Thus did life on Angelsteeth Base enter its next phase. As it discovered a new center of faith, so too had its Messiah. The station found its footing the way a human child learns to walk, stumbling through confused first steps, foolish and eager for more. The commanders and captains of Angelsteeth had, in aggregate, a hundred years of battle experience, but they had never seen a mech like the archangel. They had never seen anyone fight the way Misery Nomaki did. Even the most cynical soldier was moved to imagine a lucent and victorious future, envisioning the end of war and a united Empire, the descendants of Earth’s children once again family as intended. The barren wastes of practical, war-worn cynicism could yet yield a bountiful crop of wonder, naïve and sheened with the promise of fairy tales.

This is the way of humans. Your mortal bodies are beholden to millions of years of evolutionary pressures. Your minds seek patterns in the noise, trying to make sense out of entropy. Your love for pareidolia and your search for meaning lead you to see cause and effect where there is none. Not one of you is exempt from these weaknesses of the flesh. No matter how blessed. No matter how exalted. No matter how wise. Misery Nomaki knew this in the core of their bones, and they used it to their advantage. They intoxicated those around them with the promise of a leading role in the story of how the Empire of the Faithful was saved. The promise of being somebody important. There is no sweeter nectar to the human psyche than the thought of being indispensable, and Misery Nomaki forced no one to drink that poison. All they had to do was offer it. When you humans choose a belief for yourself, you hold on to that belief tighter than anything that was simply handed to you. Isn’t that true? It was true of Misery Nomaki, too. As you will see. As you should know.

PART THREE THE SIEGE OF MONKGLASS

CHAPTER 23

The Heretics come at night. The alarm song rouses Misery from sleep. An image of her last dream lingers: the long-haired saint in a dark room, speaking inaudibly to her lover. The dream comes by once every few days, regular as an orbit. Her mortal brain has been through a lot, it needs its soft comforts and this dream is a passive fantasy, nowhere near as dangerous as Jericho. Unimportant. She unmoors from Lightning’s warm limbs as the latter struggles with her blanket of sleep. Her meds do that to her. Emblazoned across Misery’s vision is the stark red of the General’s summon. The time has come. Blood sings in her veins. She punches her partner in the shoulder. “We’ve got to move.”