Now, in its place, lies a vast piece of an Imperial starship. The ashes around the impact site are finer and darker. They stir in the wind, making momentary, transitory shapes. Figures and claws. Wings and teeth. The air is filled with the sound of the ashes moving. A constant shifting, like a chorus of whispers. Beneath that noise is another. The constant, tectonic groaning of the ship’s superstructure as it slowly collapses in on itself under the cathedral world’s atmosphere.

‘It is like sand,’ Ashava says, stooping down to put her fingers to the ground.

‘I have seen the like before. It is typical of when something so vast makes ground at such speed,’ Haskia says. ‘Everything in the surrounding area would have died before the fires even began, just from the pressure.’

‘Cheering thoughts, Sister,’ Munari says, clucking her tongue.

‘Factual,’ Haskia replies, without even a blink.

‘If it is fact, then what does that mean for us?’ Qi-Oh asks.

‘It means that the Shield is likely not on the surface,’ Haskia says.

I am only half-listening to them as I walk forward into the shadow of the wreckage. The tower of twisted metal is hundreds of metres tall, hardly more than a fraction of the ship it must have fallen from. It eliminates what remains of the sun, creating a darker darkness for me to stand in. The remains of the ship are burned black, reshaped by the heat of re-entry and the force of its landing. From this angle, it makes a familiar shape.

‘Another mark,’ says Ravara. ‘Another aquila.’

I look back to see the inquisitor standing behind me in the shadows, the ash-sand coiling around her legs in thin wisps. Her retinue are with her. All three of them.

‘Yes,’ I say, looking back at the spire-that-is-not-a-spire. At what you could call the eagle’s twin heads, and its spread wings. At its claws, planted in the ground.

I set off towards the foot of it, and Ravara follows me. The closer we get, the darker it becomes. The louder the creaking of the ship and the whispering of the ashes. The more my scars burn. I activate the stablight on my armour, but it only serves to illuminate the area immediately around us, as the candle did in my dreams. It is enough to see that the ashes are moving. Trickling like water might, towards the base of the wreckage. I follow them with Ravara at my side until it becomes clear where the trail is leading.

At the foot of the wreckage, a slope of rubble leads down into Canderum’s undercrofts. Into darkness. The slope is wide, the gradient shallow. It is easily large enough to accommodate the full commandery at marching strength.

‘It must have been exposed during the impact,’ Ravara says.

My stablight picks out the ashes running down the slope in rivulets, seeking out the hollows and pathways in the rubble.