Lightning tore through the sky. Seen through the cathedral’s massive glassaic window, it was a pure and holy wrath, flashing His image to brilliance.

‘O most Holy Emperor, grant to our Sister eternal rest!’

Beneath Him, at the altar, the slight, grey-robed form of the canoness raised her arms to His glory, her voice in the sacred requiem. Rolls of thunder joined her words, rumbling at the building’s walls, beating down upon its high and vaulted roof.

‘Let the light of your Throne shine upon her!’

Below the elderly figure, her congregation were mesmerised. In the foremost pew, helm off and head bowed as was proper, Sister Superior Augusta Santorus suppressed a shiver at His manifest might. His storm reigned perpetual, here on this tiny, forgotten world.

‘Hear my prayer, O Emperor. To you, all lives are owed! To you, all flesh must come!’

The requiem was unaccompanied – no organ, no music. Its harmonies were dense but unfamiliar, twisting through the acoustics in an eerie, minor key. Sister Akemi, to Augusta’s left side, shifted, shot a glance along the pew at Sister Melia.

The storm grumbled on, like the anger in grief. Behind Augusta’s squad, the Sisters of the canoness’ Order and their frateris militia raised their own voices, responding to the litany.

‘May her mind be raised to your glory!’

‘May her mind be raised to your glory!’

The service was a funeral. Despatched by the Ecclesiarchy and newly arrived upon Letum, Augusta had not known the young Sister who had passed to His grace. She’d had no time to speak to the canoness personally; instead, she had respectfully agreed to attend the service.

But this…

The image in the great Sol-facing window was not Him in His full glory, armoured and bearing His bright and flaming sword – it was Him as He would be, ancient and enthroned in cables. Before it, four ancient servo-skulls hovered like guardians, their metal corroded, but their green eyes sharp as gemstones. She could not shake the feeling that they watched her, analysing what they saw. Carefully, she honoured the hymn, though the responses were unknown.

‘As we offer this, our Sister’s body, to the storm!’

‘As we offer this, our Sister’s body, to the storm!’

The lightning flashed again, causing His image to blaze, for a split second, out across the nave, almost like He had been there in person. Chilled to the absolute bone by the undisciplined thought, Augusta offered a penitent prayer.

Such was arrogance, and unforgiveable. This place was unsettling, true, but that was not a justification. Sister Viola, always the hothead, cursed under her breath. Alcina, the squad’s second-in-command, snapped the ghost of an order and Viola subsided. But Augusta’s odd, visceral shudder did not.

Tiny and isolated, cut off by His never-ceasing storm, the Sisters of this convent were completely unknown. They wore no armour, their robes and cloaks were a beautifully embroidered grey, and rather than a fleur-de-lys, their faces were tattooed with the outline of a skull. They called themselves the Order of the Broken Sepulchre.

The Sisters of Death.

Letum was a cemetery planet, a world of gravestones and towering, carved sarcophagi. In millennia past, it had been a resting place for the Imperium’s most honoured dead, and a silent, stone civilisation had grown out around its endless corpses – spreading grids of sunken walkways, shrines and chapels like ossuaries, all studded with bones, locked reliquaries where only He still remembered their contents. Once, pilgrims had come here, to study the headstones or to tend to them – but no pilgrim had touched this world in centuries.

Not since the coming of the storm and its restless, magnetic field. Any ship attempting to land here would be brought down by His lightning. The Imperium’s bureaucracy had known this, but Letum had little intrinsic value – no wealth or resources. Lost somewhere between endless scriveners, and now both unreachable and unimportant, it had been abandoned, and left to its veneration of death.

Augusta stole a look upward, her head still bowed, her bobbed hair falling grey past her ears. Atop the altar, as grey as everything else, lay an open coffin; within it, the young Sister who had passed. The coffin was steel, beautifully wrought and etched in skulls; at either end, a conducting rod connected it to the cathedral’s outside wall.

The thunder growled low, like anticipation.

With the sound, the congregation’s expectancy rose. The canoness still prayed, her arms aloft, her words a torch, a hymn, a tocsin.

‘He comes!’ she said, her tone livid with passion. ‘Let us witness the touch of His light!’

Perhaps the flash of His image had been less arrogance, Augusta thought, and more a deliberate illustration of this convent’s empathic belief. But still, her shudder did not fade. She should have more discipline. Praying, she focused her thoughts.

The canoness’ voice rose further. She had her congregation gripped, the three pews of her Sisters, the frateris further back. Her head tilted back, strands of her white hair floating upwards round her face, she was entreating His storm for its touch, calling it to her.

And, much as Augusta tried to banish the unworthy thought, the storm seemed to be listening. The flashes, vivid and shocking, were coming closer; the gap between the light and the sound narrowed with every strike. Even as the Sister Superior stole another look, a crashing rumble of thunder sounded directly overhead. There was the sudden hiss of rain against the glassaic.

The canoness cried, ‘Bring mercy! Release our Sister to your storm!’

Propelled, the congregation were on their feet. They returned her words, but their cries were staccato, now, scattered throughout the nave and rapidly becoming louder. Frenzy rang from them like the clashing of cymbals.

‘Release!’

‘Have mercy!’

‘He comes!’

Uneasy, Sister Viola flashed a look over her shoulder. As Augusta glanced sideways, she crossed gazes with the younger Sister’s bright green eyes, saw flickers of both concern and non-comprehension. Briefly, Viola raised an eyebrow, but Augusta only frowned, indicating that she should attend to her prayers.

The canoness cried again, ‘He comes!’

‘He comes!’

‘Praise His lightning!’

‘Praise it!’

Another flash. Another bellow, loud enough to shake the bell towers. Augusta prayed, then found herself catching her breath… For here, even as His image flashed down upon the altar itself, bright yellow crackled along the conducting rods, a spark like pure, bared adrenaline.

The congregation cried aloud, one long, ‘Ah!’

And light detonated from the metal coffin.

It was blinding, but the Sister Superior held her place, blinking the after-flash from her vision. His touch was gone. Instead, flames were crackling, warm and soft, from the coffin’s contents. There was the faint smell of burning wood and flesh; grey smoke curled, thick and greasy. Extractors hummed, though she could not see them. The still-hovering skulls glittered in new firelight. They grinned, wide and toothy, as though they had seen this a thousand times, yet had never tired of it. As though they knew secrets they would never tell.

‘By the Throne…’ Shaken, Viola swore again, her words a whisper.

This time, neither Alcina nor Augusta corrected her. Whatever this funeral service was, the squad had never seen its like.

The storm crashed in violent farewell, then, slowly, began to rumble away.

‘Sister Superior.’

The canoness’ voice was calm with authority, soft with age. Sitting by a polished table of real wood, its surface reflecting electro-candles and the red light of the hearth, she was a tiny figure, creased with the weight of years.

‘Milady,’ Augusta answered respectfully. ‘Sister Superior Augusta Santorus, Order of the Bloody Rose.’ She offered the sign of the aquila. ‘Ave Imperator.’

Following the recessional, the canoness had bade them follow in her footsteps. The walk through the bone-walled cloisters had been as unnerving as everything else, but the librarium was warm and the storm kept at bay by the thickness of both walls and curtains.

‘Indeed,’ the canoness said. ‘Ave Imperator, Sister Superior. His blessing upon you, and upon your squad. You will forgive me, I hope, for insisting that you attend our service? Sister Clara was very dear to me, as novice and as tender both, and while I know she kneels now at the foot of the Great Throne, I confess that I shall miss her.’ She smiled, the expression gentle. ‘His ways are strange, are they not?’

At Augusta’s left shoulder, Alcina answered, ‘It is not our place to question them, milady.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Without losing her smile, the canoness gestured for the Sister to subside. ‘Yet I find that age has brought a… certain restlessness to my soul. It is unusual for anyone, upon our world so tiny, to live to the years that I have done. And I find myself lonely, eagerly awaiting my turn for His greatest blessing.’

To Augusta’s other side, Melia and Caia, one as dusky as the other was blonde, exchanged a glance. They were close as blood-kin, had come up through the schola together – the nearness of the canoness to her friend would touch them deeply. Sister Viola, here bereft of her thrice-blessed heavy bolter, creaked as she shifted on her toes; the last and youngest member of the squad, Sister Akemi, was gazing raptly round at the bookshelves, lured by the promise of previously unseen lore.

But Augusta was focused on the canoness. ‘Milady, it was our honour to attend your service, though its litanies were unfamiliar. You will forgive our lack of knowledge in not responding – no insult was intended.’

‘And none was taken, Sister Superior.’

The canoness gestured at her servitors, which were laying tiny, perfect plates upon the table, each one offering some sort of fungus-based pastries. With a quiet bow, the grey-hooded figures withdrew.

‘Now, you must tell me of your Order – I have seen such armour only in my books, and yet here it is, the colour of new blood. And you must tell me why He has brought you here, Sister, to my little convent, so long untouched by the Imperium’s… warriors.’

There was an odd stress on the word ‘warriors’, but this was an uncharted corner of the void in more ways than one. Navigating carefully, Augusta offered no correction of the term. Instead, she said, ‘We seek a ship, milady, crash-landed upon your world. It bears a sacred text that I am charged to retrieve.’

‘A ship?’ The elderly lady put her head to one side, almost birdlike in fine-boned fragility. Her white hair, neatly bunned but loose tendrils still crackling with remembered electricity, gleamed in the hearth-light, and her skull outline seemed oddly prominent, for all its age. ‘Sister Superior, no ships come to this world, crashed or otherwise. He has decreed our isolation, and we are gladly alone, caretakers of this, His most holy cemetery.’ Lines round her eyes crinkled with affection or wariness. ‘Truly, we are the servants of His last and greatest blessing.’

Viola opened her mouth, realised the answer, shut it again.

But the canoness’ perception was sharp. ‘Our release, my fire-haired Sister. Our blessed ascension to the Great Throne, where we may at last witness His suspension and His glory. Truly, there is no greater gift.’ Her words glittered, dark and ardent. ‘He is the ultimate expression of the faith of my Order. The visage of death.’

At the word, thunder grumbled, and the canoness turned away to gaze upon the storm. Alcina shifted, but Augusta flicked a hand, discreetly and by her hip. Over the tight-beam vox-link, she subvocalised, ‘We must tread carefully, Sister. This place unsettles me, and I do not know why.’

‘I hear you.’ Alcina’s response was laden with tension.

Akemi was still staring at the books, her head turning sideways to read their spines.

‘You are a scholar?’ The canoness addressed the youngest Sister, making her start and turn back.

‘Yes, milady.’

‘Mmm.’ The old woman studied Akemi’s shining black hair, her pale skin, the relative newness of her fleur-de-lys tattoo. Like the skulls, she seemed to be analysing what she saw. ‘There is much lore here,’ she said. ‘It has been gathered from many places upon this world. Like my Sisters of this Order, our frateris militia have little use for combat. In place of such training, they tend to the headstones and shrines, as is proper, while we perform His ancient rites here, in the Great Cathedral. Sometimes, they bring to us things for which we must care – books, particularly, are vulnerable to the storm.’ There was something in her tone, an edge, the faintest hint of some deep curiosity.

Akemi responded, her voice respectfully even. ‘Yes, milady.’

The canoness chuckled. ‘You are perfectly behaved, young one.’ She tapped thin, claw-like fingers against her cheek. ‘So, little scholar, you shall stay. You shall bless me with your lore and tell me of your Order. Explain to me your flower symbol. It is a rose, is it not?’

Akemi shot a glance at Augusta. ‘Surely, milady, the Sister Superior…?’

Again, the elderly canoness waved her hand. ‘I have already said’ – the phrase was faintly sharp, a warning of discipline – ‘that combat is of little use here. A chamber awaits you, Sister Superior, and a quiet supper will be served in the refectorium. You are welcome to join us, of course. You – Akemi, isn’t it? – you will stay.’ Brooking no argument, she turned back to the bookshelf, as if searching for something she wished to show Akemi.

‘Sister Superior?’ Akemi’s subvocalised voice came over the squad-vox, wary and requesting permission.

Augusta repeated the warning she had given Alcina, then said, ‘She is canoness of her Order and we do not disobey. But speak little, Akemi, and listen to every word she offers. Ask questions, if you are permitted.’ Privately, she thanked His wisdom that the canoness had selected Akemi and not Viola. ‘We must locate our missing text. And this place perturbs me, for reasons I cannot yet fathom.’

The refectorium was a small and circular chamber, figures of saints standing about its edges, and every one with its face pared down to a skull. Some were familiar – Celestine herself was here – but there were others that Augusta did not know, perhaps representations from headstones that the frateris had found or tended. Viola fidgeted; Melia, too, seemed oddly unsettled and, after partaking of a quiet meal, the Sisters returned to their sleeping chamber still restless, their hunger satisfied but not their unease.

Once their door was closed, Viola exploded with withheld tension.

‘That was no grace that I have ever heard! We offer Him thanks for our victuals, not repentance that we must live another–’

‘Silence.’ Augusta’s response was soft, but brooked no argument. Over their private channel, she said, ‘Caia, I want a complete technical sweep of this chamber and its surrounding area, as far as your auspex can reach. And I want to know where we are in relation to the estimated crash site. Between ourselves, we will communicate only over the vox.’

‘Very wise.’ Alcina’s tone was all warning. ‘There is much here that defies my comprehension. While each Order bears its own prayers and hymns, these Sisters behave in a way that is… unusual.’ Her eyes glittered.

‘We will await Akemi, and any insight she brings,’ Augusta said. ‘But yes, I agree. There is something deeply amiss about this place. His voice speaks in my heart, and I must listen to His warnings.’

‘The canoness told us the Soul of Aeris didn’t crash,’ Viola agreed. ‘We know that the ship’s last communication was of the storm. And they won’t let me carry my weapon.’ The words had an edge, the source of her restlessness.

‘Not only that,’ Melia said, her tone dark. ‘But the young Sister who perished – she was barely in her twenties, and in full health. I consider it unlikely that she perished from cardiac failure, as we have been told…’ Melia was trained by the Order of Serenity, and the squad’s medicae. She gave a twitch of a shrug, and her pauldron clattered. ‘The canoness seems learned, she must know this. Which would mean that she has uttered an open falsehood, before Him, in a sermon of holy worship. This is more than “unusual”, Sisters.’ There was a twist of horror to her words. ‘This is unthinkable.’

Augusta nodded, thinking. ‘Sister Caia?’

‘The crash site is approximately seven miles south-south-east of here.’ Caia lowered her auspex, its green wash of light fading. ‘With the density of the storm it is plausible that the descent of the ship went unnoticed. I can tell little more from here.’

‘And are we being observed?’

‘Not by machine-spirits.’

‘There are ways, and ways.’ The comment was a thought, voiced over the vox. Aloud, the Sister Superior said, ‘Come, sing with me, my Sisters. Let us celebrate our finding of this Order, so newly joined to the Adepta Sororitas. We will raise our voices in His glory, and sing our requiem for Sister Clara. Sister Alcina, if you would.’

Alcina’s voice was a deep, full contralto; it rolled almost like the storm. It also allowed Augusta to listen. Not with the vox, but with her ears. And, as the other Sisters joined the hymnal, their harmonies as clean as the cathedral’s service had been eerie, she knew. She had heard these acoustics before.

The convent may not have the technology to overhear, but every word the Sisters said was echoing back through the old, stone passages, and – she would have to assume – directly to the ears of the canoness.

‘My apologies, Sister Superior,’ Akemi said, when she returned. Like the others, she kept her words over the vox. ‘I was able to glean little. I told her of the younger Orders, of Deacis VI and of the Bloody and the Sacred Rose. Of our most holy saints Mina and Arabella. But she offered little in return. She did repeat, however, that she does not believe that the Aeris crashed here. Until our arrival, they had not seen a single Imperial vessel, of any size or description, in possibly millennia.’

‘Millennia.’ Her armour off, laid out upon its sacred mat, Augusta knelt in her under-armour, the rose-red gambeson that helped to absorb incoming blows. The squad’s briefing had been very specific – they were to find the fallen ship, and the text that it had carried.

And it was not just the Aeris. As the Sisters had crossed the vast steams of the empyrean, approaching this tiny corner of space, so Augusta had taken breaks from her squad’s training to learn as much as she could about Letum and its ceaseless storm.

‘We know,’ she said, ‘that the Aeris is not the only lost ship. Merchants’ vessels have gone missing near here, though nothing large or significant. Individually, they are unnoticeable, tiny cogs in a huge machine. But, if you put enough cogs together…’

She stopped, thinking. What she was about to suggest was, at best, a lack of protocol, at worst, downright blasphemous, but His calling in her heart was strong. As strong as it had been on Lycheate, with the doomed, crazed Inquisitor Istrix – she knew that something was wrong.

In her mind, she saw the image-flash of the cathedral window, the lightning casting His image upon the stone.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Sisters, I am going to do something… unwise.’

Alcina raised a faintly acerbic eyebrow, but said nothing.

‘I will do this alone, take full responsibility for my actions. If questioned, you were following my orders.’

‘You’re not going out there,’ Caia said, ever-perceptive. ‘The force of the storm–’

‘That is not your decision to make, Sister,’ she answered, with a warning eyebrow. ‘I will not take my armour, it will make far too much noise. I will take my bolter, however, though only as a precaution. The canoness was right about one thing – there is no need for combat. Whatever else this place may be, it is a place of peace.’

Too much peace, I suspect.

‘Sister Superior.’ Alcina turned, squaring her shoulders.

Already understanding her second’s disapproving expression, Augusta only nodded. ‘I hear you, Sister, and you are not wrong. But we have a mission, and we must succeed in that mission. And there are times when that mission is not about a war.’ A flicker of a smile. ‘Though I confess, that unsettles me just as much as the atmosphere of this convent.’ The smile faded again. ‘By His grace and blessing, we have come through the storm. He landed us safely for a reason.’

Viola fidgeted, but said nothing.

Akemi said, ‘Let me come with you, Sister. I can be quiet, and I may… I may be able to read the gravestones’ ancient symbols, where you cannot.’

Augusta gave the youngest Sister a long look, then nodded. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Sisters, we will stay in vox-contact. I will recite the opening words of the Treatise, every fifteen minutes, beginning at the hour of Evensong. If I do not…’ Her smile turned mirthless. ‘Then don your wargear, in His name, and seek answers of the canoness. If she gives none, then you head for the crash site and complete the mission.’

‘I strongly advise against this, Sister,’ Alcina said, sternly disapproving. ‘We should head for that crash site now–’

‘Objection noted,’ Augusta said. ‘Akemi?’

The youngest Sister, slight out of her armour but wrought from steel wire, inhaled like she was bracing herself. ‘Yes, Sister Superior. And may He bless our explorations.’

May He bless our explorations.

The convent was quiet, its cloisters open to the storm and charged with the electricity in the air. The hairs on Augusta’s forearms were standing on end and her skin prickled with it, as if covered in crawlers. From the cathedral transept, there came a twining of Evensong voices – another eerie, minor-key harmony. Akemi walked silently, her small face creased in a frown. Skulls in the cloisters’ carved ceilings leered toothily as they passed.

‘What bothers you, Sister?’ Augusta’s voice was barely a whisper, sounding in Akemi’s vox-bead.

‘Forgive me, Sister Superior,’ Akemi said. ‘I am thinking. We, alone, of possibly hundreds of ships, have been able to land here, our pilot blessed by Him to bring us safely through the storm. Yet the canoness has said this world is isolated by His design. I cannot resolve these two things. Has He brought us here? Or are we unwelcome, in defiance of His wishes?’

‘Have faith, Akemi,’ Augusta answered, her confidence complete. ‘The loss of the Aeris, and the text she bears – this was His way to guide us to this world, and to our lost Sisters. Whatever takes place, He has brought us here to see it.’

‘Yes, Sister.’ Akemi said nothing more, and they kept walking.

The cloisters were a large quadrangle, surrounding a flagstoned square with a great and many-layered fountain at its centre. Rainwater chuckled, overspilling the fountain’s edges. Side doors offered storage chambers: places where the attending frateris would care for the life of the cathedral, its kneeling mats, censers and hymn books. Another door led to the sacristy, where the Sisters’ grey robes could be stored. Carefully, Augusta pushed at it, but it was locked.

From the transept, Evensong rose to its crescendo, shivering outwards across the storm. Lightning flashed, though not closely; the thunder was a distance away.

Soon, they reached the cloisters’ outermost corner and paused. An arched and open doorway offered a short flight of stone steps and a gravel path that curved onwards through the building’s closest graveyard. The rain had thinned to a gentle, drifting mist, and upright lumens offered cold white pools of illumination. Thunder grumbled, distant now. Everything lurked ghostlike, fogged and monochrome.

Waiting.

Augusta began to wish she’d brought her armour, noisy though it was. It was so much a part of her, of her faith and capability, that she felt acutely vulnerable without it.

‘What are we looking for, Sister?’ Akemi asked her.

‘Answers,’ Augusta said. ‘There is more to this than a downed ship.’

Out across the pale light, there were shifting, grey-clad shapes, almost unseen – the frateris, tending the stones even at this late hour. In the mist, they looked like phantoms.

‘This way.’ Very conscious of her scarlet padding, Augusta moved along the side of the building, circling it carefully. Akemi followed, looking at the gravestones, some of them embedded in the wall. As they reached the back of the building, and began a slightly wider circle, Akemi stopped.

‘Sister,’ she said.

Instantly, the Sister Superior froze. ‘What?’

‘This stone’s been moved.’

‘It is surely the stone of Sister Clara?

‘Not here, Sister,’ Akemi said. ‘Clara’s ashes will be interred in the Sisters’ own sarcophagus, the canoness did tell me that much. This…’ She sounded puzzled. ‘This is something else.’

‘Explain.’

Drawing a breath, Akemi answered. ‘The canoness’ books are almost all in High Gothic. It’s a very old form, with some linguistic variations, but it’s essentially familiar. And it ties in with her claim that the frateris have retrieved them from the graves, in order to preserve them. But that…’ She nodded at the stone. It had three oddly shaped skulls engraved in its top, a prayer inscribed beneath. ‘That’s older. Much older. That stone is significantly older than the cathedral itself.’

Augusta shot the youngest Sister a sharp look. ‘So it’s been placed here since?’

Akemi nodded, her thoughts coalescing as she spoke. ‘It must have been brought here from somewhere else, laid into the wall when the cathedral was built. And that, in turn, would imply that something has been here–’

‘For longer than the Sisters.’ Augusta considered this, nodding. ‘I–’

‘Sister Superior.’

Startled, Augusta turned. She was unsettled indeed if anyone could come this close, unheard and undetected. Instinctively, her hand had gone for her bolter, but she drew it back – this was one of the frateris, a grey-cloaked figure, his hood back. His face was young and lean, and etched with shadows from the overhead lumens.

‘Yes?’ Arching an austere eyebrow, she offered no apology or explanation.

‘It is late, Sisters.’ The man’s tone was chillingly polite. ‘The canoness has asked us to ensure your welfare, and you should be resting before Nightfall prayers.’ His eyes were dark sockets, as skull-like as everything else in that place. ‘She will be expecting you.’

He leaned on the word, just enough.

‘And we will attend, of course,’ Augusta answered him, her authority smooth and unchallenged. ‘But perhaps, since you are here, you can answer a question.’

‘Forgive me, Sister,’ the young man said, as smoothly polished as the canoness’ tabletop. ‘This is hardly the place for questions. You are guests of the convent. And you should be attending milady canoness.’

There was a warning in his tone, a blade sheathed but ready. And while his words were carefully chosen, his behaviour was verging on arrogant.

‘He’s hiding something,’ Akemi said, over the vox.

‘I agree,’ Augusta answered her. ‘But what?’

The Sister Superior returned to the chamber with few answers, only more questions. Remaining within, she and the squad observed the Nightfall prayer by themselves, offering their words to His sacred effigy that had come with them from Ophelia VII.

The Sister Superior prayed for divine guidance – not the usual litany, but with words that came from her heart. The image from the cathedral window had stayed with her, as if flash-etched onto her retinae. She had distinct suspicions – graveyard world, older culture – such things were ­inevitable. But without tangible proof, she could hardly make accusations.

Why was that headstone in the cathedral wall? Where had it come from? And why had she seen only younger faces? Aside from the old lady, every Sister, every servitor, every member of the frateris militia had been under thirty – significantly younger than Augusta herself. The thought came with smoke-curls of sinister possibilities, coiling like the life of Sister Clara.

The Order of the Broken Sepulchre. The Sisters of Death.

There was only one way to find an answer.

In the morning, after the dawn prayer, the squad donned full armour and attended, as was proper, the canoness’ wishes. The old lady was as polite as ever, saying nothing about the previous evening’s excursion. Augusta wasn’t sure if that was simply due to decorum, or because she genuinely didn’t know.

Had the frateris not told her? Such a lack of discipline and respect – that was unheard of. Just who was lying to whom?

‘With your permission, milady,’ she said. ‘We must seek the Aeris.’ Answering the canoness’ query about their mission, Augusta fully intended to get to the bottom of this. ‘I have her approximate coordinates and my mission directive is very clear. If the ship’s resting place is here, then He will guide us to its side.’

‘Of course,’ the old lady said. ‘Victuals have been prepared for you. I do not believe the ship is here, but you must undertake your mission. Go, with His blessing.’

Her permission was confusing.

Viola, much happier now her heavy bolter had been returned, commented darkly as they headed out, ‘Did she not deny that the ship was here? Then why grant us permission to seek its location? She says one thing and then she says another. We should confront her.’

‘I agree,’ Alcina said. ‘I do not like this… sneaking.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Caia disagreed. ‘Her words were sincere. She endeavours only to help, to facilitate our mission.’ She looked round at her Sisters, her red helm glistening with rain. ‘I do not doubt her faith.’

‘This place is rotten,’ Viola muttered. ‘It stinks.’

Despite the filters in the Sisters’ armour, smells of death lingered, of bones and dust. The place seemed old, serenely quiet, its headstones pulled down by reaching creepers, its occasional dark trees all swarmed with ivy. Thunder still grumbled, but remained a distance away.

Following Caia’s auspex, they wound their way through the endless criss-cross of sunken walkways. Akemi watched both sides, her head turning back and forth like a lighthouse; Melia carried the rations that the servitors had prepared for them. Alcina walked at the rear, still sternly disapproving of Augusta’s choices.

But without proof, Augusta could say nothing.

‘There,’ Caia said. The green glare of the auspex shone out through thin, ever-clouded morning light. ‘Over the rise.’

Beneath the storm, the Aeris lay dead, her hard, angular shape silhouetted by the thunderous sky.

She was an exploratory-class vessel, small compared to the frigates and destroyers of the Imperial Navy, and she lay broken on her side, half buried in blackened soil and shattered headstones. Her nose was completely covered, her adamantine plating charred by lightning and extreme heat; the Sisters could see the huge, miles-long burn-scar, crashing through walls and statues, that her death had ripped in the ground.

‘Hold.’

At Augusta’s order, the Sisters dropped at the lip of the ridge. They lay on their bellies, looking over at the downed ship. Caia’s auspex flickered green: movement. Only a dozen blips, but enough.

‘They cannot be crew?’ Melia said, puzzled.

‘It has taken us four months to reach this planet,’ Augusta answered. ‘Any survivors would already have been found by the convent.’

‘Unless they chose to hide,’ Akemi suggested.

Viola muttered, ‘Then why are they moving now?’

For a moment, the scent of Sister Clara’s burning coffin seemed to hang in the air. Dismissing whimsy, Augusta raised her magnoculars, and took a closer look. Immediately, she lowered them, blinking, and passed them to Sister Alcina.

‘Tell me what you see, Sister.’

Frowning, Alcina took her turn. ‘No survivors,’ she said. ‘The saviour pods were never even launched. I suspect the storm slew the ship’s machine-spirit and the Aeris never had a chance – she crashed powerless. It is unlikely the crew survived. And I see…’ She reared back, blinked exactly like Augusta had done, looked once again through the magnoculars. ‘By the Throne. Truly, Sister Superior, He has brought us here for a deeper purpose.’

‘What?’ Viola, her shoulder against the heavy bolter, almost crackled with impatience.

Augusta nodded. ‘We have our answers, Sisters,’ she said. ‘The frateris are stripping salvage from the ship. And my heart tells me this is not for the canoness’ use.

‘Move!’

The bark was soft; the Sisters skirmished, and fast. While the frateris were neither armed nor armoured, Augusta still held to her lingering suspicion that there was another power at work here. Something else, something older. Something that had built headstones, long before the founding of the cathedral. And something that, during the Imperium’s absence, had seeped slowly back to the surface.

Something xenos.

Three of the Sisters ran forwards, dropped behind graves and statues, then offered cover while the other three ran – the movements were instinctive, perfectly executed, smooth as gun oil. Caia, silent and on point, indicated with one arm and the squad bore left, passing the nose of the downed ship, and holding to the heavy, cold undershadow of its huge and looming belly.

Carefully, slowing down now, they approached a shattered wall. And beneath it, a yawning, stone-lined void, black as betrayal, and half collapsed by the ship’s corpse.

Voices became audible, echoing from burn-scarred metal. ‘Don’t drop it, you damned oaf. Take it to the entrance, put it on the pile.’ Grumbles and grunts followed. Whatever the cargo, it was heavy.

Augusta half expected the whine of a loader, but there was nothing.

‘And you!’ The voice was familiar. ‘Stop dawdling!’

Akemi said, her voice a whisper, ‘That’s–’

‘Last night’s challenger.’ The Sister Superior couldn’t muster surprise ‘Of course it is.’ She controlled a need to curse – suddenly, this was all fitting together. Over the vox, she said, ‘Viola, with me. The rest of you, stay and cover. Alcina, eyes and ears open. Caia, I want locations on everything moving. And find me that text!’

‘Yes, Sister.’

Viola and the thrice-blessed heavy bolter at her shoulder, Augusta rose from her cover, and issued a flat command.

‘You.’ The word was a bark, aimed at the man who had spoken. ‘This is an Imperial vessel, under examination by the Adepta Sororitas. Put down your cargo, lie belly down on the floor.’

Figures turned, glanced at each other, wondered what was going on.

‘Now.’

No one moved. They stared at the red-armoured figures of the Sisters.

Augusta said, ‘Three… two… one…’

As the countdown reached zero, she shot the closest figure, straight through the chest. The detonation was echoing-loud; scarlet exploded across ground and stone and the ship’s underside.

Still, the figures did not move. Viola hefted the heavy bolter, waiting for the order.

‘Sister Superior,’ the man said, amused and exasperated. He was indeed the same figure that they’d seen the previous night, cadaverous and austere, despite his youth. ‘I told you – you should be at prayers, attending the canoness. I was intending to retrieve your relic for you. Before you… came looking.’

Despite the death of his fellow, he had a flat absence of either surprise or fear. And there was an implication to his phrase that she didn’t quite follow. Using her preysight, she scanned him for weapons, found none, but still, she did not dismiss the threat.

His confidence was bothering her – what didn’t she know?

She walked forwards, focused on the speaker. Viola walked with her, focused everywhere else.

‘Move away from the ship.’

‘Please, Sister.’ The man spread his hands, smiling. ‘This is not your concern.’

Bolter in the other hand, Augusta grabbed him by a fistful of grey shirt, slammed his back against the blood-spattered corpse of the Aeris. ‘You are frateris militia, and you do not speak to me, or to any Sister, with such lack of respect. Your life belongs to Him, and to the convent. You are sworn to His service.’ She made an assumption, ran with it. ‘Why do you lie to your canoness?’

What are you hiding?

The man narrowed his gaze, but still showed no fear. His glance flicked past her shoulder, and she became aware that the rest of the squad was moving, closing up the distance to the ship. From the corner of her eye, she saw Caia gesturing direction – they were looking for the text.

She said, ‘You are a heretic–’

‘Then kill me.’ His grin was confident, now verging on crazed. ‘I do not fear His blessing.’ His eyes shone. ‘But I do His work, Sister, as do we all. Should I rise to His glory, another will take my place, and another, and another. I offer their youth, their lives, to Him. And He rewards me – us – well!’

‘You slew Sister Clara.’ It was a rush of horror, a cold hand of realisation. ‘You slay all of them.’

‘I grant them His blessing.’ His rictus grin was suitably skull-like. ‘This is Letum, it has always been this way. They wish the Throne, and we grant them their release. We release ourselves, also, when our knowledge becomes too much.’

‘What knowledge?’

The man laughed, the noise dark and rich. ‘It is our secret, forbidden, not to be shared. Not even with you.’

‘Or with the convent.’ The horror was crawling over Augusta’s skin now, writhing like the strands of creeper. ‘You murder them, and they do not even know why.’

‘Murder?’ His grin faltered; he seemed genuinely confused. ‘We bless them, Sister. There is a plant here, grown with His blessing. A little in the food, that’s all it takes – and a heart fails.’ His sincerity was startling. ‘This is Letum. And this is His word, His way, His calling, His grace–’

‘He’s crazed.’ Viola was starting to twitch – her need to open fire was tangible. Augusta, too, could feel her horror fusing to fury, that welcome rise of red rage that was His touch, showing her the way.

But not yet. There was a thread to the man’s glee that she had yet to understand.

We release ourselves, also, when our knowledge becomes too much.

‘Caia.’ Over the vox. ‘Report.’

‘The ship’s been stripped,’ Caia returned. ‘Panels, wires, metalwork, everything. It’s a skeleton, there’s almost nothing left. Whatever they’re doing, it’s been going on for months.’

‘I hear you.’ Augusta jammed her bolter, hard, under the man’s throat. ‘Where are you taking it?’

‘I told you, that knowledge is forbidden.’ The man’s grin grew wider, his eyes flared. ‘He has spoken to me, in visions. He has decreed my path!’

‘You utter both falsehood and blasphemy.’ She was really angry now. ‘You are a betrayer, faithless, and you presume to take His name?’

‘I utter no falsehood, Sister. I hold faith, always. He has spoken to me, to all of us. He has sent us visions, taught us how to obey His creed. We believe in Him, we have held to His faith for generations.’ There was an honest plea in his voice.

Viola, her voice dark with blood, said, ‘All those ships, Sister, those missing merchants’ vessels. Whatever this is, it’s larger than just the Aeris.’

‘I agree,’ Augusta said. Thinking for a minute, she gave the squad the order to regroup on her location. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘We will secure these… cultists’ – she refused to give them their title – ‘and follow the trail of their ported cargo. Let us pray, my Sisters, that He will take us to the end of this puzzle.’

Sister Caia had not yet managed to locate the sacred text, but Augusta would return to the main task of her mission once this matter was resolved. A brief scout showed a side chamber in the stone maw, a place where more cargo was piled. Carrying His authority and with the thrice-blessed heavy bolter at her back, the Sister Superior commanded the frateris to amass within, and left Sister Alcina as their guard. Augusta had no wish to seek a potential foe with reduced strength, but these faithless heretics would face the justice of their Order’s canoness, the one they had betrayed.

And Alcina’s sheer presence was enough to ensure their behaviour.

The remaining five of the squad ducked into the hole. Following the stamped-down trail of bootsteps, they headed deep, deep beneath the gravestones. Swiftly, they left the thin, stormy daylight behind them and vanished into swallowing black. They turned on their suit lights, angled beams of illumination that picked out multiple layers, like rock strata, compressed into the walls.

But the stripes were not rock. Letum had been a cemetery planet for millennia, and only its uppermost graves were still on the surface. These left trailing roots, ends of bone, fragments of grave goods, pieces of coffins. As the Sisters moved deeper, still following the stamped hard-route and the occasional dropped corroded brass cog, they found coffins in layers, like geological ages – pieces of older headstones, fragments of dead technology. Slices of stone ran round the walls, and before much longer, these began to spread out through the soil, opening to a smooth throat that was bitterly, shiveringly cold.

Sealed in her armour, Augusta checked her temperature read-out and gestured for the five of them to slow down. Caia, still on point and still using her auspex, shook her head: no motion. But the Sister Superior knew they were coming to the heart of this. And that too-smooth stone was chillingly familiar.

Walk with us, O Emperor. Bear your light to guide our bootsteps…

With a prayer over the vox, they crept forwards, suit lights slanting through the pitch-dark. Akemi paused at a series of symbols, too ancient to even bear mould, but Augusta already knew what they were.

She had seen them before. And they confirmed her suspicions. What else would hide this deep beneath the gravestones, teaching its cult of death?

She paused, though she could not read the lettering. ‘It seems the frateris have been weak,’ she said. ‘They have betrayed their faith, fallen victim to something that yet lurks down here.’ Her voice was bleak. ‘It calls to them. And they listen.’

Viola hefted the heavy bolter. ‘It’s not going to call for much longer.’

The Sister Superior did not permit herself a chuckle. They moved on, deeper and colder, careful with every step.

And then: blip.

Only the one, and stationary. Ahead of them.

‘Close up formation. Viola, on point. Melia, take the rear.’ Over the vox, Augusta started to sing the battle litany, heard her Sisters join her, their harmonies clean and strong. The words were not spoken aloud, not down here, but they were familiar, His presence carried with them even into the darkest depths of this xenos-polluted world.

We will remove the taint, she thought. Free our Sisters from this heretic grip!

And then, they reached the mouth of the tunnel.

And saw light.

The light was green, taint and unholiness, and it flooded from a vast and upright gemstone in the centre of the room. The stone had no support – it turned slowly, floating free of a symbol-carved floor, concentric circles that pulled all eyes towards its central, gelid might. The walls, too, were etched in cyphers, studded with skulls, many of them encrusted with gems in their turn. Each one glittered like the eyes of the skulls in the cathedral. Watching.

But that was not what made the Sisters pause.

About the vast stone, shadows moved, hundreds, thousands of them – every one a piece of scavenged technology. From the Aeris, from the dozens, even hundreds of ships that had hove too close to the storm, and then crashed here, they now orbited the stone’s light slowly, like some drifting, asteroid eclipse, some floating of fragmented night.

‘Viola.’ Augusta did not hesitate.

The younger Sister aimed the heavy bolter.

Caia said, ‘Wait!’

Another blip, and another, and another. Augusta drew her chainsword, though she did not start the mechanism.

Descending from the huge dome of the roof came shapes. Not more skulls, but three elongated, oddly insectoid figures with metallic and curling tails, and a multitude of eager, gleaming claws. They glowed with the same green light, and Augusta’s suspicions were confirmed.

Necrons. Of course.

She had time for one shout: ‘Don’t let them close!’ And then the Sisters were moving as one, shoulder to shoulder, all of them facing outwards.

Roaring the words of the battle prayer, Viola opened fire.

The noise was deafening. A full suppression exploded across the room; rounds tore upwards, targeting the descending figures. One monster was caught and sent spinning, another was buffeted physically backwards by the force of the attack. Wounds erupted across its body, spraying dark splashes of oil.

It crashed against the wall and fell, crumpled. It didn’t move again.

‘In His name!’ There was the ring of victory in Viola’s voice.

But the other two were still moving, and there were more blips incoming. Even as the Sisters opened fire, the things flickered and shifted, and the rounds went straight through them, striking sparks and debris from the walls and roof.

‘What–’ Akemi cut off the curse and kept shooting.

‘They phase!’ Augusta remembered all too well the world of Heqet, and the last time she’d seen a necron wraith. ‘Time your shooting!’

Viola turned the heavy bolter on the second figure, but it had already faded away.

‘We’ve got more of them,’ Caia said. ‘Dominica’s eyes.’ The auspex was alive with motion.

‘Move!’ Augusta bellowed. ‘To the tunnel mouth. Melia, we need the flamer!’

They moved, Viola covering. The younger Sister checked back over her shoulder, fell back as Melia came to the fore.

And just in time, as a stream of clicking silver came pouring down the walls, scuttling even over the gemstone itself. Augusta had seen necron scarabs reduce a human to nothing in less than a second, take entire squads to pieces, armour and all. But Melia stood firm, framed by the green light of the tunnel mouth, her armour flaring scarlet at its edges. Watching the seethe, she waited.

Augusta held her breath, trusting to her Sister’s experience.

Then, with a cry of prayer, Melia loosed the full force of the flamer. Scarabs screeched like tortured metal, shattered with superheat. They crisped and turned over, curling up their legs. Keeping the flamer spraying, she moved it back and forth over the room’s floor, then up the walls towards the ceiling. Thick smoke filled the air, stinking. The creatures sparked and crackled.

Then, without warning, Melia fell.

One of the wraiths had reappeared, its claws embedded in her armour. Even as Augusta moved to shoot it, it was gone again, leaving Melia crumpled on the floor. The last of the scarabs headed instantly for her, clicking as they came. Caia, howling a prayer of her own, moved forwards to stamp on them. The words of the battle litany came from her in sheer, boiling fury.

Sister Melia did not move.

Augusta, eyes everywhere, searched the main chamber.

‘If there are wraiths, she said. ‘There’s likely to be a spider.’ She grinned, though the others could not see it. ‘Let’s coax it out, shall we? Viola, hit the phylactery.’

Raising the heavy bolter, Sister Viola blew the gemstone away.

In the librarium, the canoness looked at the Sisters.

The squad were battered and filthy, their armour damaged by the claws of the wraiths, by the insistent scuttle of the devouring scarabs. Melia was walking, though carefully; Alcina eyed the five of them with the faintest air of irritation, as if she had wanted to be in at the fighting.

But she had brought the faithless frateris back with her, and their leader now stood before his canoness, his head up, his eyes blazing. There was no repentance in him, only a savage and eager joy. The rest of them had been placed in the convent’s crypts.

For now.

‘Xenos, you say.’ Elderly though the canoness was, her voice still carried an edge, the true, righteous wrath of a Sister of Battle. ‘And their pollution rife amongst my people.’ Her gaze turned to the man, but he met it fearlessly, welcomed it.

‘I have done nothing wrong,’ he said. ‘Only embraced Him! His greatest gift!’

Swift as a thought, the canoness backhanded him.

‘How dare you?’ Her voice was livid with outrage. ‘Your blasphemy! Your betrayal!’ She was physically shaking, quivering with the kind of anger that should blister the skin of his face. ‘The Sisters of this Order that you have manipulated to their deaths!’ With a thump, she brought one hand down on the table, making her effigies and candles jump. ‘You have made a mockery of our very faith.’

The man said, again, ‘I have done nothing wrong! The great gem – it needs energy. Needed ships, supplies, power! Needs to build its forces once more! And it was His voice, His voice!’ The man staggered suddenly to his knees, reached for the hem of the canoness’ grey robe. ‘He spoke to me, milady. He came to me in a vision. A vision of death, and of pure, green light!’

The canoness stared down at him, pitiless.

‘And every time a Sister grew too close, it told you to end her life,’ Augusta said, her tone pure steel. ‘To make of her a sacrifice.’

‘He spoke to me.’ The man, pleading now, looked from canoness to Sister Superior. ‘He wanted only to help them. He spoke to my father, to my mother, to their parents before them. He–’

‘Enough.’ The canoness snatched her robe from the man’s grasp, swept it back to herself with a gesture that was all imperious scorn.

‘You have allied yourselves with a xenos power,’ Augusta said, grimly. ‘Caused the deaths of unknown numbers of His faithful. Your life is forfeit–’

‘Wait,’ the canoness said.

‘Milady?’

‘I have already said.’ The old lady sounded sad, now, her long years weighing heavy, but her eyes were like chips of flint. ‘We are not warriors, not like yourselves. We do His work, tending to those who have gone before us. But that work is not the work of warfare, it is the work of peace. Of His peace. Of that final peace that is granted in death, and in repose.’ She was staring at the frateris, who had a slow, horrific realisation breaking across his face. ‘I will not grant you that peace, heretic.’

Around Augusta, the squad shifted, understanding.

‘No…’ said the man.

Abruptly, the canoness lost her temper. ‘You have made a lie of our very Order! You have taken the tenets of this convent, of its most holy teachings, and you have twisted them, offering them to a xenos power! You have betrayed everything that He means to us, to this world of the sacred dead!’

Now the man was cowering, sobs starting in his chest. His love for the old lady was honest; the shattering of his own lies almost too much to bear. He said, ‘But I had a vision… I was only bringing His blessing…’

‘Your vision was falsehood,’ Augusta told him, still hard as rock. ‘You are no longer frateris. You are nothing.’

‘You are nothing,’ the canoness agreed. ‘You will join your fellows in the crypt. And there you will stay. Until your shouts weaken, and your hunger and thirst grow unbearable. Until you find repentance in your heart. And I pray that when you do face Him, you will know your faithlessness and understand humility. In that way, your soul may yet be saved.’

Alcina was nodding, sternly approving. Melia had frowned, but said nothing.

‘And you, milady?’ Augusta asked. ‘What will you do, without your frateris?’

‘Penance, Sister Superior,’ the canoness responded. ‘We allowed our faith to falter, to be corrupted by this ancient, xenos taint, and we did nothing. We allowed our young Sisters to be tricked to their deaths, and we did nothing. We only celebrated their ascension, knowing not what had caused it. We will offer our own labours in repentance. We will leave this closeted building, as we should have done long ago, and we will tend to the graves ourselves.’ She stopped, thinking for a minute, then finished, ‘I understand you have not yet found your text?’

Comprehending more than the question, Augusta responded, ‘No, milady, we have not. And it would be our honour to stay, even after our mission is completed.’ She looked round at the rest of the squad. ‘This world may yet have foes lurking beneath its surface. They must be sought out, and summarily slain.’

With the faintest flicker of a smile, the canoness nodded.

‘Then perhaps,’ she said, ‘we do have need for warriors, after all.’