Adelynn does not reply. She merely turns away from me and begins to walk away.

‘Sister!’ I shout. ‘Please!’

She stops. Turns. Looks back at me once more with her emerald eyes. ‘You already have the answer,’ she says.

And then the chamber fills with blinding, golden light that engulfs Adelynn completely. Consumes her. I shout her name and throw myself into the inferno. It is so bright that I cannot see. So hot that it steals the air from my lungs. My skin is on fire, and my armour is sloughing away like candlewax, but still it does not hurt.

None of it hurts.

‘Adelynn,’ I say, as the fire steals my words from me and turns the tears on my cheeks to salt crystals. ‘You left me the sword. Left me your legacy.’

I crash to my knees.

‘You left me,’ I murmur.

I wake with a start to realise that I am still kneeling in my chambers aboard the Unbroken Vow. That there is no chamber. No fire. No Adelynn. I am completely alone. I look up at the devotional table to see that all of the candles have blown out. All but one.

‘What is the answer?’ I ask. ‘Please.’

There is no response, save for the flicker of the candle flame as it catches in the air.

I am kneeling in the Unbroken Vow’s main cathedral and turning the little wax eagle in my hands when Ashava comes to join me. It takes her a moment to kneel, and she breathes out slowly with the pain of it, despite the support of her power armour. Once again, neither of us acknowledge it.

‘This seems a grand place to meet,’ she says.

I tried to have Ashava suggest a place as the others did, but she refused me, saying that we knew each other well enough already. She bade me choose, and said that she would follow.

‘It is grand,’ I tell her. ‘But it reminds me of the convents.’

‘Of home,’ she says.

I nod, and for a moment we both remain silent, listening to the agony of the Vow as it fights the tides. Everything around us trembles with it in a terrible, asynchronous rhythm. The constant sound of weeping follows us even here, echoing up through the ship’s ventilation systems and spiralling up to the cathedral’s vaulted ceiling.

‘I have never known tides like these,’ Ashava says.

‘Another blame we can lay upon the Great Rift,’ I reply.

‘Surely,’ she says, and then she looks at me. ‘You look troubled, Eva, and I think it is by more than just the tides.’

I glance sidelong at her. ‘I thought this meeting was meant to expose your thoughts, not mine.’

She smiles thinly. ‘Very well,’ she says. ‘I will tell you what I think. I think I understand better why Adelynn chose you.’

I look at her properly, now. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We all of us were fierce. Strong fighters, full of faith. But you have no pretensions, Eva. You stood before us in that chapel and began by admitting your mistakes. That shows humility. It is honest. You have always been that way. That is why Adelynn chose you.’