Canoness Elivia’s quarters are dominated by a large gnarlwood table, laid with maps and star charts and tools for tide-taking. Other than that, there is no furniture at all. Not even a chair. It does not surprise me. From everything that I have heard, the Canoness is not the type to be found in repose.

I stand and I wait for her to speak as she makes her way to the weapons hanging on the walls. Elivia puts her armoured fingertips to each blade in turn as if she is checking their quality.

‘You and Ashava are to be taken into my commandery, as are the other survivors of Palatine Helia’s Mission,’ she says bluntly.

My heart skips at the word survivors.

‘If I may, Canoness, how many others survived the incursion?’

Elivia nods. She still isn’t looking at me, but at the swords. ‘At the time of the incursion, there were over five thousand serving Sisters at the Convent Sanctorum. More than twenty times that in adjutants, auxiliaries and serfs.’ She pauses. ‘We cannot be sure, but early estimates suggest that almost half of those defending the convent were lost.’

My heart more than skips, then. It feels as though it stops as I think on all of those losses. On all of those martyr’s deaths.

‘Only six of Helia’s fifty-strong Mission were recovered from the ruins of the eighty-fifth preceptory,’ Elivia continues. ‘That is counting yourself and Ashava.’

‘And the Palatine herself?’

‘Taken unto Him, sword in hand,’ Elivia says, her voice much softer than I would have guessed it could ever be.

I blink. Breathe out.

‘May her blade never dull,’ I say, finishing the old adage.

Elivia nods, before reaching out to take a power sword from the wall. It is beautiful. A slender, double-edged blade with spread wings wrought into the hilt in gold. Elivia weighs it in her hand, nods, and then turns away from the wall of weapons and looks at me.

‘Precious little remains of Helia’s Mission,’ she says. ‘And no Sisters of rank.’

I can see what she is about to say looming large.

No, I think. Not me.

‘Effective immediately, I confer upon you the rank of Sister Superior,’ Elivia says, approaching me with that sword. ‘The survivors will be yours to lead, as well as five Sisters from my own commandery.’

Elivia holds out the sword towards me by the neck of the blade, offering me the hilt.

‘Take up the blade,’ she says. ‘And take up the mantle, under the sight of Saint Katherine, and of the God-Emperor, whose realm is everlasting.’

I want to say no. The word rises up from within me so quickly and urgently that it takes everything I have to stop it from spilling out. I was the youngest of my Sisters, before. The least experienced. The one who was trained and taught. I was the dawning bird. I do not seek progression, nor do I want it. I am not ready. But Elivia is not asking me what I want, and this is not an offer to be refused. It is a duty, so I push down my doubts and the word no and I answer how I am expected to.