I leave the armoury circle, then, and take up my sword once more from the rack on the wall. With the boosted strength of my armour plate, it feels feather-light. Those words on the blade catch the light again.

‘In faith we are found,’ Wyllo says, reading them too.

I nod, and slide the blade into the scabbard at my waist.

‘Yes. We are.’

My Sisters await me in one of the Vow’s small, spare chapels. It seems only right, given that we are to be bound together in blood and in service, to do so under His sight.

The chapel is on the spine of the Vow, towards the rear of the ship. It is close enough to the engines that everything hums along with them as the ship burns hard for the system’s Mandeville point. When I push open the doors, coils of candle smoke steal out, drawn from the chapel’s sanctity by the cool air of the spinal corridor. Like everywhere else on the Vow, the iron of the ship’s ancient skeleton is exposed in the chapel, looming darkly from the shadows like leviathan bones. Candles burn everywhere. There are no pews or benches here, because worships should be made on your feet or your knees. The floor is bare and hard, just like the walls.

My Sisters stand waiting, all clad for war in their full armour plate, but with their helms locked at their belts and their blades and bolters slung. I look upon faces old and young, tattooed and scarred, and they all look back at me, expectant. Waiting. Some of these faces I know, like Ashava and the others who once served Palatine Helia as a part of her Mission. Brave, fierce Qi-Oh, with her long-limbed strength, and her head shaved to the bare scalp. One of her eyes is hazel-coloured and full of fire, the other a brass augmetic, nested in a deep, old scar. With her is Calyth. The only other survivor of Qi-Oh’s squad is pale and mountainous, her armour adjusted to best fit her strength and height. Calyth’s eyes are silver-pale and contemplative against her strong-jawed, well-scarred face. Next to her are Sarita and Munari. Both are taller even than Ashava is, with long, slender features and large, dark eyes. They are sisters in blood as well as service, the only two I have ever known. Before, it might have been easy to mistake one for the other, but not now. Not since the Last of Days. Now a knot of scar tissue twists across Sarita’s face, coiling down onto her throat and disappearing into her armour. Munari did not escape unscathed, either. I know that beneath her armour, she bears a silver augmetic in place of her left arm.

Then there are those of Elivia’s mission, who I do not know yet, but whose names and likenesses the Canoness spoke to me. Burn-scarred Haskia. Smiling Joti, who will bear our blessed battle-standard. Severe Veridia with half of her scalp wrought from steel, and last of all small, quiet Eugenia. The last of my Sisters is also the youngest, her tan skin marked only by the simple fleur-de-lys tattooed under her right eye in red ink. I find her the most difficult to look at, somehow.