The glow has gone out of Ishilan’s armour, leaving his cobalt plate cold. Inert. Amenthas rests his hand on the back of Ishilan’s head for a moment. Fire blooms from Amenthas’ hands, coursing over the still form of his silent brother. It crumples Ishilan’s armour. Immolates him in moments. Then Amenthas gets to his feet and looks at me with the one eye left to him, his crystalline skin smeared with blood.

‘Ten thousand years of silence,’ he says, his voice low and threatening. ‘I just wanted to hear him speak.’

Amenthas turns his staff, and lightning arcs from the crystal at the top of it, striking me in the chest. It blinds me. Deafens me. Puts me back on my knees. He approaches me slowly, striking me with lightning a second time, filling my lungs with the scent of my burning hair and skin.

‘I will take you apart,’ he says. ‘I will tear your soul into a thousand tiny shreds, and scatter them for the ether-tides to take.’

As Amenthas raises his staff, warmth spreads through my body. Pure, and bright. I look up at the sorcerer and shake my head. Smile.

‘This is not my ending,’ I tell him, as a golden light rises over the stairs at my back. ‘It is yours.’

Evangeline

EVANGELINE

The witch roars at the sight of me.

He straightens, fixing me with a single golden eye. Turns his staff to shield himself with storms and with spells. With his dark gifts. But I am already pulling my bolter’s trigger, and I have the God-Emperor on my side.

The explosive rounds slam into the sorcerer, cratering his ancient armour and blowing blood and chips of ceramite into the air. I stride forward with my Sisters beside me, forcing the witch backwards across the crystal dais, away from Ravara. Forcing him to use his sorceries just to defend himself, until he cannot even do that any more. As my bolter coughs empty, his spells finally fail him and the sorcerer crashes to his knees, his staff splintered in his hands and blood dribbling from the ruin of his chestplate in thick black cords.

I approach him with my sword drawn. The sorcerer is shaking as if he is going into shock, one clawed gauntlet pressed to his chest in a futile effort to keep from bleeding out. He does not fight me when I kick him onto his back, but he does speak.

‘Evangeline,’ he says, his words coming between rasping, clotting breaths. ‘She who is burned, but not broken. Marked by the favour of a false god.’