Revelation Chapter 46: Psalms, a Warhammer + Worm Crossover fanfic

A/N: Chap 45 review responses are in my forums as normal, thank you to those who read and reviews. I appreciate. This is the last chapter of this arc.

Chapter Forty-Six: Psalms

He remembered how proud his mother was when he was appointed to the Elector's staff. "Oh, my handsome Brinny-boy! My handsome boy's all grown up!"

Brin Milo was sixteen. It was the last time he ever saw his mother alive. She, like his entire world, died during one of the early Chaos attacks in the Sabbat World's subsector.

He was just a piper–a ceremonial role given to certain young men of Tanith. A favor to his father who had served the Elector of Magna Tanith faithfully for thirty years. Because he did his work well, and made himself as useful to the Elector as he could, he was given the honor to escort the cold, aloof offworld Colonel who came to command the very first regiment of Tanith. The Tanith First.

The Tanith only.

He wasn't supposed to go with them. He was too young for the guard even if he wanted to join. But they were in the Sabbat Worlds subsector, embroiled in a war that spanned hundreds of worlds. And though Tanith had not sent any men to join the fight yet, the fight came to them.

He remembered running after Gaunt for the last gun cutter off Tanith as a Chaos fleet rained down orbital bombardments on Magna Tanith. All was lost in numbing, gut-punch concussions as the bombardment destroyed everything he'd ever known.

He remembered the terror he felt when the door of the gun cutter closed behind the off-world colonel. They were going to leave him there to die!

But then the door opened. The tall, lanky colonel from off world opened it himself. Brin was crying, weeping with terror and relief and this terrible feeling that he had no words for, but which felt a lot like his mother and father and all his friends burning to death. His hands and feet didn't seem to work, and he wasn't sure he would make it, when the colonel grabbed him and pulled him into the gun cutter.

The colonel yanked the door shut again and shouted to the pilot, "Now! Go now if you're going!"

Surrounded by old, hunched Munitorum officials, Colonel Ibram Gaunt was the only man there in uniform. Gaunt sank back into a seat and secured himself while staring with a dark, thunderous expression out across the burning city. The burning world.

Brin Milo, though, just stared at Ibram Gaunt. The man who saved his life.

~~Revelation~~

"I have need of an adjutant, a personal aide."

The Tanith-shaped hole in Milo's soul still felt raw. Not just for Brin, but all the other survivors of the Tanith First Regiment–the only regiment Tanith would ever field. The men blamed the colonel–Colonel Commissar Gaunt. He'd ordered the regiment to evacuate Tanith instead of fight and defend it, and the men blamed him. They blamed him for them being alive, and not letting them die with the rest of their people.

Milo supposed he wasn't old enough to understand. He didn't want to die. He wanted to live. He was sure his parents would want him to live. And Colonel Gaunt saved him when he didn't have to. Saved him when no one else could, or would.

And now he was offering Brin a job, just days after his world died on his very first stay on a real space ship!

"It's dogsbody, gopher work mostly," the Colonel continued, as if he felt the need to convince Milo. "And the harder stuff you can learn. It would help me to have a Tanith in the post if my working relationship with them is going to continue."

A naval officer in his sharp uniform stepped into Gaunt's room, where the colonel was offering Milo this job. "We've got our orders, sir," the man said. Kreff was his name, Milo remembered.

Gaunt took the written orders, then looked to Brinny-boy. "What do you say?"

"Yes, sir!" Brin fought not to smile. He didn't think Gaunt would like that.

~~Revelation~~

Jada Washton looked just like Saint Sabbat.

Brin was twenty-two when the Tanith First and Only joined in the liberation of Hagia. He wasn't part of Sergeant Washton's squad, and wasn't there when she was injured. In fact, he might not have found out about it at all if the Colonel hadn't asked him to find local religious leaders to find out how to properly bury the bodies of the local king and his family.

The girl that Surgeon Curth directed him to was named Sanian. She wasn't any older than he was, Brin believed. Maybe younger. She shaved her head bare except for a long pony-tail of rich black hair. She had dark, expressive eyes and a light voice. The accent of the locals on Hagia had a musical tone Brin appreciated.

What he didn't fully appreciate, though, was the sheer awe the natives of Hagia felt when word of Washton's appearance filtered through the city's rumor mill. It began with a family that Jada's unit rescued during the first days of the battle to liberate the city. The father declared that Saint Sabbat herself had returned to drive out the invaders.

The religious awe went into high gear, evidently, when she was injured while personally destroying an enemy tank and saving her squad. The shrine near the Universitariat that the locals had converted to a hospital, and to which Gaunt had sent his own medical personnel to help, teemed with volunteers eager to look upon the face of their reborn saint.

"You don't understand, boy. It was foretold she would return to us." The local priests were called ayatani, and there were a lot of them. Hagia was a shrineworld, after all, kept pure and mostly intact in its virginal state by order of the Ecclesiarchy to honor the wishes of the Most Holy Saint Sabbat.

The old priest Sanian introduced him to was named Gugai, and he had a deep, booming voice that came from a thin, almost emaciated frame. His eyes burned with faith as he spoke.

"But…I know she's a little intense. But it's just…" Brin stopped himself, because Jada wasn't just Jada. She was the Angel of the Outhabs. She and Gol Kolea led the scratchers and had almost as many confirmed kills as the whole regiment. Her people looked at her the same way that Brin looked at the Colonel.

His doubt seemed offensive to the ayatani. Across the cobbled stones of the market, he saw Gaunt and three other ayatanis talking about how to bury the dead family of the local lord. He and Sanian, who called herself an esholi (which meant student) watched from a distance and talked. It was nice being able to just talk to someone, and Sanian was a very smart person.

Ayatani Gugai, though, stepped in and completely took over the discussion. "Come with me, boy. You must understand."

"I…sir, I mean…"

"It is your path," the old priest said.

Brin didn't quite understand why Sanian seemed to tense, right then. With a last glance at Gaunt, who had dismissed him to talk to the priests, Milo shrugged and followed. Gugai led him into the converted shrine that served as their field hospital, moving through prayer rooms that now served as surgical rooms, and into the main sanctum that was lined with cots. Volunteers from the city and the Ecclesiarchy all worked together with the Regimental medical staff to treat civilians and guard personnel equally.

Beyond that, Gugai led them into a small, stone chamber that seemed completely cut off from the war that was still being fought in the northern sectors of the city. The constant, distant thumps of artillery faded into a heavy, stuffy silence.

The walls were filled with iconography of the saint–of red-leaf and white bark trees, and of portraits that really did look like Sergeant Washton. Gugai stepped past all of that to a giant ceramic and steel chamber. It took a moment for Brin to recognize a strikingly state-of-the-art stasis chamber, because it looked so completely out of place in the otherwise rustic setting. Hagia wasn't just a shrineworld; it was a living museum to the world Sabbat had come from. That, too, was set forth in Sabbat's final will and testament.

The old ayatani opened the stasis chamber and removed a high-quality data slate and picter screen. It was nicer than anything Brin had seen outside of the navy–the type of stuff a Lord General might have at hand, or the Crusade command staff he'd seen Gaunt talk to.

The old priest worked the controls with practiced reverence and muttered prayers, and the screen suddenly began playing 2-D footage. It was footage of striking fidelity and quality. It showed Jada Washton in beautifully crafted power armor walking between two hulking space marines in white armor and lightning bolt iconography.

"The Emperor has charged me this task, brothers. For my people, and in His name, we will not fail in this crusade. Be it my life, I will not stop until every shred of chaos corruption has been purged from the worlds of this subsector!"

She sounded just like Jada. She moved just like Jada. The accent, the tone and sound of her voice. The numbing intensity that she projected. The words, not so much, but every things else…

"Do you see, boy?" Gugai lowered his voice, as reverent as Brin was confused. "That child who sleeps in this very structure is the most holy Beati. She has returned to us, even if she doesn't remember. And I see in you the path that follows in her steps. Perhaps, someday, you may even be called to guide her."

~~Revelation~~

In the aftermath of the Shrinehold and the rebirth of Saint Sabbat who now walked beside Jada Washton–having seen and heard things beyond his ability to process–Brin Milo sought refuge with the Colonel.

Gaunt was healed by the Beati, just like Brin himself was. Just like so many others, at least those that survived. And the Colonel spent the day feverishly working to put the tattered regiment back together. And Brin followed, providing help just like he did when he was the adjutant.

It was a small island of familiar comfort in a sea of change.

Brin now knew for sure that Jada was not the saint. How could she be, when the Saint herself was a separate person? They looked more alike than twins did, like they were almost clones. But there were differences. Sabbat felt different than Jada, though it was hard to describe how. Almost like a warm sun shone from within the Beati that made everyone around her feel better somehow.

Jada had almost the opposite effect, though Doc Dorden mentioned to Gaunt it was because she was a blank. But because she wasn't the saint, Gaunt eventually sent Brin to find her so they could talk.

It wasn't a surprise that he found her with her platoon, such as survived. She was sitting with Oballa Durran, Jessi Banda and Corporal Sehri Muril eating rations in the dining hall of the shrinehold when he entered.

Washton just seemed to notice things first. Her eyes tracked him the moment he entered, and somehow she just knew he was coming to speak to her. She said something to the others, and Brin felt a little uncomfortable with the three woman's regard. All three were Vervunhivers; they had fought together now, but he couldn't help but be aware of how different the women of Vervunhive were from the girls he'd known growing up on Tanith. How pretty they were.

"Sergeant," he said in greeting. "Colonel's asking for you."

She made a point of checking her chrono. "You owe me an amasec ration," she said to Sehri.

"Sucker bet," Oballa said with a snicker. She had two legs, now. Somehow, the Saint had restored the leg she lost in the final battle against the Chaos forces.

Without further explanation, Jada stood and followed along. He wanted to ask her about the saint and her relation to the woman, but he didn't. He just walked beside her until they reached the prayer room where Colonel-Commissar Gaunt was working.

She entered and saluted per regulation. Doc Dorden was in the room too, but not Corbec or Rawne.

"Sergeant," Gaunt said. He had a firm expression, but Milo had worked with him long enough to recognize his agitation. "If Surgeon Dorden here were to do a genestamp on you, how old would you be?"

"Seventeen…no, wait. Sixteen, now."

The answer shocked Milo, but he kept his mouth shut.

"You were fifteen when you joined at Vervunhive?" Dorden said.

"At that time, yes sir. Prior to that, sixteen."

Gaunt seemed to understand what sounded like a completely non-sequitur.

"The Militarum lex is not forgiving of personnel serving under false pretenses," Gaunt said. "Especially when those pretenses result in…what we just went through. But I cannot help but be mindful of some…extenuating circumstances. Therefore, with the affirmation of Surgeon Dorden that you were not at any point of age to put on that uniform, it is my judgment as your commanding officer that you are hereby discharged in general from the Astra Militarum and stripped of all rank and responsibility thereof. Jada Washton is no longer a part of the Tanith 1st, and will remain at the Shrinehold."

Those words would have gutted Brin. Jada, though, just smiled. It wasn't really a happy smile, Brin didn't think. "And what of Taylor Hebert, Colonel?"

"Taylor Hebert is the Holy Sister of Saint Sabbat, and will be joining us on our return to Doctrinopolis."

For a long time, Jada…Taylor…just stood with her head slightly bowed. Finally, she said, "Then, Colonel, from Taylor Hebert, let me say this. I have known tens of thousands of officers over my lives, from militaries that spanned the entirety of human experience. My father was a general himself. He was worshiped by generations of soldiers. With all that, I can honestly say you are one of the finest officers I've ever known. Thank you."

She reached up and pulled her sergeant insignia off her uniform. They were sewn on, it shouldn't have been that easy. But Brin suspected at that moment that she knew it was coming and removed most of the stitching.

To his surprise, she handed the patches to Milo himself. "The Beati suggested you might keep these for me, Brin. To remember Jada Washton."

Brin accepted the patches, and then forced himself to nod. "I will, Sarge. I…thank you."

Her smile turned wistful, and then she turned and simply left.

In her absence, Gaunt said, suddenly, "Defeat is but a step toward victory. Take the step with confidence or you will not ascend."

The words surprised Brin, because it was Gaunt's own speech that Brin himself had quoted back after the disaster at Doctrinopolis, when the Colonel had been drinking himself into a stupor in despair at the destruction of the Citadel, and the Warp Beacon that the Chaos warlord Pater Sin had lit.

With those words, Brin realized his Colonel was well. "Wise words, sir."

"Spoken to me by a wise man, Trooper Milo. Go tell Colonel Corbec that I want a senior staff meeting at twelve-hundred hours."

Milo snapped to attention and saluted smartly. "Yes, sir!"

~~Revelation~~

Brin was surprised at how happy he was to see Sanian again when the honor guard returned to Bhavnager. What surprised him more, though, was how she'd changed. Her braid was gone, cut off entirely. She'd abandoned her esholi robes and let her hair start to grow out. She wore homespun trousers and a militarum tunic as she assisted the forces left behind at Bhavnager with the wounded.

"I have found my path," was all she would say, when he asked about her changed hair.

"Well, I have something to show you," Brin said, grinning. He offered her a hand. "Come with me?"

Sanian studied him for a long second. She was a sober woman, not prone to joking. But she also agreed to guide him, Colonel Corbec and the rest to the Shrinehold even though it could jeopardize her life and livelihood. After only a moment's hesitation, she took his hand and let him guide her back to the infirmary where all of the wounded from the battle of Bhavnager were.

They were just in time to see Saint Sabbat walking among them, her hands to either side, as golden healing energy flowed around her over the fallen.

Sanian fell to her knees, weeping, and began to pray. Brin knelt beside her. "Jada Washton…her name's actually Taylor Hebert. She wasn't the saint, she was the saint's sister."

It took a moment for the words to percolate through Sanian's religious fervor. "What?"

"There're two of them. See, look behind you."

Sanian did, glancing out the side door of the infirmary where Taylor Hebert was talking to Gol Kolea. The Hagian native glanced from one to the other, her eyes glistening. "Two of them," she whispered. "But…that means…"

"What?"

She refused to answer, shaking her head. Instead, she turned to stare at him. "I understand Ayatani Gugai now," she said. "You are the guide. You are my path."

"I…you're welcome?"

She wiped her eyes, then stood. "I must go pray."

~~Revelation~~

The monsters came that night. Not chaos cultists, but actual traitor marines in numbers like the Tanith hadn't seen since Monthax. Hundreds came in drop pods. Brin didn't understand what the Beati was doing to the tree, only that somehow she opened up a doorway and the Colonel ordered them to run through.

"Gol, have you seen Sanian?"

Sergeant Kolea shook his head, then turned to roar at his platoon to hurry their arses up. The sky seemed to burn with drop pod contrails, and the Beati, Taylor and Gaunt were confronting some scary-sounding monsters, if the shrieking roars and massive gouts of fire were any indication.

Where the feth was Sanian?

He caught a glimpse of movement on the outskirts of the town–in the one direction that didn't seem to be teeming with the enemy. A flash of a Tanith guard tunic and homespun trousers.

Knowing time was limited, Brin sprinted with everything he had. He pushed his lasrifle behind his back and ran as if the Great Enemy itself was on his heels, because the idea of abandoning her made his stomach churn. She said he was her path, and to him that meant something. He didn't know what, but it meant something!

He sprinted after her, leaving the confines of the small town and entering the surrounding woods. Every crash; every explosion sounded like the world was ending, but all he could think about was finding Sanian.

Suddenly the world did end–his next step was onto empty air and he went flying into a ditch. Strong arms caught him and he started to struggle when a gentle hand covered his mouth. "Friends, Brin. Friends," Sanian whispered.

"What…?"

Whatever he was going to say next was lost. A flash of white light, like a nuke, stole his breath. The ground shook under them and despite his situation he grabbed Sanian and pulled her down so he could cover her with his light flak armor.

There was no nuclear fire, though. No radiation. The pillar of white light burned for several minutes before it faded into the darkness. After several long beats of his heart, he gently lifted himself from Sanian. He couldn't see much of their surroundings other than it being a cave of some kind.

"The people of Bhavnager hid in caves like this during the occupation," Sanian whispered. "It is safe."

He nodded to her, then went back and as carefully as he could peeked up out of the cave.

Bhavnagar was gone. He saw hundreds–even thousands–of space marines, but none of them were moving. He fumbled at his utility harness until he found a monocular. He focused on the nearest figure–a fearsome looking monster with tentacles sprouting in place of its face. Only, it wasn't a living being. It looked like a statute made of a white mineral. All of the figures were the same. Statues.

Somehow, the Saint had escaped and destroyed the enemy. But… "They left without us."

Behind him, Sanian wept. "It was foretold. We will stay in the caves, Brin Milo, until the enemy has been vanquished."

"That might take a while."

"I know."

~~Revelation~~

Four weeks later, as Brin and Sanian were preparing their one meal a day with their carefully rationed food, they happened to look up as the Sabbat Worlds Crusade crashed into the enemy Chaos fleet in the skies over Hagia. He couldn't see the individual ships, of course. But he could see the explosions that lit the heavens up.

His vox came alive with signals of landers incoming–an invasion in force a hundred times larger than the initial liberation. The Warmaster himself had come with the entire Crusade Fleet, chasing after the consolidated Chaos Forces who had been forced by their gods to take Hagia and destroy the reborn Saint and her sister.

The battle in the skies lasted a day. The invasion took much longer. But two weeks after battle was joined, a single gun-cutter flew over the remnants of Bhavnager. It bore a skull form sigil of the Inquisition, something Brin had no interest in dealing with. He did not like Inquisitors at all.

Sanian, however, had no such hesitation. "Come, it is written," was all she said. She climbed out of their safety, and when he did not follow, she turned and offered her hand. After so long on steadily declining rations, both of them looked gaunt. Almost skeletal. "Come, Brin. We walk this path together, now."

"You keep saying things like that. What do you mean?"

"This was all foretold. I knew when I saw the Beati and Taylor Hebert together. The Beati spoke of another with her face in the Sacred Mysteries. Come."

He took her hand, and together they walked toward where a squad of stormtroopers were examining the thousands of salt statutes. They spotted Sanian and Brin immediately and went on guard, but didn't fire.

From their midst came a shorter, slim figure in a witch hunter's hat and ornate power armor. She had on her chest an exquisitely made Inquisitor's rosette that seemed shaped like tree branches, with a single acorn in its center to form the skull-shape.

"Identify yourselves!" the inquisitor called.

"Trooper Brin Milo, Tanith First," Brin called back. "This is Sanian, a native Hagian."

"Where is the rest of your regiment, Trooper?"

It was Sanian, however, who answered. "They are lost in the trees with the reborn Saint Sabbat, and her most holy sister, Taylor Hebert."

Brin wasn't sure why Sanian volunteered that, but the effect on the Inquisitor was striking. The woman went still as if struck, before marching right at them across the burned fields that once held the city. She came to a stop just inches away–she was very young, only a decade or so older than Brin himself, with skin a shade lighter than Sanian's but three shades darker than Brin's pale Tanith complexion.

"What did you say, young woman?"

"I have studied the gospels of Saint Sabbat all my life," Sanian said, unphased by the Inquisitor's sudden intensity. "It was foretold that if her remains were ever removed, the whole sector would fall. But if one with her face came, then hope would be restored. The one with her face was Taylor Hebert, whom the Tanith called Jada Washton, and it was she who helped the saint be reborn. They stood side-by-side, alike in every way. When the enemy came, they escaped through the holy tree that stood here. We were separated from them."

"Two of them," the Inquisitor whispered. She glanced back at her stormtroopers and the pillars of salt. "Did the saint do this?"

"I think so," Brin said. "She healed hundreds of our people, all at once. Made one trooper regrow her leg."

To Brin's surprise, the inquisitor actually said a prayer. It was muttered, but ended with "...may He protect us all."

"My name is Inquisitor Kleopatra Arx," the woman said after quickly settling herself. "I am assisting Warmaster Macaroth in cleansing Hagia. We've won a great victory. The crusade is all but over, and we're just now cleaning out the trash. But what you just told me cannot be shared with anyone else."

"But…" Brin began.

Sanian, though, merely nodded. "That, too, was foretold. Not all of the Beati's enemies are outside the Imperium of man."

Inquisitor Arx studied them before nodding. "Precisely. The two of you are now with me. Perhaps, together, we can find our missing saints."

Brin didn't notice at the time how she used "our". But he would learn. Over the following centuries, he'd learn more than he ever imagined.

~~Revelation~~

Amelyta Rothid opened her eyes onto a softly glowing branch filled with golden leaves. Underneath her, she could feel vibrations in the soil, as if heavy artillery was falling in the distance. The vox channels were all down, so they had no way of knowing what was happening on the surface.

The impossible Primarch, Vulkan, stood between her and the two trees, his massive hammer on the ground before him. Against the gentle glow of the trees, he looked almost like a living shadow, though somehow his red eyes caught the light as if glowing with their own power. As she picked herself up from where she'd fallen in her fugue state, she saw Artigan policing bodies with Hovash Phalias's assassin.

Turning, her eyes locked onto Lord Inquisitor Abrin Moro, a former acolyte of Inquisitorial Representative Kleopatra Arx. In another life, a simple Tanith man named Brin Milo. His breaths came now in shallow pants; his face looked deathly pale, almost yellow. He watched her with all the strength he had left.

She came back and knelt down beside him. "You were there, on Hagia."

Despite his mortal injuries, his smile looked beatific. "You saw them. Both of them."

"Three," she said. "All three were there at the end. They left Bhavnager and went to a sororitas fortress on the other side of the planet. And the third sister arrived. She had wings, like a saint. She was so strong, Brin! Stronger even than the primarch she came with. The Lion has returned, and he's with her!"

"Where?"

"I don't know. Something happened, and they just disappeared from my vision. Into the trees, just like you said"

"I'm sorry I missed them," he said, his voice barely audible between his gasps. She wasn't sure he heard what she said at the end—he was slipping away quickly. "But it's well, Lyta. I was blessed with a good life. I followed my path. Sanian and I had a good life. A son, grandchildren."

"Great, great grandchildren," Maerya said, still holding his hand. "You served the Emperor and the Saint well, Papa."

"But it won't be His arms I go to," Brin said. He reached up weakly. Lyta removed the gauntlet of her armor to hold his hand in hers. "It will be Her embrace that welcomes me. That's the truth I learned, Lyta. It wasn't just three aspects of Telos. There was always a fourth, you see. There was the mortal. There was the goddess of magic, and the goddess of physical strength and war. But above them all, there was the goddess of spirit. The goddess in the trees, who guided her followers for millenia. For the three to be one, they must stand under the golden boughs, within the light of their fourth. Telos must be reborn here. You have to guide them home, Lyta. It's…"

He coughed, barely a pushing of breath, and sent a thick wad of blood drooling down the side of his chin. The sorcerer's magic had been a mortal wound to him. "It's your path," he gasped out. His eyes widened, and he looked over her shoulder at the trees, seeing something the rest could not see. "She's beautiful…oh. Oh Sanian…"

His eyes teared up as he drew his last, shaking breath. Then he went still, and that drawn breath leaked out slowly. Maerya bowed her head and wept.

While Artigan and the assassin continued policing bodies, she saw the Custodes, Caligus, move silently to the Primarch's side. As much taller as Caligus was over Lyta, Vulkan stood that much over him.

"Lord Moro was in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade," she said to them both as she walked to them. "Saint Sabbat…is an aspect of Telos."

"I know," Caligus said. "For the Emperor sent me to her side, six thousand years ago. Just as he sent me to your side, now."

That news did not shock Lyta, not any more.

"Taylor Hebert was there, serving with a light infantry regiment. She woke Sabbat. They were the same person, but Sabbat had power, while Hebert was a blank."

"You saw this?" Caligus asked.

"I did, Lord!" She held up the rank patch Lord Moro gave her. "This was her rank patch, and it let me see the story of her most recent life. She was in Lord Moro's regiment, when he was simply Brin Milo of the Tanith First and Only. He was there, and saw Sabbat's rebirth in person. But they were separated, and he didn't see the third aspect of Telos arrive. He didn't see your brother, Lord Vulkan. The Primarch of the First lives–Lion El Johnson. And then they just…disappeared!"

Vulkan merely nodded, showing no surprise on his broad face. "It was always a possibility some of my brothers might return. What shall you do now, Pythia?"

What a question! Lyta looked past the primarch to the trees themselves, and then the rosette in her hands, and at that moment she understood. It felt as if her power and her mortal intellect meshed so perfectly there was no point of decision, simply an absolute knowledge of what had to happen.

"In the last years of the Dark Age of Technology, as the long night began to fall, the last appointed Pythia told her son that these acorns would guide them together. I…know what I need to do."

Lyta's eyes were drawn back to the trees, and she found herself remembering her visions. Of the boy, Jakob, whom the trees spoke to directly. She could almost hear the trees through his mind, as if she were Jakob. Was she one of his descendants as well? It would make sense that the followers of the most ancient faith intermarried.

After thousands of years, she was likely related to everyone if one went far enough back.

She slipped Taylor Hebert's Tanith First rank patch into one of the storage pouches of her armor and gripped the Inquisitorial rosette with both hands. She knew it was the same Rosette that Lord Arx wore in Lord Moro's memories, and that she'd inherited from her master, and his before her. The Representative of the Inquisition among the High Lords of Terra was, herself, a Gallentist. Arx was Lord Moro's patron and teacher, and had to have been aware of what was happening.

The Primarch Vulcan was so large it took a moment to step around him. He did not move or attempt to impede her in doing so, but rather watched her with his red eyes. On anyone else, they would have appeared almost demonic. But despite his impossible black skin, she felt nothing from him but a sense of safety and protection. She knew, with her power and her faith, that he would protect her with his life.

The air began to warm, but it was a strange warmth. Instead of the sickly wet, crushing humidity that dominated the surface of Terra, this warmth felt more like a gentle breeze, as if she were on a cool world where the sun warmed and nourished, rather than destroyed or suffocated.

But it was a dense atmosphere that seemed to push against her as she approached the center-point between the trees. A part of her, whether her Warp-power or her soul, recognized the pressure as something supernatural.

It was the pressure of divinity pushing against her mortal frame.

She held the rosette in front of her, and could see with her naked eye how the acorn began to take on a golden glow. "Telos, if you can hear me, I need your help," she whispered. "Your sisters were lost two and a half centuries ago, and I don't know where. Will you help me find them? To guide them back to you?"

As she prayed, she continued walking toward the center-point between the trees. She wasn't sure what she was expecting. No divine being appeared in a golden glow to guide her steps or tell her what to do. But as she broke through the dense pressure, suddenly she found herself in a still pocket of cool air. It tasted fresh and real, like one might taste on a virgin world where the Imperium had not begun its destructive work. It tasted of trees and grass and growing things. It tasted like life and hope and it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever experienced; and her eyes watered from the joy of it.

"In Telos name," Lyta whispered. "In Telos name, help me guide your sisters home."

Suddenly the golden acorn blazed in her hand. It was a cool light, but almost blinding with its golden brilliance. A second later it faded, only to blaze again. Fade, and then blaze—a beacon. The rosette had formed a beacon, and somehow Lyta knew its light was shining across space and time itself, calling for the missing aspects of Telos to come home.

source material from Dan Abnett's Gaunt Series, The Founding (Omnibus) and The Saint (Omnibus)