On the planet Elsyon located on the edge of the Segmentum Pacificus was cloistered an order of Adeptus Soritas. This order was founded solely to house and guard the heart of Saint Elsabet. Elsabet was a gifted warrior touched by the voice of the Emperor. Her battle groups, The Order of the Sleeping Saint were known throughout the Segmentum for various campaigns against the orc hordes. When Elsabet fell in battle to the warboss Grok her body exploded with psionic force decimating most of his horde and leaving him terribly scarred. All that remained of Elsabet was her heart thrumming with the song of the Emperor and pulsing with Psionic energy.
The Order of the Sleeping Saint broke off one quarter of their force, erecting a shrine on the very spot where Elsabet last stood. Encased in a tabernacle of gold stood The heart of Saint Elsabet watched over by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. For decades this convent stood on Elsyon so named for the sister’s beloved saint.
With the power of the Sacred heart and their love for the emperor they were successful in repelling the Waagh of Grok the Terrible. It seemed no force could stand against the radiance of this powerful artifact and the chosen that bore it into battle.
Deep in space there was a stir, the psionic force of Elsabet's martyrdom had sent waves through the segmentum, Waves which reached the very edge of the galaxy. Like a sleeping giant Hive Fleet Dagon rose to the call and uncoiled its mighty tendrils out toward Elsyon, seeking hungrily the source of this unknown power.
When the first Genestealers arrived, the Order of the Sacred Heart scoffed at their pitiful attempts to take the Cathedra. So blinded by countless victories the sisters of the Heart began to believe by the will of the Emperor they could never fall so long as the Heart stood. For the first years of the conflict it seemed this much was the truth.
For ten years the order held against countless waves of Termagrunts and Genestealer hordes. When the first Tyrannofex landed along with a retinue of hive guard it seemed the light of the Heart dimmed. The following battles were the most violent ever seen by the order and though many of their sisters had fallen, still their faith stood strong. As the hoard approached ever closer to the Cathedra, Coquette Mother Superior of the order called for support from a nearby Battle barge under the command of the Ultramarines.
As the doors to the Cathedra crumbled, the high pitched whistle of objects piercing the atmosphere could be heard. Reinforcements had arrived; by the will of the Emperor they were saved. The first blast startled Coquette from her prayer as she looked out from the stained glass bell tower. The Ultramarines had sent bombs not pods of marines but tactical nuclear munitions. Soon the horizon was littered with mushroom clouds, each blast closer and closer to the Cathedra.
Mother Coquette got on the radio to the Captain of the Barge "What in the Emperor's name are you doing Astartes! We still breathe on Elsyon! We still fight!"
The radio was silent for what seemed like ages before it crackled to life. "You have fought bravely Soritas... Your war is over. We cannot allow this Hive to survive... your sacrifice will be remembered."
Coquette looked out in horror as hundreds of shadows grew over the field like specters of daemons come to test her faith. She stood in silence before the exquisite window depicting the final stand of Saint Elsabet and a tear ran down her face.
with a whisper she spoke one last time. "For the Emperor..."
The sky lit like the fire of a thousand suns burning the image of Elsabet's heart onto Coquette’s face, she had no time to scream in pain as the shock force sent the glass and metal into her like a thousand spears crucifying her to the far wall.
The hordes of Fleet Dagon melted and popped under the heat of the blasts. Elsyon breathed life no more. The very mantle of the planet cracked and bared by the orbital bombardment.
In the ruin of the Cathedra stood the Tabernacle untouched, surrounded by piles of the melted corpses of both Soritas and Tyranid alike. There was movement beneath the pile, a single clawed hand reaching out from beneath the death and fire grasping the Heart of the Saint.
A single surviving genestealer amid the chaos of of the most terrible of battles. He held aloft his prize and screeched out a cry of victory. The heart began to shift its glow what was once golden light as if from the very throne itself now turned a sickly green. A tendril shot from the heart straight through the chest of the genestealer, then another and another until every corpse within the ruins was connected to the heart itself. The power of the Heart flowed through the tendrils into the corpses mixing the genes, creating perfection.
This perfection crafted from the best of the Order and the worst of the hive. Biomass was harvested from every available source. The heart stood within the tabernacle and began to form a cocoon around itself.
On the seventh day the cocoon fractured with a hiss flowing a soupy phosphorescent gel over the decaying remains of the Soritas and Tyranid hordes. From within the cocoon stepped a slender human leg no longer pink but ran with a sickly purple hue. Her body was that of the Saint reformed from the biomass of the fallen and mingled with the genetics of Hive Dagon. From beneath a crown of scaled armor her eye glowed a fierce green which illuminated her face and nude body, still slick with the amniotic fluid of the cocoon.
This day from the heart of a Saint a new queen was born, Ithra hive tyrant of Fleet Dagon, Mother to all.
