The roadway opens in the footprint of what must have once been a spire.
Now, in its place, lies a vast piece of an Imperial starship. The ashes around the impact site are finer and darker. They stir in the wind, making momentary, transitory shapes. Figures and claws. Wings and teeth. The air is filled with the sound of the ashes moving. A constant shifting, like a chorus of whispers. Beneath that noise is another. The constant, tectonic groaning of the ship’s superstructure as it slowly collapses in on itself under the cathedral world’s atmosphere.
‘It is like sand,’ Ashava says, stooping down to put her fingers to the ground.
‘I have seen the like before. It is typical of when something so vast makes ground at such speed,’ Haskia says. ‘Everything in the surrounding area would have died before the fires even began, just from the pressure.’
‘Cheering thoughts, Sister,’ Munari says, clucking her tongue.
‘Factual,’ Haskia replies, without even a blink.
‘If it is fact, then what does that mean for us?’ Qi-Oh asks.
‘It means that the Shield is likely not on the surface,’ Haskia says.
I am only half-listening to them as I walk forward into the shadow of the wreckage. The tower of twisted metal is hundreds of metres tall, hardly more than a fraction of the ship it must have fallen from. It eliminates what remains of the sun, creating a darker darkness for me to stand in. The remains of the ship are burned black, reshaped by the heat of re-entry and the force of its landing. From this angle, it makes a familiar shape.
‘Another mark,’ says Ravara. ‘Another aquila.’
I look back to see the inquisitor standing behind me in the shadows, the ash-sand coiling around her legs in thin wisps. Her retinue are with her. All three of them.
‘Yes,’ I say, looking back at the spire-that-is-not-a-spire. At what you could call the eagle’s twin heads, and its spread wings. At its claws, planted in the ground.
I set off towards the foot of it, and Ravara follows me. The closer we get, the darker it becomes. The louder the creaking of the ship and the whispering of the ashes. The more my scars burn. I activate the stablight on my armour, but it only serves to illuminate the area immediately around us, as the candle did in my dreams. It is enough to see that the ashes are moving. Trickling like water might, towards the base of the wreckage. I follow them with Ravara at my side until it becomes clear where the trail is leading.
At the foot of the wreckage, a slope of rubble leads down into Canderum’s undercrofts. Into darkness. The slope is wide, the gradient shallow. It is easily large enough to accommodate the full commandery at marching strength.
‘It must have been exposed during the impact,’ Ravara says.
My stablight picks out the ashes running down the slope in rivulets, seeking out the hollows and pathways in the rubble.
‘Left for us to find,’ I say.
Ravara nods. Her amber eyes are the brightest thing about her in shadows like these.
‘Inescapable,’ she says.
The space beneath the crash site is a vast hall that echoes to the sound of our boots. The air is cold enough to make your breath catch. Where it meets my battleplate it condenses, leaving trails like tears. Marble statues twice my height line the hall on either side. Some are shrouded with fraying, aged cloth. Most have cracked or collapsed. All are depicted with bindings around their eyes and their swords held pointed towards the far end of the vast hall.
‘Their blades are all pointed inwards,’ Ashava says. ‘Why would they be made that way?’
I look at the statues, frozen in silent accusation. In readiness. It reminds me of the circle of swords on the icon Ravara wears. All blades pointing inwards.
‘Perhaps they are meant to show you the way,’ Veridia replies.
‘Perhaps,’ I say, still looking at the blades. At the blindfolds.
‘The Mark of Martyrs,’ Ravara says, her words misting the air. ‘Look.’
The inquisitor shines her stablight up at the wall to reveal countless pairs of skeletal hands, all gilded and set to make the shape of the aquila.
‘How can it be that the Shield lies here?’ Castanne looks ill at ease. ‘This place must have been sealed for centuries.’
‘The same reason that we are here, cardinal,’ Ravara replies. ‘Destiny.’
Castanne blinks. Despite the cool air of the undercroft, he is prickling with sweat. Beside him, Silvera is trembling.
‘Look,’ he says. ‘The eagle’s path. Just as Evangeline said.’
He raises a shaking hand and points just as the statues do to the large stone slabs set into the floor, inlaid with golden aquilas. I look to Elivia, but the Canoness shakes her head.
‘Lead on, Evangeline,’ she says.
So I do. The moment I step onto the first of the aquila-stones, I feel a certainty I have not felt since Ophelia VII. A pull, just like that which drew the ashes into the undercroft. I follow the path through the darkness. Past the statues, and the collapse. My certainty grows and the pulling on my soul grows with it, and I keep walking until at last I find myself standing in front of the iron-wrought gate. The last thing standing between me and the Shield of Saint Katherine.
The gate looks different to how I have seen it in my dreams. It is heavier, and thicker. Made from two solid pieces of black iron. Saint Katherine is still sculpted there, but she is not beneficent. The saint is baleful, her eyes cut from the same red stones as her fiery heart. She is surrounded by ten concentric circles of prayer words in the old script. The same words are repeated in a half-circle at the foot of the gate, inlaid into the stone in silver. The loop of the door is a coil of thorns. All cutting edges.
‘That’s a blood-lock,’ Ravara says. ‘An old one. It will only open to those it was made for.’
‘But that is not me,’ I reply. ‘It can’t be.’
‘Perhaps it is not so much the blood it requires, but faith.’ Silvera steps forward and gazes up at the gate. At the script surrounding Saint Katherine. ‘“Blessed be those who enter”,’ he says. ‘It is written to seem like a benediction, but perhaps it is a requirement.’
Silvera looks at me truly for the first time. His pale eyes are deep-set and rheumy, but I can still catch sight of flecks of gold amid the grey of them.
‘Perhaps it means that only one who is blessed can open it,’ he says.
I nod slowly.
‘Are you ready?’ Ravara asks, as I unbuckle my gauntlet and remove it.
It feels strange hearing that question in a voice other than Adelynn’s. Strange enough that I cannot help but hesitate. I turn and look back at my Sisters to see that they are all watching me intently. Some are holding positions, their bolters raised on Elivia’s order. Some are making the sign of the aquila. Some are weeping silently. Only one stands out amongst the rest. Ashava is not intent, or weeping. She is smiling, a small, sad smile.
Go, she mouths to me.
I nod to her before I can change my mind, and turn back to face the door.
‘I am ready,’ I say.
Despite there being over two hundred and fifty people in the vast hall, not a single soul speaks a word as I step up to the door and take up the loop, the thorns immediately puncturing my skin. Compared to the burning of my scars, I barely feel it at all. There is a grinding all around me. Dust falls in columns. And then, slowly but surely, the gate begins to open. Golden light spills out through the widening gap between the dark iron slabs, faint at first, but growing brighter.
In the middle of the vast underground chamber is a raised dais, on which sits a pedestal made from white stone. That is where the light is emanating from. The light warms my scars and my skin. It finds its way inside my heart. I am no longer hollow. No longer just a heartbeat. I cross the vastness of the chamber floor, between more of the blindfolded statues and the marble columns that support the vaulted ceiling.
The others follow in silence. They take up position a respectful distance from the foot of the steps, standing in rows like worshippers in a chapel. Elivia. Ravara, and her retinue. Castanne and Silvera. Both priests go to their knees. They weep openly and without shame. The commandery do not kneel. They stand, their weapons at parade rest. Behind them, too fearful to cross the threshold of the gate, are the faithful. Castanne has had his security forces set a cordon to keep them out of the undercrofts, but a handful have slipped by all the same. I catch sight of a familiar figure in the shadows. One whose face is marked with the eagle, and who carries a single candle in her hand.
Kati.
Even across the vastness of the hall, I see the girl smile at me. I nod and turn away, putting my foot on the first of the steps that lead up to the pedestal. They are shallow, and old. Made from the same white stone as the pedestal and the statues and the aquila-stones. As I climb them I feel whole. I feel strong.
I feel ready.
I keep my eyes downwards as I reach the top of the steps and approach the pedestal, looking up only when I feel warmth against my scars. Before me, on the pedestal, lies the Shield of Saint Katherine. It is cast from a single piece of ancient and gloried adamantine that is painted with a representation of Saint Katherine herself. A mighty warrior, bearing blade and aegis. The Shield glows from within, casting a warming light that suffuses me, pouring into the hollow at the heart of me like molten gold until I cannot help but smile. I reach out slowly, as I have so many times in my dreams, finally ready to take up the Shield. To fulfil the destiny that the God-Emperor spared me for. My fingertips linger for a moment, a hair’s breadth from the surface of it. From my reflection, wrought in gold. Then I put my palm flat on the Shield’s mirrored face.
And it disappears, in a flare of light.