‘I felt doubt after Ophelia VII,’ I tell her, my eyes still on the sword. ‘After the Contemplation. I sought death, not for the God-Emperor, but for myself. Those things are sins.’

‘You led us to victory,’ Ashava says. ‘You defeated the witch, even after he changed. You bear the marks.’

I shake my head. ‘None of that changes what I did. What I felt. Sins are sins, and they must be paid for.’

‘You mean to take the mantle of Repentia,’ Ashava says.

I look up from the blade, meeting her eyes without shame. Without regret.

‘I do,’ I tell her. ‘But I cannot leave my Sisters without a leader.’

‘Eva,’ Ashava says again. ‘I am not the right choice. You know that I cannot wield a sword as I once could. Especially not now.’

I shake my head. ‘It is not in the hand that you hold the sword,’ I say. ‘It is the heart.’

Ashava shakes her head. She laughs, her dark eyes shining with tears. ‘You are so much like her,’ she says.

I hold out the sword by the blade, offering her the hilt.

‘Take up the blade,’ I say to her. ‘And take up the mantle, under the sight of Saint Katherine, and of the God-Emperor, whose realm is everlasting.’

Ashava blinks, and a tear rolls down her scarred cheek. ‘Under their sight,’ she says, putting her hand on the grip of the sword and taking it from me as the sun rises over the Contemplation’s edge.

‘Go with grace, Sister Superior,’ I tell her.

Ashava slides the sword into the scabbard she wears and then embraces me fiercely, just as she did aboard the Unbroken Vow, all those weeks ago.

‘I will miss you, Eva,’ she says, in my ear.

I close my eyes in the warmth of the sunset and the closeness of the embrace.

‘I will miss you too,’ I tell her.

Ashava withdraws from me, the sword sitting easily in the scabbard at her waist. More easily than it ever sat with me, even at the end. Ashava smiles at me, creasing the scars on her face.

‘When I arrived, I could have sworn you were speaking with someone,’ she says.

I frown. ‘I was,’ I tell her, and I turn back to the Contemplation’s edge to find that Kati is nowhere to be seen.

‘Who was it you were speaking to?’ Ashava asks.

My heart grows loud in my ears as I approach the low wall that circles the Contemplation. There are candles arrayed all along the edge of it, but only one of them remains lit. I pick it up gently, the flame wending and crackling in the cooling air.

‘A Sister,’ I reply absently.

Ravara

RAVARA