She nods and sets her jaw, getting to her feet as I start forwards, not towards Qi-Oh, but towards the daemon. I fire on it in the same moment that Eugenia does.

‘God-Emperor, be my blade,’ I shout as we advance together, our bolt shells painting points of bright light on the daemon’s crystal hide and bursting three of its unblinking, milky eyes. They spill black liquid and shadows, and the daemon writhes and lashes out, propelling itself towards me on the jagged, swollen coils of its body.

‘God-Emperor, be my armour,’ I cry as the daemon strikes at me with its claws and with its wings. With everything left to it save for that long tail that is still pinning Qi-Oh to the deck. Some blows I turn aside with the blade of my sword. Some I do not. Cuts open on my face and scalp, hot blood running into my eyes and into the collar of my armour. My broken ribs flex in my chest. My heart thunders and my ears ring as the mirrored monstrosity knocks my sword blade aside and rears, ready to tear my head from my shoulders.

‘God-Emperor, be my strength!’

Eugenia screams the words as she pushes me aside. The daemon’s claws strike her instead of me with an explosion of light that makes the daemon reel backwards, showering fragments of crystal. Eugenia is thrown bodily from her feet, her power armour splintered and her blood blowing into the air like smoke. She lands heavily, and goes still.

‘Eugenia!’ I shout.

She does not answer, but the daemon does. It laughs. Righteous anger lights inside me, burning me from the inside out.

‘You will die, creature!’ I roar at the daemon as I charge towards it through the storm of glass and death. It gives me the strength to shatter one of the daemon’s fractal wings, and to turn another of its clawed limbs to dust.

I do not fight like Qi-Oh, with ferocious speed. Or like Ashava once did, with artistry. I fight like Adelynn bade me to when she took me into the convent all those years ago. With a sheer, bloody-minded resolve. So when the daemon batters me to the deck with a snap of its remaining wing, I do not stay there. I get back up, my power armour whining as it lends me its strength. As Adelynn lends me strength, too, her voice echoing in my ears.

Stand, Evangeline.

I stand. I run. I bring my sword down so hard on the creature’s remaining wing that it sends a vertical crack along my vambrace from my wrist to my elbow. My bones splinter in concert with it. But the daemon’s wing breaks too, right back to the joint.

Fight, Evangeline.