‘This whole world burned under a crusade I led almost two centuries ago. I dreamed of god’s arrival. I suffered hallucinations, visions, nightmares and trances. Night after night after night. Sometimes, I would wake at dawn to find blood running from my eyes and ears, and our father’s face burned into my mind. Of course, I was too young, too naive, to realise what I was. How could I know what psychic power boiled within me, seeking a release? I was not you, to know from birth how to control my sixth sense. I am not Russ, to be able to howl and have every wolf in the world howl with me. My powers always fired in fits and bursts, coming in feasts or famines. I was eight years old when I realised that some people had pleasant dreams instead of endless nightmares. Nothing could have shocked me more.’ Magnus remained silent. Despite all their talks, all their closeness, this was a tale he’d not heard from his brother’s lips before. Lorgar closed his eyes and continued. ‘I waged a holy war in the name of a father who finally descended from above, saw the oceans of blood and tears shed in his name, and simply didn’t care. I wasted my youth hunched over scripture and religious codices, planning for the messiah’s coming, believing he would give meaning to all human life – meaning that thousands of human cultures are forever seeking. And I was wrong.’ ‘The Emperor brought meaning,’ said Magnus. ‘Just not the meaning you hoped for.’ ‘He brought as many questions as he did answers. Father is hollowed through, infested by secrets. I hate that about him. He is a creature incapable of trust.’ Another pause reached out between them. At last, Lorgar smiled, bleak and unamused. ‘Perhaps he did bring meaning. But he did not bring the meaning humanity needs. That’s what matters.’ ‘Go on,’ Magnus said. ‘Finish the thought.’ ‘Since then I have crusaded across his empire for over a century, raising icons and faiths in his image – and only now he objects? After a hundred years, only now am I told that all I’ve done is wrong?’ Magnus kept his silence. The doubt he felt shone through his narrowed eye. 'Magnus,’ Lorgar smiled as he saw the emotion on his brother’s face, ‘only the truly divine deny their divinity. It’s written thus in countless human cultures. He never denied his godhood when he first came to Colchis to take me into the stars. You were there. He witnessed weeks of celebrations in his honour, never once rebuking me for lauding him as a god. And since then? He has watched me crusade for him, never saying a word about what I’ve done. Only now, at Monarchia, did he bring down his wrath. When he decided my faith had to be broken, after more than a century.’ ... 'Is this about Monarchia?’ Magnus asked. ‘Everything is about Monarchia,’ Lorgar admitted. ‘It all changed in that moment, brother. The way I see the worlds we conquer. My hopes for the future. Everything.’ ‘I can imagine.’ ‘Do not patronise me,’ Lorgar snapped. ‘With the greatest respect, Magnus, you cannot imagine this. Did the lord of all human life descended upon you, burn your greatest achievements to ash and dust, and then tell you that you – and you alone – were a failure? Did he throw your precious Thousand Sons to the ground and tell your entire Legion that every soul wearing their armour was a wasted life?’ ‘Lorgar—’ ‘What? What? I spent decades on Colchis dreaming of the day god himself would arrive and lead humanity to the empyrean. I raised a religion in his honour. For over a hundred years, I have spread that faith in his name, believing he matched every dream, every prophecy, every mythic poem about the ascension of the human race. Now I am told my life was a lie; that I have ruined countless civilisations with false faith; that every one of my brothers who laughed at me for seeking a greater purpose in life was right to laugh at our bloodline’s only fool..."