Misery delays sleep that night. Her body, heavy with exhaustion, yearns for it. Begs her to rest. But she can’t waste her hours in the treacherous duchy that is sleep, where the fanged beasts of the nullvoid wait to feast on her mind. She’s afraid of what she will see. Skins splitting, the vomit of the void spewing forth, the eyes of the dead, creeping madness. Eventually, she’ll have to sleep. The flesh will drag her mind down that pit. Until then, Misery distracts herself with reading. She sinks into the foam of her bed, awkwardly wedged into a corner not meant to hold furniture. A galaxy of screens dance before her: she’s summoned, from Angelsteeth’s system, every scrap of information she can find about the training she must go through. Seraph pilot training comes in multiple stages. Before one is allowed within spitting distance of a combat unit, a pilot must first learn use of the interface. Seraphim are not welcoming to mortals; even the sacred few among the saints who are seraph-compatible cannot operate them directly. Through centuries of trial and error, Faithful scientists discovered that specific actions performed on the holy labradorite resulted in specific movements in the seraphim, and from that had developed a vocabulary of movesets that each pilot had to learn.

None of it appeals. It’s all very difficult, it’s all very strict, there are multiple points of failure. But General Tsung has decided her messianic drive should be harnessed by a seraph, turning her into perfect weapon against the Heretics, a holy sword that cleaves the nullvoid. Who knew the General was such a romantic? Problem: now she has to learn to pilot a seraph. And it’s not like learning how to punch faster or getting better at cards. The ability to connect to a seraph is innate: either you can do it or you can’t. Many saints can’t. Chosen of the Larex Forge and all. So far, Misery has impressed the soft minds running the show by masking her voidsickness as holy ability. But she suspects this will not fly with the seraphim whose stone hearts will not be moved by intimidation, manipulation, or bribery.

So what now? Her mind stubbornly plots out the worst-case scenarios like a prayer wheel of anxieties. She could flunk out at the training stage, the bubble of illusion popped at the first obstacle. That path is easy to chart. Major Reyes says, “See, told you,” the General gets disillusioned, she gets put back on death row. Misery gets taken out of the picture. Nothing she can do about that.