‘This cannot be,’ Thul murmurs. The Master of Dreams lets go of me and falls to his knees, his face a mess of blood and tears and drool. ‘You changed the dream. This is impossible.’

‘Clearly not.’

‘Where have you taken me?’ Thul asks.

A soft whickering echoes down from above. I look up to see birds sitting in the rafters, turning their wings.

‘To the end,’ I say. ‘And the beginning.’

A cry splits the air, then. Pure, and songlike. The eagle ablaze streaks overhead, shedding her feathers of fire. She snaps her wings and settles like blown embers on the shrouded statue in the centre of the hall. I draw my main-hand sword and follow her, picking my way through the field of devotional candles towards the statue. I am dimly aware of Thul getting to his feet and stumbling after me. Asking me to stop. Pleading. But I ignore him, all of my attention focused on the shrouded statue and the person standing before it. A man, clad in regal blue and leaning on a bronzed walking cane.

‘Father,’ I say.

He turns from the statue and looks at me.

‘Hello, Ahri,’ he says.

I keep my blade up, in guard. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

My father smiles, and his golden eyes soften, like metal under heat. Like a sunrise.

‘I am wherever you go, Ahri,’ he says. ‘We only leave one another behind by choice.’

I remember him saying those words to me before, one night in the spire tower, just after my mother died. I lower my blade, slowly.

‘What is this place?’ I ask him.

‘It is a Resonance, just like the one you uncovered on Hellebore. A place where the walls between worlds are thin. Where deeds and words have power. This is where it is meant to happen.’

‘The Rebirth.’

My father nods. He turns back to face the statue, and I approach to stand beside him. The shroud is burning now, thanks to the eagle’s touch. I feel the heat of it on my face.

‘How can you be so sure that this is the place?’ I ask. ‘I believed the same of Hellebore, but I was wrong.’

My father shakes his head. ‘You were not wrong, Ahri,’ he says. ‘The timing was. You cannot make the sun rise before it is ready to, no matter how fearsome you may be.’

I remember him saying those words to me before, too. More times than I care to count. I think of Sofika caught in the cradle of her machine and I wish desperately that I had listened.

‘But the time is upon us, now,’ he says. ‘You simply need to find the place.’

‘How?’ I ask.

‘Follow the eagle, Ahri,’ my father says. ‘She will lead you to it.’

The crimson cloth curls and tears and falls away then to reveal the statue beneath, only it isn’t a statue at all. It is a woman. A warrior. One clad in the armour of the Adepta Sororitas. She is utterly still. Around her closed eyes the Battle Sister is scarred. Marked. And just like the gilded bones that surround me, the marks on the woman’s face make the sign of the aquila.