I realise then that the hollowness at the heart of me has always been there, really. That I was merely made whole for a time by my Sisters. By Adelynn. By acceptance. A temporary fix, like a mortar patch for broken stone. I cannot show that, though. Not to Eugenia. Not even to Ashava. So instead I nod.

‘You did well, Eugenia,’ I tell her.

Before I can react, or prevent her, Eugenia moves. She embraces me, though it must hurt her to do it. It certainly hurts me.

‘Thank you, Sister Superior,’ she says, and that hurts me too. Not because of my wounds, but because of that hollowness at the heart of me.

‘She looks up to you, Eva.’

Ashava says the words to me the moment we leave the hospitaller’s ward and go back out into the spinal corridor. It is half-dark, the deck fouled by filthy water from leaks and breaches. The air is soured with the smell of it. That, and the smell of blood coming from the waiting wounded. There are dozens upon dozens of them, all sitting huddled against the walls, bruised and bandaged and as filthy as the water on the deck. As we pass by, the people fall quiet, just like before. The whispering of my name begins again, a constant susurrus like oath-papers caught by the wind. Just like before, I cannot stand the sound of it.

‘As I once looked up to Adelynn,’ I reply. ‘I know.’

‘It sounds as though that troubles you,’ Ashava says.

I stop walking and look back at her.

‘All of this troubles me.’

I find Qi-Oh in one of the lowdeck training halls. The same one where we fought before. When I enter the chamber she is not training, or pacing. She is not moving at all. Qi-Oh kneels in the heart of the training circle with her head bowed, tending to the toothed blade of her chainsword with a set of precision tools. All around her lie the remains of combat servitors that have been hacked to pieces. The deck is slick with oil and vitae, but I see as I approach her that not a drop of either has crossed the circle’s edge.

‘Sister Superior,’ Qi-Oh says, without looking up. Her tone is cold.

‘So you do recognise my rank.’

She raises her head and looks at me. Her eyes are cold, too. ‘Are you here to reprimand me?’

I try to think for a moment how Adelynn would answer such a question, but I realise swiftly that I do not know, because I never once saw her dis­obeyed, or disregarded. Not once.

‘You would deserve it,’ I say. ‘You disobeyed me, Qi-Oh. You let your anger get the better of you.’

‘My anger,’ she says. ‘You know nothing of my anger.’

Qi-Oh gets to her feet, standing a head taller than me, her chainsword held loose in her gauntleted hand.