I look at them both in turn.

‘This is where you make your choice,’ I say. ‘Follow me, or don’t, but know the alternative if you choose the latter.’

It’s presented as a choice, but both of them know it’s an ultimatum. I was honest with them when they swore to serve me. They both know full well what it means to turn away from the Inquisition.

‘I’m with you, lord,’ Zoric says.

I look to Yumia. ‘And you?’

She is quiet a moment longer than Zoric, but I can sense the answer in her bearing well before she speaks it.

‘I swore to you my blades,’ she says. ‘I will not break faith, no matter the torments we must go through.’

In that moment I come the closest to telling them the truth. To walking them down to Meridia’s depths where Sofika is sleeping. But I don’t. I can’t. Not yet. They wouldn’t understand.

‘Swear it anew,’ I tell them. ‘That no matter what we might face or what we might need to do, we do not stop. We go onwards, until it’s done.’

There’s a charged pause, but then they both nod.

‘Aye, inquisitor,’ they say together. ‘Until it’s done.’

Evangeline

EVANGELINE

My first sight of the Throneworld is a cracked rockcrete landing pad built into the upper tiers of the Convent Prioris. As I disembark the lander alongside my Sisters, the wind snags at my cloak and vestments. It lashes my hair against my face. The air smells of cold and smoke and soot, and carries with it a micro-fine dust that rings from my armour like rain. Where it hits my skin, it stings. Where it hits my scars, it burns. I stop for a moment, letting it. Letting where I am standing sink in.

Beyond the landing platform the tiers of the Convent Prioris drop away again and again, disappearing into murky fog. To my right, the basilicas and cathedrals go on, ever upwards, like mountains of marble and iron, their summits lost to Terra’s yellow-grey skies. It is both like my home and so unlike it, all at once. Far above me, the bells are tolling, the sound of it echoing out into the sky.

And somewhere, far beyond a horizon that is wracked by storms, the God-Emperor rests upon His Golden Throne. The truth of that carries in the air here, as much as the dust or the scent of smoke, making every breath feel as though it has weight.

I walk to the edge of the platform. The wind is even stronger here, pulled into twisting spirals by the shape of the convent. It sings and sings, like a tireless choir. I look out to the horizon, all mist and murk and thunderclouds, and I feel as though I know where He rests. I focus on that far-distant point. Somewhere beyond sight.