Chapter 42 – Brother
"Big… Big Ant Bull Alley… what's black?"
Mortarion's grip on Silence faltered for a fraction of a second.
The Daemon Primarch of the Death Guard, conqueror of worlds, breaker of empires, had heard every battle cry imaginable—invocations to the Emperor, to the Dark Gods, even the mindless howls of Orks.
But never… that.
The battlefield hung in stunned silence.
Marneus Calgar stopped mid-swing. Sergeant Varo hovered in place. Even the roaring tide of daemons hesitated, as though reality itself had misheard.
Ku'gath's bloated fingers twitched. His ladle slipped from his grasp and splashed into the cauldron.
"I don't like that little golden thing…" the Great Unclean One muttered, shrinking back. "She burns."
---
Varo adjusted his descent thrusters and touched down before Guilliman.
His armor was shattered and scorched—but he stood straight.
Because what he bore had shifted the tide.
Eileen stepped lightly from his shoulder.
When her boots met the corrupted mud—
Sizzle.
Rotting sludge evaporated. A circle of pristine white sand spread outward from her feet.
She walked forward.
With each step, the white sand advanced, carving a clean path through Nurgle's filth straight toward Guilliman.
Hodsec snarled and yanked the iron chain binding the Primarch.
"He's mine! Grandfather promised me this toy!"
The rusted links groaned as Guilliman's body dragged across the muck.
Eileen stopped.
She raised one small hand toward the chain.
"Snap."
Golden-orange flame bloomed—not from her palm—but from within the metal itself.
It spread like thought.
Hodsec screamed as the fire raced along the chain and into his arm. Keratin plates—thick enough to deflect lascannon fire—melted like wax.
The chain blackened, crumbled—
—and fell to ash.
Guilliman slumped free.
Before he could collapse, Eileen was there.
Golden light lifted him gently onto the purified sand.
---
Up close, the Lord Commander looked near death.
His skin had gone grey-purple. Veins dark as ink crawled across his face. Black blood oozed from the wound carved by Silence.
His breathing rattled.
Still, his eyes remained open.
"Eileen…" he whispered.
"You came… but I told you… this is dangerous…"
"Shut up, Robert."
She cupped his massive face in both hands.
"Old Huang. Cure?"
[Concept-level plague. Overwrite it with a higher concept.]
"Got it."
Golden light flared between her palms—warm, steady, relentless.
It poured into Guilliman's body.
He tensed violently.
The sensation was like molten metal flooding his veins—but it did not burn him. It hunted.
Purple corruption recoiled.
Warp-taint evaporated as golden radiance devoured it at its root. Black rot seeped from his wounds and dissolved into smoke.
Flesh knit.
Bone sealed.
Even the Armor of Fate hummed and re-lit, ancient systems reactivating as if in reverence.
Guilliman exhaled a long, foul breath. The last of the toxin dispersed into nothing.
Color returned to his face.
Strength flooded back into limbs that had moments ago failed him.
Eileen withdrew her hands.
"Does it hurt? They turned you into a pig's head."
Around them, Ultramarines stared in speechless horror at the comparison.
Guilliman… smiled.
"It is nothing," he said quietly. "I have endured worse."
"Used to it, my ass."
She stood.
---
The three daemon lords watched.
Mortarion's scythe trembled—not from weakness, but from something colder.
Ku'gath shrank deeper into his folds.
Hodsec clutched his cauterized stump and whimpered.
Eileen raised her right hand toward the fallen blade embedded in the earth.
The Emperor's Sword.
It rose at once.
Not hesitating.
Not resisting.
The blade flew into her grasp.
For her size, it was immense.
For her, it weighed nothing.
The flames along its edge surged skyward—no longer dimmed by poison or exhaustion. They roared bright and pure, towering high above her small frame.
Golden fire.
Not Warp-light.
Not witchcraft.
Something older.
Her hair streamed like liquid sunlight.
Above her brow, light gathered—
Not steel.
Not circuitry.
A wreath of pure gold formed: a laurel crown.
Authority.
Victory.
Memory.
Guilliman stared upward from the ground.
The silhouette overlapped perfectly with a memory buried ten millennia deep—of triumphal marches and impossible radiance.
His hands trembled.
"Is it… you?"
His voice wavered.
"…Father?"
The word rippled across the battlefield like a shockwave.
Mortarion stepped back instinctively.
Ku'gath buried his face in his own folds.
Even the lingering plague clouds stilled.
The crowned figure did not answer at once.
She turned her head slightly.
Only half her face showed.
Golden flames burned in her eye—but there was no cold detachment there. No distant divinity.
Only mischief.
Only warmth.
Only her.
She looked down at Guilliman, whose gaze held hope, confusion, and something dangerously close to longing.
Her lips curved.
A soft laugh escaped her.
"Poor eyesight will get you eaten in the hive, Robert."
She turned fully now, sunlight blazing around her.
"Don't mistake me for someone else."
Her smile was radiant. Human.
"My dear… brother."