When I fall in step beside her, Isidora speaks. Her voice is sing-song, and softer than you would expect, given her severity.

‘It looks to be the Last of Days, after all,’ she says.

It is a story that Isidora carries with her from the world where she was born. It says that on the Last of Days, the sky will catch fire and the Emperor will return from His seat in the heavens to take every worthy soul to His side. It is a story I have asked her to tell countless times, but one that I never believed I would witness myself.

‘It does,’ I tell her.

A tear traces from the corner of Isidora’s eye, cutting through the drying blood on her face.

‘Will you sing once more, culfre,’ she says. ‘At the end?’

It is what she has always called me. Never ‘Evangeline’, like Adelynn does, or ‘Eva’ like Gytha and Ashava, but ‘culfre’. It is a word Isidora brought with her from the world where she was born, just like her story of the Last of Days. It means dawning bird. She calls me that because I am the youngest. Because she finds comfort when I sing the praises.

‘I will,’ I promise.

We walk through the ruins until we emerge from the shattered spine of the cathedral onto a vast marble dais inlaid with gold.

‘Here,’ Adelynn says. We all nod.

The dais is one of the convent’s many Contemplations. A place usually used for reflection and meditation. For prayer. Today, though, it will be used for vengeance.

For our last stand.

Around the Contemplation stands a circle of saints wrought in stone. They are depicted holding swords and shields and wearing defiant, solemn expressions. As we walk into the centre of the dais, I catch their gilded eyes, just as I did those of my Sisters. I look upon Alicia Dominica. Silvana and Lucia, Arabella and Mina and, last of all, Saint Katherine.

Our Martyred Lady.

Adelynn looks to Saint Katherine too before she speaks again.

‘We have suffered greatly here, my Sisters,’ she says. ‘As we suffered at Okassis, and at Armageddon, and on one hundred other battlefields.’ Adelynn looks at me. Her emerald eyes are alight. ‘But suffering is not to be lamented,’ she says. ‘Suffering is to be celebrated. Where there is suffering, there is life. There is spirit and fire and all of the things for which He made us. Where there is suffering, that is where we must fight with every ounce of the strength He gave us until it is time to join Him in eternal glory.’

Gytha roars a cheer, as she always does. In the wake of it I hear the enemy, even closer now. Perfumed, reflective smoke begins to steal between the statues. Adelynn raises her sword.

‘Fight,’ she says. ‘Suffer. Stand, until you cannot.’

We all roar together then, as the enemy finally show themselves. There are dozens of the warp-spawned horrors, all wide-mawed and amorphous and ever-changing, with their ruddy skin shifting and burning.