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‘Father, my Emperor, it is Corvus,’ he said, lowering himself to one knee. ‘If you can hear me, please heed my words. My Legion is all but dead and our enemies grow stronger with each passing day. I would know what you would wish me to do. It is in my heart to strike back at these traitors, to shed their blood as they have shed mine. All I ask is your blessing on this endeavour and I shall take the battle to the foe with righteousness in my heart and your glory in my mind.’

There was no change in the Emperor’s demeanour.

‘Father! Hear me!’ In his straining, Corax felt his wounds reopening under his armour, thick blood trickling down his side. He ignored the surge of pain. ‘The Raven Guard will fight to the last to protect the Imperial Truth. We are not so strong as once we were, but we will lay down each life left to us in your defence. But I need your help. Please, give me your wisdom, grant me your guidance.’

He broke down, collapsing as a wave of fatigue washed through him. For more than three hundred days he had fought back the injuries of Isstvan, pushing himself on. At first his Legion had needed him. Later, he had held on for this moment, enduring his agony in silence so that he might come before the Emperor and seek his lord’s command.

He had failed.

He had failed on Isstvan and he had failed here. Blood was leaking from his many wounds, as if in response to the hurt he felt in his psyche. With it, his vigour died and his will faded.

‘Son.’

That one word resounded across the glowing firmament, echoing and rebounding, filling Corax’s thoughts even as the sound came to his ear.

The Emperor’s eyes were open, glittering orbs of gold that bored into Corax’s soul. Motes of golden energy danced in those orbs, but their look was not without kindness. The Emperor stood, his armour melting away into wisps of golden threads to be replaced by robes of flowing silver that cascaded from his body like an argent waterfall.

The Emperor stood, seeming diminished in size, but not presence, by the removal of his armour. Particles churned as smoke, forming insubstantial steps that allowed the Emperor to descend as effortlessly as a normal man walks down a flight of stairs.

The Emperor reached out a hand and Corax felt hot fingers upon his brow. Energy flowed through the primarch, knitting his shattered bones, stemming his pouring blood, healing wounded muscles and organs. The primarch gasped, filled with love and adoration.

‘Stand.’ Corax did as the Emperor commanded, his strength restored.

‘I am sorry, father,’ said Corax, dropping to his knees once more. ‘I know that your labours are important, but I have to speak with you.’

‘Of course you do, Corvus,’ said the Emperor. The majesty and power had gone from his voice, leaving only a tone of respect and admiration. ‘You have endured much to come here.’

Corax felt a hand on his arm and he straightened under the Emperor’s guidance. His father appeared less majestic, the light dimming beneath his skin, his face taking on the features of a normal man with brown eyes while long, dark hair flowed from his scalp.

‘Is this your true face?’ asked Corax.

‘I have no such thing,’ replied the Emperor. ‘I have worn a million faces over the mille

‘I remember this one,’ said Corax, dimly recalling a dream he had glimpsed when overcome by his wounds in the crashing Thunderhawk. ‘This was how you appeared to me when I was born within my pod.’

‘Yes, it is strange that you should remember that,’ said the Emperor. His expression became sterner. ‘What do you wish to ask of me, my son?’

‘The Raven Guard verge on being a spent force, but I would rebuild them if I had the chance,’ said Corax. ‘Yet I ca

‘You wish to sacrifice your Legion?’ The Emperor seemed genuinely surprised. ‘In what cause?’

‘I do not do it out of woe but necessity,’ explained Corax. ‘I must atone for the failure at Isstvan, for it will tear me apart as surely as my wounds did, if allowed to fester in my heart. Forgive me, but I ca

The Emperor did not reply for some time, his brow creased slightly with deep thought. Corax waited patiently, eyes fixed to the Emperor’s face.

‘I concur,’ the Master of Mankind said eventually. ‘It is in your nature to cry havoc and wreak the same upon your foes. Yet there is no need for sacrifice. I am reluctant, but you have my trust, Corvus. I will grant you a gift, a very precious gift.’

Once more the Emperor reached out his hand and laid it upon Corax’s head.

FOR AN ETERNITY Corax was overwhelmed by the mind of the Emperor. An existence that had spa

In a moment the pain had ceased, the imprint upon his memories a shard of what had come before, the tiniest fraction of the Emperor’s being. Still reeling from the psychic onslaught, Corax wondered if this was how the astrotelepaths felt during the Soul Binding, their minds conjoined with the psychic might of the Emperor.

Flashes of new memories coursed through his thoughts, blocking out all other sensation, a succession of images burnt into his psyche. The primarch’s body quaked with the sensation, rebelling against the patterns and images thrust into his brain.

He could smell the tang of cleansing fluids, and hear the buzz of machines and the hiss of respiration devices. Corax glimpsed metal cylinders with glass viewplates, arranged in a circle at the heart of a clinically sterile chamber, a maze of wires and pumps and tubes splaying from each steel sarcophagus.

The primarch did not just see the scene, he was part of it, speaking to a white-coated technician in a language he did not understand. There were other orderlies, with cloth face masks and tight hoods drawn over their heads, their hands gloved in white.

Corax walked amongst the incubators, noting at a glance the digital displays plugged into each, satisfied with the life signs beeping and chiming from each device. He felt enormous satisfaction.

There was still much to do. The physical bodies were being nourished, their superhuman forms each developing over the genetic matrix inlaid inside each chamber. They were only empty shells though, and the greatest part of the project was yet to come. Their nascent brains were ripe for the template integration.

Even as he had these thoughts, Corax did not understand them. More arcane and technical phrases came to him, their meaning lost in the translation to his mind. Yet for all their complexity, the primarch felt on the verge of recognition.

Like his brothers, Corax’s intellect was as enhanced as his body and his brain was a vast repository of knowledge, both military and technical. There was something new in there as well, placed at the same time as the memories. In his mind’s eye he saw genetic splicing and hybridisation calculations, and understood now that the Mendelian eukaryotic genesis formula was the first ever successfully cloned human gene-code.

He understood the mechanics behind his own creation and marvelled at the ingenuity of the mind that had conceived of them. There were areas that were left blank though, intentionally he assumed. Details of the parts of the Emperor’s own genetic strand that were employed in the creation of the primarchs. Obviously the Emperor did not trust Corax that much.

There were other memories too: the dismantling of the laboratory after the strange warp phenomena that had swept away the incubators and scattered them across the galaxy. Corax saw it being reassembled in another place, far from prying eyes.