Hello everyone! I apologize for the long delay in my updates. Unfortunately, I lost my grandmother, which required me to travel to visit family for almost three weeks. I just returned a few days ago. It was quite sudden, so I'm sorry for not keeping you informed. On a brighter note, there is a new chapter coming soon, and I plan to release the next one next week! I know I previously mentioned a Dragon Age fanfiction, but I am making some changes before updating it. Thank you for your understanding!
So, the next update is as follows!
- Warhammer 40k: The Ember of Creation (One more Chapters.)
- Dragon Age: Demonic Age (Two Chapters, perhaps!)
- The White Lion of the Red Keep
- The Overlord Geass (Another chapter!)
So, that's it. I hope you enjoy this, and please, check my Tumblr! There you will find ways to support me directly!
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Chapter IX – The Praetorian's Last Stand and Rebirth
Part I - The Praetorian
Rogal Dorn beheld the scene of utter chaos unfolding around him, his ears ringing with the guttural shouts of command that echoed across the claustrophobic battlefield of the Sword of Sacrilege's cramped corridors. He knew, with the chilling clarity of a master tactician, that he had erred. The decision to board the Despoiler-class battleship, a floating fortress of heresy and madness, had been a mistake. He wasn't a fool; the realisation had struck him the moment his teleport strike force materialised within the vessel's corrupted heart. They were vastly outnumbered, surrounded, and this manoeuvre was, in its essence, a final, desperate lunge for the enemy's throat.
The Dorn of the Great Crusade—the stoic Praetorian of Terra, the First Lord Commander who had fortified the Throneworld against the tides of treachery—would never have sanctioned such a reckless assault. That Dorn demanded exhaustive intelligence, meticulous planning, and overwhelming superiority. But this… this was the bitter, scarred remnant of a demi-god, a soul hollowed out by the unspeakable aftermath of the Heresy. This was the Rogal Dorn who had witnessed his angelic brother, Sanguinius, broken upon the Vengeful Spirit; who had carried his father's shattered husk to the Golden Throne, knowing he was entombing a god to a half-life of agony; who had watched his beloved sister, the golden hope of the Imperium, sealed within the Eden Stasis Pod, her fate uncertain.
This Dorn fought not for glory or expansion, but for sheer, desperate survival. Every battle was a grinding war of attrition, a frantic effort to keep the Imperium from being cannibalised by the ravenous dark. He saw no other way to halt the Black Crusade's relentless advance but this—a boarding action born of rage, grief, and unyielding stubbornness.
I cannot fail. I refuse to fail. The thought was a mantra, a steel beam reinforcing Dorn's mind as he gripped Storm's Teeth, his colossal chainsword, in one hand, and The Voice of Terra, his master-crafted bolter, in the other.
"Do not let them surround us! Fight! Fight!" Dorn roared, his voice cutting through the din. Storm's Teeth screamed, its adamantium teeth tearing through the twisted flesh of a Khornate cultist, spraying hot blood across the bulkheads. But for every cultist felled, two more surged forward, their frenzied rage fueled by the Blood God. And behind them, the hulking, black-armoured forms of the traitor Astartes, the Black Legion, advanced with disciplined malice. The Imperial Fists, stalwart and brave, were being pushed back, inch by bloody inch.
"Hold the line, sons of Terra! Hold the line, my sons!" Dorn bellowed, raising his bolter and obliterating the head of a charging Black Legionnaire. Yet, even his Primarch's fury was not enough.
The Imperial Fists moved as a single organism, locking their storm shields into an impenetrable wall, their bolters barking a staccato rhythm of death. A cultist, maddened by bloodlust, threw himself against a shield, clawing uselessly at the ceramite, only to be blown apart by a point-blank bolter round. But the distraction served its purpose; a Black Legionnaire capitalised on the opening, his bolter round punching through the Imperial Fist's gorget, exploding within his chest. The Astartes fell, instantly replaced by a brother. Still, the loss was felt—another son gone, another gap in the line, ammunition dwindling with every heartbeat.
An hour of relentless slaughter saw their numbers dwindle from three hundred to one hundred, then to a few dozen desperate souls.
Panic, cold and unfamiliar, brushed against Dorn's mind. He considered ordering a retreat, but escape was impossible. They were trapped, encircled in the belly of the beast. He had let desperation cloud his judgment, a failing he had never permitted himself before, and now, the cost was total.
"So be it! Let this be our last stand!" Dorn declared, his voice filled with grim finality. His remaining sons, their bolters clicking empty, drew combat blades and chainswords, prepared to die alongside their father.
But this was no glorious last stand, no legendary defence against an insurmountable foe that would echo through the ages. It was a butchery. Their objective had failed. The Black Legion remained; the Despoiler lived; the Black Crusade marched on. They were simply being exterminated, one by one, in the dark, forgotten corridors of a traitor ship.
No songs would be sung of this end. There would be no witnesses to carry the tale.
Dorn fought with the savagery of a cornered beast. When The Voice of Terra ran dry, he wielded it as a bludgeon. When Storm's Teeth finally choked on gore and failed, he used his bare hands, ripping cultists limb from limb, snapping the spines of traitor Astartes who dared to think they could fell a Primarch. He would leave a scar on their collective memory, a testament to his defiance.
But he was alone now, his sons dead at his feet. The enemy swarmed him like vermin. A piercing pain erupted in his side—a poisoned dagger found a chink in his armour. Then another, and another. He was being engulfed by a tide of stabbing, biting madness. Yet, the physical agony was nothing compared to the singular, terrifying thought that seized his mind.
No. I cannot die! I refuse!
His thoughts flew to Terra, to his sacred duty. Who will protect the Wall? Who will raise the new fortifications when the old ones crumble? Who will be there when Aurelia wakes? Who will shield the Imperium in my stead?
I cannot… I refuse to die!
Dorn screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated rage, holding onto his consciousness even as his body was torn apart by the triumphant cultists. He did not fear death; he feared the dereliction of duty.
Darkness took him. A cold, absolute nothingness embraced him. Silence. It was comfortable, seductive in its peace. He could stay here, in this numbness, let the pain fade, drift into the oblivion he had perhaps earned. Finally, a place where he did not need to fight.
But peace was not a concept Rogal Dorn understood. Nothingness was anathema to his soul.
He needed to work. He could not rest where there were no tools, no walls to build, no duty to fulfil.
Brother...
The whisper cut through the void, an echo from a distance that was not physical. He felt it—a crossroads in the dark. One path led to eternal silence. The other led back to the grindstone.
My dear Dorn. My Praetorian. My Wall.
The voice grew stronger, warmer. Dorn knew that voice. It was his sister calling him home. Dorn needed no further prompting. He made his choice instantly. His legendary stubbornness, his absolute refusal to leave a task unfinished, galvanised his spirit. He mentally clenched his being, refusing to drift, stubbornly standing his ground against the pull of death.
I hear you, sister. I am coming.
The sensation of return was violent. Dorn's lungs, dormant for an eternity, expanded with a harsh, gasping breath. Sensation flooded back—the weight of his limbs, the ache in his bones, the cold air on his skin. It took a few disorienting seconds for reality to solidify.
"Brother... you are here."
Dorn's eyes snapped open. He was not in the Golden Throne room, nor on a battlefield. He lay in a dimly lit, subterranean space, a place of shadows and industry. It smelled of ozone, oil, and arcane experiments—metal, machine, and biology intermingled. A laboratory. A forge.
He looked up, and through the haze of resurrection, he saw her.
"Aurelia," Dorn muttered, his voice rough, gravelly, as if his throat were remembering how to shape words after an age of silence. "Sister."
Her arms were around him instantly, hugging his massive frame with a desperate strength that made her look like a child embracing a statue.
Dorn returned the embrace, his large hand resting gently on her back, taking a moment to fully comprehend the impossibility of his existence. He was no longer dead.
"How… how long?" Dorn managed to ask, pulling back slightly to look at her. He saw the profound weariness etched into her features, the sadness in her celestial eyes, but also an overwhelming relief.
"It has been a long time, brother," Aurelia whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "A very long time. But we have time now. We have time to talk about it all."
Part II – The Unwilling God and the Stone Heart
Rogal Dorn sat draped in the rough-spun, simple robes of his homeworld, Inwit, a stark contrast to the opulence of the Golden Tower and the technological marvels of the Silent Furnace. Hours had passed since his rebirth, and he had spent them absorbing a concentrated history of ten millennia. It was a baptism of fire, a relentless catalogue of decay, betrayal, and slow, agonising ruin. The reality was worse than his darkest nightmares. They had made a mockery of his father. A god. The very concept was anathema to the Imperial Truth they had bled oceans to forge. They had twisted the Emperor's vision into a grotesque idol, a golden calf built on ignorance and fear.
Dorn's colossal fist tightened, the knuckles turning white. The Ecclesiarchy. The Imperial Creed. The utter, pervasive madness of M42. If he had been alive, if he had stood sentinel through these dark ages, he would have purged the Ecclesiarchy root and branch before it ever took hold. He would have razed the temples erected in his father's name, leaving not one stone upon another. He would have made Lorgar's censure at Monarchia look like a gentle reprimand compared to the righteous fury he would have unleashed upon those who dared pervert the Emperor's dream.
But it was too late. Far, far too late. The Ecclesiarchy's roots were tangled deep within the bedrock of the Imperium, inseparable from its survival. The last ten millennia had mutated the Imperium into a horrendous, twisted shadow of its potential, and the bitterest irony was that he was now here to witness it. A cold fury burned in his chest—fury at himself for dying, for failing to hold the line against time itself; fury at the Imperium, at its people, for squandering the sacrifices of billions.
All that blood. All those oaths. The walls I built with my own hands, the sons I sent to their deaths. Decades of war, of relentless expansion, of fighting until my very soul was ash. For… this? For this rotting carcass of an empire? Is this my reward? Is this what we saved?
He wanted to scream, to rage, to smash the delicate machinery around him until his hands bled. That would be Angron's way. Or perhaps Russ's. But he was Rogal Dorn. He was stone. He remained stoic, his face a mask of unyielding granite, though the pressure behind his eyes threatened to crack the façade.
Then he felt it. His sister's small, warm hand covers his colossal fist. A gentle, grounding touch. Slowly, painfully, Dorn drew a deep breath and exhaled, forcing his hand to relax. Aurelia smiled softly, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze.
"You always make that face when you are truly angry," she said, her voice a soothing balm. "The same expression you wore every time Leman decided to snore through your strategic briefings. Though, admittedly, with slightly less… volatility."
Dorn allowed the memory to surface. A flicker of something that might have been a smirk threatened the corner of his mouth, but he suppressed it. He remained outwardly impassive, but internally, the storm began to abate. In her presence, the chaos receded. It was unbecoming for a Primarch to lose control like a petulant child.
"Everything has changed," Dorn said finally, his voice a low, gravelly rumble laden with bitterness. "The Imperium we knew is gone. The dream we fought for… forgotten. Now, these ruins, this corpse-empire, are held together by nothing more than ignorance, zealotry, and stagnation."
"It is," Aurelia replied, offering no platitudes, no denials. "Nothing is as we remember. Our father is a symbol of a religion that should never have been born. Your name, my name… we are figures of myth, almost religious icons."
Dorn scoffed, a harsh, dismissive sound. "Lorgar's work. That damned Lectitio Divinatus. I knew destroying that book should have been a priority. Even Malcador knew it. I wager he is laughing in the afterlife right now."
"We cannot change what the Imperium believes now, brother. The roots are too deep. Trillions upon trillions pray to Father's form daily. I have looked down the paths of many potential futures. None that involve shattering their faith end with victory. The best course, the only course, is to let them believe," Aurelia said, her voice heavy with fatigue.
Dorn's jaw tightened. "To continue the charade? To condone this… lie?"
"We have no other choice," Aurelia sighed. "Besides, the Immaterium is so volatile now that this belief, this immense psychic focus on Father, has… consequences. It has birthed 'miracles'. I must admit, I share some fault in that."
"What do you mean?" Dorn asked, his brow furrowing.
"Over the millennia, the cult of our father—and of me—grew so large that it began to feed the Immaterium. It allowed Father, even in his shattered state, to unconsciously hear them and act. The Adepta Sororitas, the Living Saints… their faith is so profound it shapes reality. It creates a reaction."
Dorn processed this slowly. "So, you are saying they have effectively made him a God, simply by praying to him for ten thousand years?"
Aurelia hummed, searching for the right words. Explaining the fluid, emotional mechanics of the Warp was always a challenge. "Yes, and no. It is… complicated. Emotions, faith, focused intent—all directed at Father—create a resonance in the Warp. You could say that the collective psychic weight of humanity has empowered him, allowing for these 'miracles'. We could discuss the metaphysics for hours, but the tactical reality is this: we cannot stop it. The only thing we can do is use it."
"Use it," Dorn repeated, tasting the pragmatism of the phrase. It was bitter, but familiar.
Aurelia took his hand in both of hers. She knew how hard this was for him. Of all her brothers, Dorn was the most steadfast believer in the Imperial Truth, the most committed to the Emperor's secular vision. For him to witness this descent into superstition was a profound insult to everything he held dear.
"Things are not what they used to be, brother. They never will be again. But as long as we are here, there is hope," Aurelia said, her celestial eyes locking onto his. "Your soul returned because it refused to leave. Because it refused to fail in its duty. Because the Praetorian still needs to hold the wall. And right now, the Imperium is desperate for its Praetorian. It requires your logic. It requires your legendary stubbornness. It requires your cold, unyielding calculation."
Dorn felt the strength in her small hands. "I need you, brother," Aurelia said simply. She didn't order. She didn't beg. She just stated a fact. "I need someone who can help me fix the Imperium."
Dorn looked past her, out the window, where a patch of blue sky, cleared by her atmospheric engines, shone through the smog. His sister had been moving mountains to push back the stagnation. How could he refuse her? How could he stop? No. Dorn was too proud, too driven by duty. His work wasn't done. He had once told his sons: There is no enemy. The foe on the battlefield is merelyt the manifestation of that which we must overcome. And now, the struggle was all that remained.
There was no enemy but doubt, fear, and despair. And Rogal Dorn would not allow the Imperium to fall to them. They would have to drag him screaming into the Sea of Souls before he let the Imperium of Man collapse. They would have to destroy his very soul before he surrendered.
Dorn looked back at his sister and gently squeezed her hand. The stone heart within him began to beat with renewed purpose.
"Where is my armour, sister?" he asked, his voice steady, resolute. "I cannot waste any more time. There is a great deal of work to be done."
Rogal Dorn's gaze fell upon his panoply of war, and for the first time in what felt like aeons, a sense of completion began to displace the lingering void within him. The Auric Armour, that magnificent shell of burnished copper and gold, draped in the blood-red velvet coat of the Praetorian's station, had always been more than mere protection; it was an extension of his will, a physical manifestation of his unyielding duty to Terra. The unfurled eagle-wing motif, etched into the very essence of the gear, declared his guardianship to all who beheld it.
Now, deep within the thrumming heart of Aurelia's secret foundries, he saw that she had honoured that legacy. She understood the sanctity of the architecture he had so meticulously refined. The armour before him was familiar, comforting in its lines, yet profoundly evolved. The core was the same distinctive auri-adamantium alloy, gleaming with the golden light Dorn favoured, but beneath that familiar sheen lay a foundation of Noverrium. This substance, birthed from his sister's genius, surpassed even the holy trinity of adamantium, ceramite, and auramite in sheer defensive capability. More than that, it possessed a latent sentience, a regenerative property that promised to knit the armour back together even as battle sought to tear it asunder. A true masterpiece of engineering, worthy of the Praetorian.
Dorn's analytical mind dissected the upgrades. The life support systems had been radically overhauled, now incorporating reservoirs of a unique bio-foam capable of instantly sealing catastrophic wounds while accelerating the healing of minor lacerations. The communications suite was a fortress unto itself, robust enough to punch through the wildest warp storms or the psychic shrieks of a thousand witches, ensuring his command would never be silenced.
The Teleport Homer, a critical tool in his arsenal, had been refined to a level that bordered on the arcane. It was no longer just a navigational beacon but a conduit, imbued with Aurelia's own essence. It promised pinpoint teleportation across distances that would have been suicide before, piercing the veil of the Immaterium with unerring precision. No interference, no blockage could sever his path. He would never again be caged by despair or distance.
He noted the dedicated mag-locks for his beloved fragmentation grenades, three standard plus additional mountings for newer, more potent ordnance she had undoubtedly devised. She knew his preference for the brutal simplicity of explosives in a siege.
His primary weapons had also been reborn. Storm's Teethwas lost, a casualty of his final, desperate stand, perhaps adorning the trophy rack of some unworthy traitor champion. Dornsblade, the Sword of Sebastus, rested in the reverent care of the Excoriators Space Marine Chapter, and he would not reclaim it. In their stead lay a new chainsword, a brutal masterpiece forged from graded Noverrium and Auramite, its teeth gleaming with a golden hunger. Like Guilliman's blade, The Emperor's Sword, it held a singular, precious core: a single strand of Aurelia's hair woven into the hilt. It was not merely a weapon to erase daemons from existence, though it would do so with terrifying efficiency; it was a shield against the Warp's corruption, a tangible link to the light that held the galaxy together.
And finally, his sidearm. The Voice of Terra was gone, lost to the annals of war. But here lay its successor. It was no simple bolter. Aurelia had resurrected schematics from the deepest vaults of the Dark Age, crafting a unique tactical bolt-action weapon. It was a compact railgun pistol, firing micro-automatic ammunition with devastating force. Linked directly to his bio-signature, it was a weapon no other could wield, a tool of precision destruction fit only for a Primarch.
She had left them unnamed. That right, she silently communicated, belonged to him.
It took the Magos a long time to fully don his armour, and when Dorn was finally clad in his armour, he appeared content.
"You look handsome, brother," Aurelia said, a warm smile gracing her lips as she watched him inspect the wargear.
Dorn turned to her, his face impassive, his mind already calculating loadouts and logistical requirements. "It requires additional hardpoints for modular armament integration, sister," he stated flatly. "I must be able to adapt the defensive configuration."
Aurelia rolled her eyes, a gesture of profound, sisterly exasperation. "I ensured the design was streamlined, brother. As you can clearly see," she pointed to the pauldrons and the spacious interlocking plates on his back and legs, "there is ample capacity for you to attach your… little toys."
Dorn's brow furrowed slightly. "I do not craft 'little toys,' sister," he replied, a note of mild offence in his deep voice. "I engineer necessary strategic implementations."
"And so do I, brother. And yet, I recall a certain detailed scale model of the Phalanx you crafted for me as a child, complete with functioning lumen-strips," Aurelia countered, a triumphant, smug grin spreading across her face.
Dorn sighed, a deep, resonant sound of defeat. He reached out, his massive hand gently patting her head, a gesture he had used when she was small enough to ride on his shoulder. Aurelia smiled, leaning into the touch, savouring the connection.
"I am so happy you are back," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
Dorn, rarely one for overt displays of emotion, let his hand linger for a moment longer. "You have done well, sister. Exceptionally well. If there is any soul capable of dragging humanity from this abyss, it is you."
"I am not alone in this journey," Aurelia replied.
"No. You are not. But you are the catalyst. The only one truly capable of uniting us under a single banner: Hope. It was something our brothers or I could not wield without faltering. Yet, after everything, you still hope." He looked down at her, seeing both the child he had protected and the leader she had become. The Imperium needed her light now more than ever.
"Focus on the Imperium, sister. I shall be your Wall."
Aurelia looked up at him, her eyes shining. "Will you speak with Guilliman? And Father?"
Dorn's expression grew pensive. "I shall speak with Father. If time permits. There are questions that have grown in my silence. Secrets he kept from us. From me." Aurelia nodded understandingly. The Emperor's secrecy had been a festering wound for many of his sons. She knew Guilliman had communed with him before departing, though the nature of their discourse remained private. Her own grievances were different; she had not led armies into the meat grinder of the Great Crusade, had not watched thousands of gene-sons die for a dream that was half-lie. She could empathise, but not fully understand the depth of their betrayal.
"I hope you find the answers you seek, brother. Some peace of mind."
"And once that is done," Dorn continued, his voice firming, "I shall speak with Guilliman. I require a detailed briefing on the objectives of this Indomitus Crusade."
Aurelia chuckled softly. "And I suspect you will have some rather pointed observations regarding the current state of Terra's defences."
Dorn's eyes narrowed slightly, confirming her suspicion. "Indeed. There are… significant inefficiencies to be addressed."
Part III– The Calculus of Harmony
The Tau'va, the unifying philosophy that underpinned the T'au Empire, served as a potent, if somewhat opaque, anchor for its diverse citizenry. For those born outside the blue-skinned elite—the teeming human Gue'vesa and the allied client races—it was often a concept more felt than understood. It was the guarantee of food, of shelter, of a life free from the random cruelty that defined existence elsewhere in the grim galaxy. For some Gue'vesa, old habits died hard; they whispered prayers to the God-Emperor and the Princess in the privacy of their hab-blocks, yet lived outwardly by the tenets of the Greater Good. But slowly, inevitably, a new faith was taking root, a fervent belief in the Tau'va itself, not just as a philosophy, but as a nascent religion. This growing spiritual fervour, Aurelia knew, would eventually yield a startling surprise for the T'au, as the Warp inevitably noticed this fresh concentration of belief.
For the Princess Aurelia, however, the Greater Good was easily dissected: a structured renunciation of individualism for the perceived benefit of the collective. The individual was nothing; the society was all. Yet, she also saw the shadows beneath the rhetoric. Who defined the "greater good"? The Ethereals. Who selected the sacrifices? The Ethereals. Who decided what should be censored, or known? The Ethereal. The T'au leadership employed social engineering, annexation, and darker methods with a clinical detachment that would have made an Imperial Inquisitor nod in grim approval. Some, even in this egalitarian utopia, were clearly more "equal" than others.
Which more often than not. It was the Ethereals who chose that.
Aurelia did not judge them harshly. To do so would be profound hypocrisy. The Imperium's history was paved with brainwashing, genocide, vicious assimilation and the brutal destruction of anything it deemed deviant. She saw the T'au for what they were: a young, vigorous empire, fervently believing in its manifest destiny to rule the stars. They could get in line.
But she also saw their fragility. The T'au Empire was tiny, barely spanning a sector. Against the titanic forces of the Great Rift, the awakening Necrons, the green tide of Orks, and the extragalactic horror of the Tyranids, the T'au were racing against a doomsday clock they could barely hear ticking.
Thus, when the Princess's signal arrived, the Ethereals were plunged into a state of bewildered intrigue.
In a minimalist, harmonious chamber, Aun'Jash studied the message decrypted from the Tal'hyen relay network. It was not a fragmented plea from a desperate frontier world, but a formal transmission from Terra itself, bearing the seal of an authority they had only known through the hushed legends of their Gue'vesa subjects.
"Her Imperial Highness, Aurelia Aeternitas Primus… Princess of the Imperium," Aun'Jash recited, his voice devoid of the usual serene arrogance, replaced by a focused intensity. The T'au knew little of her beyond the statues and the myths. They had debated whether the "God-Emperor" was a historical warlord or a pure fabrication of social control. When they had unearthed ancient statues of the Princess in the conquered worlds of the Jericho Reach, they assumed she was a similar relic, a symbol of mercy to counterbalance the Emperor's judgement.
But the Fifth Sphere of Expansion had unearthed truths that shook that assumption.
Earth Caste scientists had stood stunned before the impossible architecture of the Astra Relays, void-fortresses of communication that defied conventional understanding. They marvelled at the simple, robust genius of the Iteritas Antennae, a web of signal masts that allowed messages to cross vast distances in mere hours—a technology the Princess had designed ten millennia ago. They had recovered weapons like the Volkite Corona, elegant energy carbines that the Water Caste coveted and the Fire Caste eagerly adopted, marvelling at their balance and lethality. And the Corona-Edge Falchions, phase blades of exquisite sharpness, had been swiftly reverse-engineered and issued to elite cadres.
The conclusion was inescapable: the Princess was real. She was a scientist and engineer of unparalleled brilliance from humanity's zenith. And she had returned. The Gue'vesa rumours of a sleeping sovereign awakening to heal a wounded empire were not, it seemed, mere fables.
Aun'Jash looked at the holographic map of the Fifth Sphere. It was a success, yes, but a constrained one. The human worlds of the Jericho Reach remained stubbornly loyal to the Imperium, resisting the light of the Greater Good with ferocious tenacity. But that was a long-term problem. The immediate threat was existential.
Aun'Fyr sat beside him, his expression grim. "This is either an unprecedented opportunity or a dangerous compromise," Aun'Jash stated.
"The Gue'vesa Princess is a variable we failed to account for," Aun'Fyr agreed. "But the path she illuminates is blindingly beneficial."
They turned to Aun'Kath'an, the Prime Ethereal present. He read the message again, his ancient eyes narrowing.
"It is an invitation for peace," Aun'Kath'an said. "But peace is a word the Imperium does not know."
"Perhaps," Aun'Jash countered, "we should parley. If she did not believe peace possible, she would not have sent this. We face profound threats on our own borders. If we can secure an official treaty with the true power of the Imperium, we can regroup. We can rearm. We can focus on the imminent annihilation heading for the Fifth Sphere."
He gestured to the grim readouts. Hive Fleet Colossus was driving towards the Empire's heart. Hive Fleet Sicalis threatened the expansion zone. Cronos and Naga were advancing from the south, slowed only by the desperate resistance of Imperial worlds the Imperium had abandoned to buy time. Add to this the Ork Waaaghs! and the awakening Necron dynasties, and the equation was simple: survival required focus.
"True," Aun'Fyr conceded, leaning back. "One less enemy is a victory in itself."
"We must allow ourselves a measure of pragmatism," Aun'Jash pressed. "The Princess could be a faithful ally. If we must compromise to secure our borders against the Great Devourer, we should. We can delay the Sixth Sphere of Expansion. We can plant seeds of cooperation among the Imperial border worlds, show them the benefits of the Greater Good through alliance rather than conquest. In time, they may join us willingly."
"Far better than war," Aun'Fyr hummed. "And it would solidify the loyalty of our Gue'vesa. To see their 'divine goddess' seeking cooperation with us… It would vindicate their choice."
"We must be patient," Aun'Kath'an decided. "We will meet this envoy. We will compromise. We will secure our flanks and deal with the immediate threats. And," he added, a flicker of ambition in his eyes, "we should not discard the possibility that the Princess herself might be amenable to… further enlightenment."
"Do you believe she could convert?" Aun'Fyr asked.
"She is a woman of science and logic," Aun'Jash reasoned. "She comes from an age of reason. Perhaps she, too, is disturbed by what her Imperium has become. If she sees the logic of the Greater Good, the efficiency, the order… who is to say? It is a win-win situation."
The vote was cast. The logic was sound.
"We must inform the Ethereal Council," Aun'Kath'an said. "We need an envoy. Aun'Jash, are you prepared?"
"I am," Aun'Jash replied, his voice steady. "I brought the Pohu-Agg into the fold. I will speak with this human envoy. I will hear the Princess's terms, and I will deliver ours."
"So be it," the Prime Ethereal declared. The T'au Empire would step onto a new stage, ready to negotiate with the giants of the galaxy.
Part IV – Farsight and the Forbidden Horizon
The interception of the transmission sent a tremor of bewildered intrigue through the enigmatic command structure of the Farsight Enclaves. It was a communication of a nature Commander O'Shovah—Farsight—had never truly dared to contemplate: a formal, interdictor-level diplomatic overture between the monolithic Imperium of Mankind and the T'au Empire. What stunned him most was not the message itself, but its provenance. It did not bear the seal of the labyrinthine, notoriously xenophobic High Lords of Terra or the fever and mad zeal of a Cardinal. Instead, it was authorised by a title that resonated with myth and resurgent power: Her Imperial Highness, the Princess-Regent, Aurelia Aeternitas Primus.
"Why now?" Farsight muttered, his gaze fixed on the data-slate, the glowing text a stark anomaly in his life of constant war. He would have been utterly lost in the mire of Imperial politics were it not for his unlikely companion, a woman who offered him piercing insights into the labyrinthine workings of humanity.
"What can you tell me about this?" Farsight asked, turning to Inquisitor Vykola Herat. A self-proclaimed radical, she stood as a testament to the strange bedfellows war creates. Their relationship was a construct of necessity, circumstance, and mutual, grudging respect. Was there trust? Oddly enough, yes. Farsight was an exile, a pariah in the eyes of the Ethereals he had forsaken. Herat was a radical, her methods bordering on heresy and traitorous in the eyes of her own rigid order. In a galaxy of absolutes, two outcasts found common ground.
"It is truly a legitimate message," Herat stated, her voice tinged with a rare note of genuine surprise.
"What can you tell me about your… Princess?" he pressed. Herat hesitated, a flicker of uncertainty crossing her features.
"I… I cannot say with absolute certainty. I have been estranged from Terra for so long. When rumours first reached me last year that the Princess had awakened, I dismissed them as lies, cruel fictions born of daemonic trickery. But I have maintained my networks. My associates have kept me informed." She paused, as if gathering her thoughts. "To hear that a Primarch, Roboute Guilliman, has returned and assumed the mantle of Lord Commander was shock enough. But to learn that the Princess, the Emperor's own daughter, has returned as Regent… it defies belief. Yet, the evidence is overwhelming. The Indomitus Crusadehas launched, a fleet the likes of which the galaxy has not seen since the dawn of your species' history. The Aeternum-Maximus Behemoths—myths made metal—are no longer dormant guardians but active instruments of war. Primaris Space Marines, new technologies pouring from her personal foundries… it all points to one conclusion. The Imperium is being led by the architects of its own Golden Age."
"I know little of what ancient books and scrolls stated, that the Princess was… a scientist, a creator of unparalleled genius during the Great Crusade," Herat continued, her voice gaining strength. "She created wonders that, even now, after ten millennia of stagnation, surpass anything the Imperium has built since. In fact," she met Farsight's gaze, "they surpass anything your species has built."
"More advanced than the T'au Empire?" Farsight asked. It wasn't a challenge, merely a request for tactical assessment. Herat nodded grimly.
"You have no idea, Commander. The T'au Empire may field a more advanced army than perhaps seventy percent of the current Imperial forces. But if you were to face the full might of what the Princess created… the T'au would lose. Badly. You have not witnessed the shields of an Aquila-class Battlecruiser. It's not Void Shield at all, but a shielding technology that defies convention. You have not faced the weaponry of a Stellaris-class Battleship, weapons so esoteric your sensors would struggle to classify the energy signatures before your ships were atomised. And the Aeternum-Maximus Behemoths… they are ninety-five kilometres long. Their main arrays can generate localised singularities capable of swallowing a planet. And the Colossi of Terra… walking mountains three times the size of an Imperator Titan, firing weapons that unmake matter at a molecular level."
"A ninety-five-kilometre-long battleship?" he muttered, seeing her face and knowing she was speaking the facts.
Farsight listened, his strategic mind grappling with the implications. He had held captured Imperial weapons, marvels of a bygone era that defied the primitive aesthetics of the modern Imperium. There was truth in her words.
"We have destroyed their titans before," Farsight countered, testing the limits of her assertion. Herat laughed, a dry, painful sound.
"Not the Colossi of Terra. They are relics of a lost age, so powerful and advanced that humanity forgot how to forge them… until now."
"Until now," Farsight repeated, the weight of the words settling upon him. Herat nodded slowly.
"And not only that. A Primarch is back. A demi-god of war."
"So, it is dangerous," he concluded.
"Yes. But if she is willing to seek peace with the T'au Empire, then she must see the bigger picture. Or she is buying time," Herat mused.
"We will never know unless we seek the answers ourselves," Farsight said.
"If there is anyone who truly understands the nature of the enemy, it is her," Herat said, gesturing to a galactic map displaying the Great Rift. The T'au had detected it—a strange, rhythmic pulse emanating from the Rift's edges. Kroot shamans spoke of a blinding, non-corruptive light. It was a wave of energy, crashing against the Rift, holding it in place, even pushing it back in sectors. The Ethereals dismissed it as a stellar anomaly that was working in their favour. Yet, Farsight suspected more.
"It comes from Terra," Herat confirmed. "They say the Segmentum Solar is peaceful. That daemons cannot manifest there anymore."
"How?" Farsight asked, his confusion genuine.
"They say it is the Princess's power. Her aura alone causes that ripple effect, crashing against the Great Rift, holding reality together," she murmured, struggling to comprehend such scale. "If true… we are speaking of the greatest psyker in existence, save perhaps the Emperor himself."
"So, what do we do?" Farsight mumbled. His goals remained: the survival of the T'au, freedom from Ethereal control. He did not want war with his kin, but he craved the truth of the Warp, the nature of the daemons he fought. "Could the Princess know more? About what lies beyond?"
Herat paused. "Perhaps… if her power is truly holding the galaxy together, she must know more."
"Could I… meet her?"
Herat looked at him as if he had lost his mind. "You would die before you reached Terra's orbit. The Inquisition would kill you on sight. And me," she added coldly. "But… maybe I could get a message to her. If I could speak with the Envoy… find a way to establish direct contact. And if that fails… I could go to Terra myself."
Farsight nodded, a rare expression of gratitude on his face. "Thank you, Inquisitor."
"Don't thank me yet. I could still die," she muttered, already planning the impossible.
Meanwhile, on Terra, Princess Aurelia sat at her desk, reviewing logistical reports for the new Railgun Bolter rifles and the new Proton Carbine for the Space Marines Chapters. Her left eye was closed. When she opened it, a thoughtful hum escaped her lips. She had just witnessed the conversation between Farsight and Herat as clearly as if she had been standing in the room. She understood now why the chapter of the future she had glimpsed had guided her attention to them.
"Interesting. But how should I play this?" she mumbled, mentally closing the window of Omnipresence. She rubbed her eyes, a wave of fatigue washing over her. Opening her omnipresent sight while in her physical body always resulted in a headache; the influx of information was overwhelming without the buffer of the Basilica Liminalis.
"Mm, Commander Farsight. It appears he has seen the true enemy… perhaps I should help him open his eyes a little wider," Aurelia whispered. She refocused on her work, her mind already spinning threads of fate, weaving a plan to aid the exile Commander Farsight, who dared to look into the abyss.
Author's note!
I am trying to avoid bias when it comes to the T'au Empire. I don't want to downplay their strength or consider them weak; I'm just working with what I know about them. The portrayal of the Ethereals in the lore is quite inconsistent. In some sources, they come across as utterly naive, while in others, they are depicted as vicious and manipulative (at least in the books I'm currently reading).
This makes it challenging to engage with the lore. However, I am genuinely enjoying Commander Farsight and Commander Shadowsun, although I wish there were more books featuring her. If there are any T'au fans out there, I apologize if my perspective seems limited.
Additionally, I'm having difficulty determining the size of the T'au Empire. Some sources and fans suggest there are around 500 worlds, while others state there could be about 1,000 when including the Fifth Sphere of Expansion. It's difficult to pin down, so I'll go with the figure of 1,000 planets; it's simpler for me to work with.
Thank you all, and see you later!