I try to imagine it, but I have no frame of reference. No understanding of that many beautiful things.
‘Would you like to sing the verse?’ Calyth asks. ‘For the memory of your mother?’
I look at the page. At my armoured hands and the spirals burned into the ceramite, and I think of Isidora’s last words.
S-sing.
I close the book of verses gently.
‘I would like to hear you sing it,’ I reply.
Calyth nods. She takes up her own book of verses and begins to sing. Her voice is a surprise. It is soft and comforting and when Calyth comes to the last line of the verse her voice is joined by another inside my mind. One that should be my mother’s, but could just as well be Adelynn’s.
And death is a virtue earned and not owed.
One only granted, for those who are bold.
The next of my Sisters to call for me do so together.
Sarita and Munari do not so much choose a place, as choose the Vow herself. I meet them at the midships junction of the spinal corridor and together we set to walking towards the bridge.
‘What would you like to know, Sister Superior?’ Sarita asks.
‘Something of yourselves,’ I say. ‘Something true.’
‘Something of ourselves,’ Sarita says.
‘Something true,’ finishes Munari.
Their sharing of sentences is a habit I noticed long before the Contemplation, before the Rift, when we would undertake briefings and prayer together as a part of Helia’s Mission. I do not know the twins well, but it is impossible not to see the ways in which they are connected beyond even the way the rest of us are.
‘What about Gellax, sister?’ Munari says. ‘Why don’t you tell Evangeline of the eradication of the Cult of Drowning?’
Sarita shakes her head. ‘I loathe that story. You know I do.’
Munari grins. ‘All the more reason to tell it. We rarely love our own truths.’
‘Philosophy, sister,’ Sarita says. ‘Really?’
Munari laughs. ‘Always. Now tell the story.’
Sarita ignores her, looking at me instead. ‘Do you have any siblings, Evangeline?’
I shake my head, because it has always been just me.
‘Would you like one?’ Sarita asks.
Munari scoffs. Sarita laughs, and I do too, for what might be the first time since I awoke. It immediately makes me feel guilty, as though my right to laugh died with my own Sisters.
‘If you won’t tell the story then I will,’ Munari says, oblivious to my discomfort. ‘I will tell Evangeline of how you alone pushed beyond the battleline to reach the heart of the corruption. I will tell her of how you killed seven of the Archenemy who were swollen with dark power, all by yourself. I will tell her how you burned their fane to the ground, and walked out of the flames unscathed.’
‘I know this story,’ I tell them. ‘But I did not know it was you.’
Sarita clucks her tongue. ‘That is because I don’t like others to know,’ she says. ‘It feels self-aggrandising.’