The creature screams from its jagged mouths and twists around to face her. It lunges for Ashava, its remaining colourless claws lit with warpfire. She will not be able to dodge it. She does not even try to. Ashava merely grits her teeth and holds her ground, the firelight reflecting in her dark eyes. Between heartbeats, the Contemplation resurfaces in my mind. The warpfire and the laughter. The sound of her bones breaking, and the sight of her still body on the marble.

‘No,’ I say, the word stolen by the fire as I throw myself between them. Heat washes over me, blackening my vestments and immolating my oath seals. It takes my breath away. Scorches the inside of my nose and my throat as I bellow my hate at the daemon.

But it does not stop me.

My sword blade connects with the daemon’s massive, hooked claw and shatters it before it can reach my Sister. Crystal and glass explode outwards, ringing from my armour and cutting my face. Still I do not stop. I push through the flurry of shrapnel and plunge my power sword into one of the daemon’s nine lidless eyes. The blade punches inwards and starlight spills out from inside. Starlight, and screams. I roar and twist the blade and then the daemon screams too, rearing backwards. It drives another of its claws into me, hitting me in the chest hard enough to crack my armour and lift me clear off my feet. I land hard on my back on the ruined marble, my grip still tight around my sword’s hilt. Something has cracked inside my chest, too, making it all but impossible to breathe.

Stand.

The word floats up inside my mind, and through bleary, blinking eyes, I could swear that I see Adelynn standing and watching me with her emerald-green eyes, just as she would when she trained me. When she would not offer her hand to help me up, but wait for me to do it on my own.

Stand, Evangeline.

I do not know if the words are hers or mine, but I grit my teeth and drag myself upright. When I do Adelynn is gone and it is Ashava that I see in her place. She is bloodied and breathing hard, her face creased with pain.

‘You blessed fool,’ she says. ‘You really are so much like her.’

‘I might as well be a mirror,’ I say, between breaths, looking past her to where the daemon is coiling and recovering. Regrowing its mutilated limbs. I raise my sword again as it twists at its core and fixes its lidless eyes on me, its jagged mouths opening in perfect synchronicity.

You, it says. You are the one who was burned. Believed to be blessed, you think yourself a prophet.