Thousand Son.

Hate floods me like dawnrise floods the horizon. Edge to edge. Hate for the sorcerer, and what he did. What he took from me. But my hatred is not reserved for the heretic alone.

I hate myself, too, for failing to see it coming.

‘But now you dream of the dawnrise and of the light returning to burn away the shadows.’ Sofika says, oblivious to my anger. To my guilt. ‘It is just like before.’

I dab at her bleeding nose with the knot of cotton. Her blood is very dark, and half clotted already. I ignore it, as I have for weeks, just as I ignore Efrayl when the medicae tells me that the machine won’t keep Sofika alive forever. I put the wad of cotton down on the tray, Sofika’s blood sticking to my fingers.

‘I know,’ I say.

Sofika smiles. She looks at me the way she always has. The same way she looks at a starlit sky.

‘It all aligns,’ she says. ‘Darknesses are always accompanied by light. Cadia. The Rift. One who slumbers, arisen. Devils at the Throneworld’s gates. Scholars have spoken of it for almost a thousand years. The scrolls of Simir, and the Evangelis of Phrati. Your father’s journals. It is a sign, Ahri. I am sure of it.’

I want to smile too. I want to agree with her, but I can’t help looking down at her blood on my hands.

‘Like I was sure about Hellebore?’ I ask.

‘This is different,’ she says.

I shake my head. ‘You can’t know that.’

Sofika takes hold of my face so that I can’t help but look at her. Her pale eyes are bright and keen, like they are in my dreams.

‘I can,’ she says. ‘And I do.’

‘How?’ I ask.

She smiles again. ‘Because I believe,’ she says softly. ‘And I know that you do, too.’

I think of the divine light, filling the sky to the edges. Of the warmth, not just on my skin, but on my soul.

‘I do,’ I tell her. ‘I believe.’

‘Then it is time,’ she says softly.

I nod. ‘Time for the God-Emperor to return to us.’

A tear traces from Sofika’s eye and I dab that away too, with the pad of my thumb this time. I let my hand linger on her face, tracing the curve of her cheek to the line of her jaw.

‘I knew that I would live to see you find the Conduit,’ Sofika says, after a moment. ‘To see the Rebirth.’

I let my hand fall away from her face. ‘I swore it to you, didn’t I?’

Sofika smiles absently. ‘You did,’ she says. ‘And we do not break vows.’

I think about all of the things that I have seen and done and said. I have broken many things in my long lifetime, but never a vow, no matter how much it might pain me to keep it.

‘No,’ I say to Sofika. ‘We do not break vows.’