‘Then Sister Evangeline is with you,’ Gallion says. ‘The one who was burned, but not broken. Marked by His favour.’

I look at Okash, and he nods. I step forward and speak up so that Gallion can hear me.

‘I am Sister Evangeline,’ I tell him. ‘The one who bears the mark of which you speak.’

‘Evangeline,’ Gallion says, by way of reply. His voice is different, now. Filled with that same sort of fervour that I have heard from so many others.

‘How do you know my name?’ I ask him.

‘Prophecy, blessed Sister,’ Gallion says.

There is a sound over the link that could as well be breathing, or a sob. The helm officer turns and looks at Okash.

‘L-lux Terminalia is disarming,’ he says. ‘They are w-withdrawing their g-guns.’

Okash breathes a sigh. The shipmaster sits back down slowly in his throne as the vox crackles again and Gallion’s voice comes clear.

‘You are clear to proceed, Unbroken Vow,’ he says. ‘Go with grace.’

Ravara

RAVARA

They have to put Sofika under again in order to transfer her from Efrayl’s machine to the cradle-casket. It takes three Sisters Hospitaller to perform the disconnection procedure and move her. The time in which Sofika is between machines and has to rely on what’s left of her body to support her frightens me more than anything else I have ever witnessed. More than the devils and the damned. More even than the burning of worlds.

‘She will survive this, Ahri,’ my father says. ‘She is meant to.’

He stands amidst the Sisters Hospitaller as they settle Sofika into the cradle-casket and set about reconnecting her cabling and support mechanisms. The cradle-casket is bulky, laden down with machinery and its inbuilt power source and the grav-suspensors to enable it to move. At its heart, though, it is just a chair. One that reminds me of the one that my mother had, towards the end.

‘She won’t share that fate,’ my father says, as if he is reading my thoughts. Which I suppose he is, in a way. Because he is my thoughts.

I ignore him, instead focusing all of my attention on the monitron display mounted on Sofika’s cradle-casket, and on her sleeping face. As the last connection is made and the bellows begin to sigh, the monitron pulses green.

‘It is as I said,’ my father says, with a joyless smile. ‘Some things need to die.’

‘And some things don’t,’ I say absently.

‘Inquisitor?’

I look to the Sister who is speaking to me. Her hair is long and blonde. It shines like pale gold. Like Sofika’s used to.