On the command ship Bucephalus, at the heart of a fleet that eclipsed suns, the Emperor of Mankind was a colossus of gold and silent will. Seated on His throne, His mind traversed the currents of the Immaterium, guiding the legions of the Great Crusade, weaving the destiny of humanity.
Suddenly, a minuscule disturbance. Not a tear, not a scream. A match being struck in an endless night.
His eyes opened, eyes that had seen the birth of stars and the fall of civilizations. The immense psychic presence surrounding Him, the War Council, felt the shift of His attention, a change in air pressure like before a storm.
"Father?" murmured Horus Lupercal, His favored son, standing at His side.
The Emperor did not respond immediately. His consciousness, vast as a galaxy, focused. Far, very far, in an unlisted peripheral sector, a flame. Young. New. It did not have the chaotic brutality of a psyker emerging in panic, nor the nascent discipline of the psykers He was secretly training. It burned with a strange stability, a confidence that had no place in a universe where psychic power was a curse.
That was not all. Around this small flame, other glimmers. Sparks of technologies unknown to Him, patterns of non-human thought, a cold artificial logic, and the distant echo of a warrior's chant from no world of the Imperium.
A colony? An Adeptus Mechanicus experiment? No. The signature was too isolated, too... idiosyncratic.
"An anomaly," the Emperor finally pronounced, His voice a contained thunder that made the air tremble. "In Sector K-227. An emerging psychic presence. Stable."
Malcador the Sigillite, His regent, raised an eyebrow. "A controlled awakening? Without our guidance? Is it possible?"
"Apparently, yes. And it is not the only strangeness. I sense... an architecture that is not Ours. A mechanical presence that is not that of the Machines."
Horus straightened up, the conqueror's interest awakening in him. "A lost civilization? Xenos? Should I divert a fleet, Father? The Luna Wolves can..."
"No," the Emperor interrupted, His gaze piercing the veils of space and time, fixed on that distant point. "Not yet. This flame is weak. Curious. It does not pray. It does not beg. It... builds."
There was a nuance of interest in His voice, a feeling so rare it left the Council speechless.
"Do we observe it, Father?" asked Malcador.
"Yes. For now. Someone, or something, has lit a candle in the darkness. I wish to see if it will extinguish itself... or if it will become a blaze."
His gaze turned away from the distant sector, but a tiny part of His immense consciousness remained anchored there, a silent sentinel observing the small flame named Julius Braveheart.
The Great Crusade continued its inexorable course, swallowing stars. But henceforth, in a forgotten corner of the galaxy, another story, tiny and fragile, had attracted the attention of the master of humanity. The Emperor had noticed. And in this universe, being noticed by Him was both a blessing and the worst of condemnations.