‘I know,’ she says. ‘That I do not doubt.’

‘Then what do you doubt?’

She breaks away, breathing through her teeth. ‘I do not doubt,’ she snarls. ‘I will do as He intends, until the God-Emperor sees fit to take me up to His side.’

It is an evasion, and I will not have it.

‘But something troubles you,’ I say.

Qi-Oh snorts. ‘You asked for honesty?’

‘I did.’

She paces around me, gauging the best time to act. Qi-Oh moves with enviable lightness, even in full plate.

‘What troubles me is the fact that the weakest amongst humanity will go on sinning. They will go on doubting. They will make new wars for us to fight and new enemies for us to face, born from their wickedness.’ She spits on the training hall floor. ‘It will go on and on and on, until the stars themselves are stained with our blood, all because of those who are too weak to keep faith.’

Qi-Oh attacks again, this time with a feint intended to make me turn and leave myself open for a second strike. Instead I turn into her attack and push her backwards.

‘All of that weakness,’ she says. ‘It is abhorrent.’

‘It is the way of things,’ I say. ‘You know that.’

Qi-Oh lashes out, opening up the space between us, before coming for me again and again with that same ferocity. With all of that anger. There is no chance for artistry. It is all I can do just to block the weight of her attacks as she pushes me back across the circle, towards the edge.

But she is not just propelling me towards the edge.

I twist my body and slip past her. The edge of her training blade skitters across my armour, shoulder to hip. It would be enough to grant her victory, were it not for the fact that her momentum sends her over the edge of the marked circle. At once, the fight bell tolls and I lower my sword. It takes Qi-Oh a moment to do the same. She is looking down at her feet. At their position over the circle’s edge, her shoulders rising and falling with each breath.

‘You are not what I expected,’ she says, in a low voice.

Her words surprise me. ‘What did you expect?’

She looks up. ‘You asked for honesty?’ she asks, again.

I nod. ‘I did.’

‘I expected a miracle,’ she says. ‘What else could I expect of one who is marked by His favour, who is meant to find the Shield of our Saint?’ Qi-Oh shakes her head. ‘They all said the same thing. Lourette. Calyth. Even Veridia said it, of all souls. You will see, Qi-Oh. When you see the mark you will understand. But you are not a miracle.’

It is almost enough to make me laugh, because I have looked at the mark a dozen times or more, and I do not understand. But I cannot tell Qi-Oh this when it seems I have already fallen so far short of her expectations.