Eugenia gets to her feet, then, and goes over to the small devotional table against the far wall. She picks up the little eagle made from red wax. As she returns to kneel opposite me I see that it is clutching a wreath of flowers in its talons. She turns it in her hands.

‘This was meant for my Sister Superior.’ She checks herself. ‘For Sister Juliana. I did not get the chance to give it to her, though.’ She shakes her head. ‘I thought to leave it at the Convent Sanctorum, in the Hall of Remembrance, but I never had chance to do that, either. When we arrived at Ophelia VII, it was already burning.’

Her words pierce the fog of my thoughts like a lance.

‘When we reach Terra, the dead will be laid to rest at the Convent Prioris. Perhaps you could leave it there.’

‘Perhaps,’ Eugenia says absently, still turning the eagle. ‘Though…’

‘Though what?’ I ask.

She looks at me. Her dark eyes are unsettling. They are so earnest.

‘I intended this for my Sister Superior,’ she says. ‘But that is not Juliana now. It is you. You are the one who will lead us to the Shield. You are the one who bears the God-Emperor’s mark.’

Eugenia holds out the little eagle with his wreath of flowers. ‘Please, take it,’ she says.

For a moment, all I can do is stare at it. The last thing I want to do is accept it, this gift that was made for someone she loved and respected and then mourned for. But then I think about why I am doing this. To understand who my new Sisters are, and what they need from me.

I hold out my hand and let Eugenia press the eagle trinket into it.

‘I am glad to serve you,’ she says, with that earnest look in her eyes.

‘Thank you,’ I say, closing my hand carefully around the eagle so as not to break it.

‘Will there be anything else?’ she asks.

‘No,’ I tell her. ‘This is enough.’

By the time I return to my quarters, I am exhausted and my scars are burning as if they have been made anew. It is so painful that I have little choice but to kneel, so I choose to do so with purpose. I light the cluster of candles on my devotional table and kneel before it, hoping that might ease the ache. I breathe deeply and slowly, catching the scent of smoke and of running wax, but the pain does not fade. It is persistent, just like the hollowness at the heart of me. The shameful sensation of grief and loneliness that I expected to fade after meeting with my squad, which has somehow only grown larger. I had hoped to feel closer to them. To feel like a leader. But I feel neither of those things. I feel nothing but pain, and that deceitful emptiness.