregia to start on. These tomes, each two feet in length and a foot in width, were packed with the combined treatises of Prospero's finest sorcerers- including Magnus.

Seeing the massive compilations that would surely overwhelm her young mind, Aggregia protested. "B-But, I already know the basics!"

"Basic?" Magnus snickered, recalling her feeble display earlier in the valley. "You call that basic?"

"My father taught me that!" Aggregia defended.

"Your father-" Magnus stopped to let out a hearty laugh, "What you've shown out of all he had taught you is barely considered foundational! Horus knows nothing, I repeat, nothing about being a psyker."

"Oh, and I suppose you would know better than him?" Aggregia blurted.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that." Magnus replied, tapping at the books he laid on the table for her to read. "Get busy, my dear. There are thousands worth of tomes more on the way."

Aggregia rested her chin against her fist and said crossly, "So this is my fate, to be schooled by one of my father's enemies for perhaps an eternity. Wonderful."

"No." Magnus corrected her, "You are to be schooled by one of the most powerful masters of the arcane in the galaxy, who actually knows what he's doing and cares enough about you to guide you through the proper paths of a psyker's discipline. Enough complaining, you've asked where we should begin- here is where you start."

Aggregia pouted but said nothing in return. She opened a book and began to read while Magnus disappeared among the shelves in search of more books for his niece to read.

"Your course is simple." His voice carried over the towering rows and reverberated across the ceiling. "You will study the treatises by theory, and I will teach you how to apply it in practice."

"But..." Aggregia said as she faced a tome written in an incomprehensible tongue. "I can't read this." She turned to another book, and another when she found it also written in an unfamiliar language. "I can't read any of them!"

"Lesson number one: Comprehension." Magnus called back, "The universe speaks one language and masks it under what we usually perceive as differing forms. The psyker's mind is able to comprehend this language and see past the veil that hides it. Will your mind to understand, and the words will shift to obey your commands."

Aggregia frowned, but did as she was told. It was a good thing she had begun training with her father on Y'ttetia, so it was easier now to focus her mind on whatever task she needed it to do. It still took time and a considerable amount of effort, but Aggregia was able to force the words to change into something she could understand. The letters shifted themselves about until they formed coherent sentences on each page.

"Whoa." Aggregia breathed, wiping the sweat off her brow. The book she was reading was titled The Varying Techniques of Pyromancy: A Beginner's Guide to Mastering Fire.

A loud thump, followed by a violent shudder of something heavy being heaped upon the table caused her to look up. Magnus returned with an armful of similarly stacked books and a bundle of scrolls. He wore a gleeful smile as he took in her aghast expression.

"What, you thought I was joking about the thousand or so worth of books?"

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