Evangeline

EVANGELINE

As the lander’s ramp lowers, a smell carries into the hold on the wind. Cold air and old stone. Mortar and marble. Dying flowers. The smell of a cardinal world.

‘It smells like home,’ Ashava says.

She is standing beside me with the rest of my squad at the head of the commandery. Canoness Elivia stands in front of us with her Celestians, ready to step out the moment that the ramp is down.

‘Do you hear that?’ Elivia asks. ‘The sound on the wind?’

I listen, and I realise that I can hear wailing. Dim and distant at first, it grows louder and clearer by the second.

‘What is that? Alarums?’

The question belongs to Yumia. She is standing nearby with Ravara and the rest of her retinue. Ravara’s bladeward is wary. Tense, like a length of chain under torsion.

‘No,’ Ravara says, watching the ramp come down. ‘It’s devotion.’

I look out as the lander’s ramp hits the earth. The landing zone is a vast expanse that has been panelled flat. It sits between the inner and outer walls of Dimmamar’s south-western cathedral province. Not in the holiest place, or the poorest, but somewhere between. A huge crowd is gathered around the edges of the landing zone. A sea of humanity, clad in the colours of pilgrims. They are the ones wailing, like a choir that cannot control its song.

A short distance from the foot of the bulk lander’s ramp, two figures wait, separate from the crowd. Unlike the pilgrims, who are held back by barriers and security troops, these two men are standing on a greeting drape of violet and gold. They are clad from head to toe in fine, heavy robes of white and gold and red. A pair of cherubim hover above them, trailing parchment scrolls, while veiled faith-serfs crouch at their feet, scattering flower petals.

‘Hail, Blessed Sisters,’ comes a voice, broadcast from the fluttering cherubim. It is fine and heavy, just like the robes of the men waiting for us.

‘Ceremony.’

Elivia speaks the word as though it is another name for sin, before looking to me, and then to Ravara.

‘Come,’ she says. ‘Let us get this over with.’

Elivia starts down the ramp with Beatris and Radah at her side. Ravara follows, leaving her retinue behind. Before I step out on to the ramp, Ashava puts her hand on my arm.

‘He chose you,’ she says in a low voice. ‘And so did she.’

Then she drops her hand away and bows her head and steps back to wait for her summons.