‘The Lady Oraylis is dead,’ Elivia says.
The Canoness is leaning heavily on the gnarlwood table in her chambers, backlit by starlight. Haloed by it. Those standing around the table react differently to her words. Okash makes the sign of the aquila with his pale hands, head bowed. Quinn mutters a curse under her breath. Zoric shakes his head. Inquisitor Ravara does not move at all. Not even to blink. I have not seen Ravara since before the jumps. The inquisitor looks to be hurting less. She no longer needs a cane to stand or walk, and though her face is hollowed by her injuries, her eyes are bright and keen, like those of something that hunts.
‘With no Navigator, we are limited to realspace travel,’ Elivia says. ‘Which means we need to work out exactly where we are, and how far we have yet to go.’ She looks at Okash. ‘I trust you have an answer for me, shipmaster?’
Okash hesitates a moment before he nods. It is a hesitation I recognise. One that signifies the disassociation he feels regarding his new rank. It is apparent, too, in the way he looks. Since inheriting the command throne from Vallien, Ulivar Okash has become even more angular. Even thinner. His edgeless eyes are surrounded by circles so dark they could be bruises.
‘The Vow’s augeries were damaged during translation, but according to the charts and data, we have exited the warp at the Aschen-Proxima Mandeville point.’ Okash pauses, as if he is making certain of his next words. ‘Which puts us within a week’s realspace sailing of Dimmamar.’
There is a moment of quiet around the table.
‘You are sure?’ Elivia asks.
Okash nods. ‘As sure as I can be, Canoness,’ he says.
‘Then where’s the fleet?’ Quinn says. Like the shipmaster, she too has been affected by the weight of her new role. Quinn’s eyes are bloodshot, her cropped hair untidy and matted. ‘At the very least there should be a picket line at the system’s borders.’
Okash does not answer. Instead he takes a palm-sized device and places it on the table, activating it with a push of a heavyweight key. A fragmented hololith flickers to life, populated with what looks like shreds of parchment, scattered to the winds.
‘What am I looking at, shipmaster?’ Elivia asks.
Okash’s eyes are locked on those slivers of green light.
‘The Navy picket line,’ he says. ‘Or what’s left of it.’
‘Mercy and grace,’ Quinn mutters.
‘It would seem both have been in short supply out here,’ Ravara says, then she looks at Okash. ‘Can you say what killed them?’
Okash shakes his head. ‘Not with certainty.’ He reaches out and presses the hololith key again, and the projection flickers a second time, resolving a closer look at one of the broken ships. Despite the distortion, I can see how violent the ship’s death must have been. How swift.
‘From what is visible, I would hazard a guess at lances and cannons.’ Okash rotates the hololith with a slender hand and frowns. ‘Going by the dispersal of the wreckage and the degree of destruction, whatever hit them did so with a great deal of power and accuracy. They blew straight through the line.’
Ravara’s eyes go back to the hololith, and the rotating wreckage of the Navy ships.
‘And where did they go, after they blew straight through the line?’ she asks.
Okash shakes his head. ‘Impossible to say,’ he says. ‘There are no signs of any warp-wake, and the remains of the picket have drifted too far to determine anything much else. Even accounting for how we might have affected the wreckage with our own arrival, the dispersal pattern suggests that the damage is weeks old. Months, even. And that is without adjusting for time and spatial dilation. Whatever it was, it’s long gone now.’
‘I suppose we should count ourselves lucky,’ Quinn says. ‘We’re in no shape to fight.’
Ravara shakes her head. ‘There is no such thing as luck,’ she says. ‘There is only destiny. A thousand paths might take you to it, but the ending is already set.’
‘Inescapable,’ I say.
Ravara looks at me through the hololith. The green light recasts her amber eyes in jade.
‘Before she died, the Lady Oraylis told me that she should not have been able to find the way through the darkness, but that she did anyway. That it felt like the pull of something inescapable.’
Zoric frowns. ‘That sounds ominous.’
Ravara ignores him, still focused on me. ‘Did Oraylis say how she did it?’ she asks.
‘No,’ I tell her. ‘All that Oraylis said was that she knew exactly where to place her feet, even though she could not see the path.’
Ravara’s hand goes to her collar and rests there a moment.
‘Our mission is ordained,’ Elivia says. ‘It is the God-Emperor’s will. That is how the Navigator found the path. It is how the Vow survived the tides. It is intended.’
‘Yes,’ Ravara says, as her hand falls away again. ‘It is destiny.’
‘And ours awaits on Dimmamar,’ Elivia says. ‘So we had better hasten towards it.’ She looks at Okash. ‘All speed, shipmaster.’
He nods. ‘As much as I can give, Canoness.’
Then Okash takes his leave, and Quinn follows him. Before Ravara can do the same I approach her.
‘I would speak with you,’ I tell her.
Ravara’s face remains impassive, but she nods. She dismisses Zoric with a word and we walk from the Canoness’ chambers together into the Vow’s transitways until we are far enough from others to be considered alone. Up here, on the ship’s spine, the walls are built from armaglass as well as iron, so starlight takes the place of candlefire. I see the tiny points of light reflected in Ravara’s eyes as she looks out into the void.
‘The Navigator spoke to you of me, didn’t she?’ Ravara asks.
‘Is that foresight, inquisitor?’ I ask.
‘Just an educated guess,’ she replies. ‘Your tone suggests that whatever she said angered you.’
‘You lied to Oraylis,’ I say. ‘You told her she would stand under the cardinal world’s sun with the rest of us. Why?’
Ravara looks at me. ‘Because we needed to get out of the Rift,’ she says simply. ‘Because sometimes telling someone what they want to hear is the best way to have them do what you need them to.’
‘And what you told me in the bell tower?’ I ask. ‘Was that you telling me what I wanted to hear, too?’
Ravara does not move, or blink. ‘You will find the death you are looking for on Dimmamar, Evangeline. That is the truth. You will be consumed by the light, as you should have been on Ophelia VII.’
I look up and down the corridor to ensure we are still alone, my jaw aching because I daren’t speak those wants aloud myself. Those needs.
‘How can I trust you?’ I ask her.
‘What is trust other than working together towards a single goal?’ Ravara asks.
‘A set ending.’
‘Exactly.’
I shake my head. ‘But you have yet to tell me your goal. I do not know what it is you seek on Dimmamar. Not truly.’
‘I seek the closure of the Great Rift, Evangeline,’ Ravara says, her voice low and intense. ‘I seek the end of this era of darkness, and for everything to return to how it once was. I seek restoration, but that requires sacrifice.’
‘My sacrifice.’
‘Yours. Oraylis’. Vallien’s. Every death that has led us to this point.’
I think of the greater daemon’s laughter. Of Adelynn’s eyes, through the fire.
‘Even my Sisters.’
Ravara nods. ‘It’s not just the paths we might take that number in the thousands. It’s the steps we take on those paths, too. Choices, events and actions that seem unrelated, but they aren’t. They are all a part of the journey. That is why I do what I do, and say what I say, because I have to.’
‘Whatever the cost,’ I say.
She nods again. ‘I will make it right,’ she says. ‘I will make it all right.’
Her words are convincing. Tempting. Yet still, I hesitate. Ravara sees it in me, and she glances back out at the stars for a moment. I see that same flicker in her eyes that I saw when we first met in the Convent Prioris. An instant of guilt, and of grief. She exhales a slow breath, and then looks back at me.
‘You ask how it is you can trust me,’ she says. ‘I will show you.’
She turns away then, heading back down the transitway towards the main stairwells.
‘Come, Evangeline,’ she says. ‘There is someone I would like you to meet.’
I follow Ravara through the ship to a chamber at the sternward end of the hospitaller’s wards. The bulkhead door is sealed additionally by a voice-print system.
‘Ahri Ravara. Clearance code, nightsky,’ Ravara says.
The door locks transition to green, but before she opens the door, Ravara looks at me.
‘This is me trusting you,’ she says.
I do not know what to say to that, so I just nod. Ravara spins the lock, and opens the door, and we both step into the chamber beyond. It is small, and temperate, and dimly lit by dozens of flickering candles. In the centre of the room is something it takes me a moment to understand. A large matt-black machine mounted with tubes and bellows and monitron screens. It hisses and clicks and it sounds as though it is breathing, and I realise swiftly that that is precisely what the machine is doing. Breathing, for the still figure at the heart of it. The woman, coiled in the nest of cables. What is left of her is clad in blue robes. Her skin is as pale as a dove’s feathers, and her hair is tangled and blonde. A pendant glitters around her neck. One that matches Ravara’s own.
‘She is who you spoke of in the bell tower,’ I say. ‘The one you lost.’
Ravara approaches the machine, and the woman at the heart of it.
‘Sofika Vorros is my interrogator,’ she says. ‘She helps me to determine the meaning of my dreams. But she is so much more than that.’
Ravara reaches up and brushes Sofika’s hair back from her face.
‘She is clever. Not just learned, but sharp in a way that bests even the finest of blades. She is powerful, and strong. Driven, just as I am.’ She smiles. ‘But she is patient, where I am not. Kind, where I might be cruel.’
She lets her hand fall away.
‘She is my everything,’ she says. ‘I love her, with all of my heart.’
Ravara’s voice is different, saying those last words. Softer, and more melodic. It is almost like hearing her speak for the first time. Like seeing the woman she is, and not what her life has made of her.
‘I am sorry,’ I tell her.
She turns to look at me. ‘It was my failure that made her this way,’ she says. ‘I was searching for the same thing then as I am now. A means to bring light back into the Imperium. To wrest back everything the Rift has taken from us. I thought that I had found the means to do it on a world named Hellebore, but I was wrong.’
‘What happened?’
Ravara glances at Sofika. ‘The enemy got there before we did,’ she says. ‘An arch-traitor, of the old Legions. A sorcerer, sworn to darkness.’
I ache at her words, disgust rising up from the heart of me. My hands reflexively meet to make the sign of the aquila.
‘A servant of Chaos,’ I say. ‘That creature was the one who hurt her.’
Ravara exhales slowly. ‘He was the one to hurt her, but only because I didn’t see it coming.’
She looks back at me, her amber eyes circled with shadows.
‘I failed, and Sofika paid the price. Afterwards, I made her a vow that she would live to see our work complete. That I would make everything right. And that is what I intend to do.’
‘For her,’ I say.
‘For everyone,’ Ravara replies. ‘But yes. For her, too. I might lie and kill. I might keep secrets, but when I make a vow I do not break it. I swear to you now, you will find what you seek on Dimmamar. We all will.’
She extends her hand to me.
‘Trust me,’ she says.
I hesitate, knowing that this is one of the choices Ravara mentioned. One of the steps on the journey. I am on the edge of making the choice when a voice cuts in. One that is soft, and whispered and almost lyrical.
‘She means it,’ says the woman in the machine. ‘You can trust her. Ahri keeps her promises.’
Ravara’s cheeks colour, and her eyes gloss with tears. She looks to Sofika in disbelief.
‘Sofi,’ she says. ‘You should be sleeping.’
Sofika smiles, and in it I can see the way she must have been before. ‘How could I when it is so bright,’ she says, and then she looks at me. ‘When she is so bright.’
‘Bright,’ I say. ‘You mean the mark.’
‘No,’ Sofika says. ‘I mean you.’ She lifts her slender hands. ‘Come closer.’
I glance at Ravara, and she nods. I step forward and allow Sofika to put her hands on my face. The instant of contact makes my scars burn. It makes the room melt away, and Ravara with it. Memories blizzard around me, good and bad. I see my mother’s smile, and the storyscrolls she would read to me. I see my first days training with Adelynn in echoing stone halls. I see myself battle alongside Ashava on a world of red earth and storms. I hear songs, and prayers. I see Isidora burn on the Contemplation, and see Qi-Oh’s face contorted in anger as she walks away from me in the Vow’s underdecks. I see the crowds surround me in the training hall-turned-refuge, all reaching for me and whispering.
Evangeline. Evangeline.
I see a darkening sky. A roiling storm. Ninety-nine steps. White feathers, turning in the wind. A pair of crossed hands in the shape of the aquila, covered in blood. A solitary candle, burning in the darkness. I hear screams and smell fire and then I see it. The Shield of Saint Katherine, its glory surrounded by coiling shadows. By fangs and by burning eyes.
Are you ready?
The question echoes all around me, formed not just from Adelynn’s voice, but from many. I draw my sword and push forwards into the shadows, cutting them down. Putting out their blazing eyes. They hiss and recoil and break apart, greying me with ashes and with dust. But they cannot stop me. They will not stop me. I reach out towards the Shield and catch sight of myself reflected in its golden surface. I am bright, just as Sofika said. Ablaze.
Evangeline, say the whispers as my fingertips graze the metal. Evangeline.
‘Evangeline.’
My eyes snap open and I see Ravara’s face. She is crouching in front of me, because I am on my knees.
‘What did you see?’ she says urgently.
I tell her everything. Everything but the question. If Sofika notices the omission, she keeps it to herself.
‘Crossed hands,’ Ravara says. ‘In my dreams of you, I saw a vast stone hall, decorated with crossed hands.’
She smiles. Not faintly, but broadly. It seems as much like meeting her for the first time as the change in her voice did, earlier.
‘Can you stand?’ Ravara asks.
Stand, Evangeline.
‘Yes,’ I say, and I get to my feet unsteadily and look at Sofika. There is a dark line of blood tracking its way from her nose. ‘How did you do that?’ I ask. ‘Make me see those things.’
‘I didn’t,’ Sofika says, as Ravara takes a cloth and wipes the blood from under her nose. ‘All that you saw was already within you. You already have the answer.’
I flinch. ‘What did you say?’
‘She knew,’ Sofika says. ‘All along, she knew that you would have the strength to bear it. You, who bore the light through the darkness to find your purpose.’
Then Sofika’s eyes flutter closed, and she falls quiet. Ravara lets her go gently.
‘What did she mean?’ Ravara asks. ‘About you bearing the light.’
‘It was how I found my way into the Sisterhood,’ I tell her. ‘I carried a single candle to the Convent Prioris. They tried to send me away, but I would not leave.’
‘And that was when she took you in,’ Ravara says. ‘Adelynn. She was the one who knew.’
I nod.
‘A thousand paths,’ Ravara says. ‘A thousand actions, and choices, all of which have led you here.’
It takes me a moment to answer her, because I am not looking at Sofika any more, but at the candles around the base of her machine, all of which have extinguished themselves.
Save for one.
‘To my purpose,’ I say.
Ravara nods.
‘And it will all end as it began,’ she says. ‘With you bearing the light.’