Canoness Elivia’s quarters have been devastated. The deck is ruptured and deformed, and the supporting arches are cracked and blackened. Every weapon is missing from the racks on the walls. Nothing remains of Elivia’s maps and charts but scraps of vellum. Only the gnarlwood table is left. It is burned, and blackened. Split across its face and limbs. But it still stands in spite of the damage wrought upon it, as do those summoned to gather around it.
Elivia’s two Celestians take up position on either side of the Canoness commander, as always. Beatris and Radah are both newly scarred, in flesh and in armour. Inquisitor Ravara is the next to arrive. She goes without her lightweight, layered armour, clad solely in her indigo tunic and trousers, and soft, flat shoes. Her face is set and still, but her gait is awkward and slower than it should be, and she has to use a cane to walk. Ravara only has one member of her retinue with her. Just the marksman. Zoric is limping, too, his pale eyes deeply shadowed. Lastly come two representatives of the Vow’s crew. The first is Ulivar Okash. The second is the Vow’s new senior security officer and master-at-arms, a broad-shouldered, badly scarred woman clad in carapace whose ident marker names her as Quinn. As is the case all across the ship, the lumens have failed, so the only light comes from the clusters of tall, twisted candles and the half-hearted starlight filtering in through the frosted armaglass of the viewport. It grants Elivia a faint and flickering halo as she leans forward, gauntleted hands resting on the surface of the gnarlwood table.
‘Let us begin with the obvious,’ she says. ‘Our location.’ She looks at Okash. ‘I trust you have an answer for me, first officer?’
Okash nods. The Vow’s first officer has all the traits of the void-born. He is tall and slender in an angular way, as though he has been made solely from straight edges. Okash’s eyes are large and deep-set and entirely dark. Looking at him reminds me of Dallia and Wyllo. Of cold blood, and the sound of sobbing.
‘Our capacity to determine our exact coordinates is diminished, Canoness, but I can offer an estimated location based on what information we do have.’
Elivia does not prompt him other than to stare at him. Okash nods again, and his eyes go back to the slate in his hand.
‘The charts and data put us somewhere in inter-sector space, corewards of Cypra Mundi, well within the Segmentum Obscurus.’
‘That’s good,’ Zoric says. ‘Right?’
‘It is and it isn’t,’ Okash says. ‘We have a long way to go before we are even close to Dimmamar.’
‘So we jump again,’ Ravara says, fixing Okash with her amber eyes. ‘And then again, if we have to. We keep making warp translations until we reach our destination.’
Okash’s thin cheeks colour. ‘I beg forgiveness, inquisitor, but it’s not so simple.’
Ravara does not break eye contact. ‘Enlighten me,’ she says.
‘The stress of sailing is killing the Navigator,’ Okash says. ‘According to the medicae staff assigned to her care, Lady Oraylis has suffered seizures and multiple minor heart failures.’ Okash pauses. He takes a breath. ‘They have had to bind her arms to her throne to prevent her from scratching out her seer’s eye.’
‘Does she refuse to sail?’ Ravara asks.
Okash blinks. He looks down at the slate. ‘No, lord.’
‘Then I don’t see the issue.’
Okash looks to Elivia as if to plead with her, but the Canoness merely shakes her head.
‘The inquisitor has it right,’ Elivia says. ‘We have made an oath to find the Shield, Okash. The sacrifices made by House Oraylis are noted, but they need not be subject to sorrow. The God-Emperor loves all martyrs.’
Everyone around the table bows their heads momentarily at the mention of Him, and so do I, but I cannot help thinking of the words Qi-Oh spoke in anger in the training halls.
It is all because of you.
‘How many translations do you expect it will take for us to reach Dimmamar?’ Elivia asks, after the quiet moment passes.
Okash frowns. ‘That depends on the Navigator,’ he says. ‘And on the Vow herself. The ship is ailing badly from our passage through the Rift. Hull integrity is averaging no more than sixty-five per cent. We can have either lances or shields, but not both. Main propulsion drives are operating at reduced capacity. The Vow is coming apart at the seams.’
‘What about the Geller field?’ Zoric asks. ‘If it fails again–’
Okash shakes his head. ‘It did not fail. It flickered.’ He checks his slate again. ‘According to reports, the field was compromised for less than a thousandth of a second.’
Zoric stares at him, his scarred arms folded. ‘I think we’d all agree that was plenty,’ he says.
‘Enough,’ Elivia says. ‘Will the Geller field hold, Okash?’
The first officer takes a breath. ‘It is currently stable, Canoness. That is all that I can offer you by way of an answer.’
‘The ship will hold,’ Ravara says simply. ‘I have seen it.’
‘And the crew?’ Quinn asks. Her accent is not clipped and studied like Okash’s. Quinn’s rough-edged voice is broad and lilting. Almost lyrical. ‘We lost near thirty-six per cent of the active crew to the incursions suffered during transit, then another twelve per cent of those remaining to the purges that followed.’
‘They are not the only ones to have lost,’ Elivia says. ‘We left Terra with a combined commandery of near four hundred Sisters, plus non-militant auxiliaries. There are fewer than two hundred and fifty of us, now.’
The Canoness’ voice is cold and impatient, but Quinn does not waver.
‘But your Sisters are not afraid, Canoness,’ she says. ‘They are not broken. The people are starving and wounded. They are coming apart, just like the Vow.’
‘We will aid them.’
I speak the words so instinctively that I hardly realise that they are mine until everyone looks at me.
‘We will lead prayer for those who are fearful,’ I say. ‘We will give up our rations to feed the hungry and we will ease the passing of the injured.’
Quinn looks at me, but not quite in the eyes. Her gaze, like everyone else’s, alights on my scars. ‘Blessings be with you, Sister Superior,’ she says, as if I am benevolent, and not selfish. As if I have not made the offer in order to quash my own guilt at the deaths and the torment and the blood spent.
It is all because of you.
‘It is settled, then,’ Elivia says. She straightens up from the table and looks at Okash. ‘We go onwards to Dimmamar.’
‘No matter the cost,’ Ravara says.
Okash’s dark eyes are shiny. Reflective, like polished armour plate, but he does not argue. He merely nods.
‘Aye, lords,’ he says. ‘No matter the cost.’