‘Adelynn,’ I say, and I reach out to clasp wrists with her. But she flickers like a hololith and I realise that I am still alone. My heart thumps slowly with sorrow.

‘Are you ready?’ she asks me, again.

That sorrow wells up from my heart and spills out of me. ‘Please,’ I tell her. ‘Stop asking me that.’

Adelynn does not acknowledge my words. She does not blink or breathe. Her eyes are so flat they might as well be painted. ‘Are you ready?’ she asks.

With my scars burning and my heart aching and her eyes unblinking, I cannot help but answer her. ‘I do not know how to be!’ I shout the words, hoarse. ‘You left me the sword. Left me your legacy.’ I take a ragged breath. ‘Please, Sister, just tell me what it is I must do. Tell me how to find the Shield!’

Adelynn flickers then, like quickly turning pages. Her emerald eyes soften, and she looks at me in the way she did when she trained me. Raised me. Made me what I am.

‘Trust in yourself, Evangeline,’ she says. ‘You already have the answer.’

Around us, the chamber begins to glow as if the sun is coming up.

I shake my head. ‘What answer?’ I ask her. ‘Sister, I do not understand.’

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.