This story was always going to involve a lot of destruction and a lot of death; it’s part of the setting. But I didn’t want its appearance to be slight. I wanted the progress of war and its price in lives to be shocking and moving. The Solar War is a story of just how quick and cruel death can be and how much and how little it matters in events of this scale. I wanted bleakness and a truth to the price of this war. There is heroism and there are extraordinary deeds, but I wanted to create a feeling that they were just flashes in a sea of fire.

So, to show that remorseless death, I deliberately put effort into introducing and building characters who would not make it to the end of the book, and whose deaths might not come in moments of heroism or villainy, but simply arrive. Sarduran, Jubal Khan, Vek, Boreas, Aksinya: all could have gone on, following arcs of change and revelation, but instead they end where they did, cut short, because it is that kind of war and that kind of story.

Perhaps, this was never more on my mind than at the moment when Vek dies with a prayer for protection on his lips:

“‘All you need to do is trust…’

Vek could see Noon and Mori’s faces in his mind, more clear than the red shadows that moved close.

‘This one is alive,’ said a voice from close by. Vek suddenly realised how quiet everything had become. The lights still blinked, but there were no alarms, no shouts…

‘Just trust?’ he had asked. ‘That does not seem like much.’

‘It is everything,’ she had said. ‘It is everything, my love.’

He was looking up into a black eye-slot set into a crimson-lacquered helm.

‘The Emperor…’ he managed, hearing the gurgle and rasp in his own words. The barrel of the gun eclipsed the sight of the room. He could see the scorching inside its muzzle. ‘The Emperor p–’”

He should live, shouldn’t he? That would be the kind thing to do, the reassuring story to tell, but this is a story where that kind of hope and faith is not enough, and the reality is that it is going to end in blood and sacrifice and loss.

In contrast, Boreas dies what might be thought a hero’s death, but ultimately all that is left to give meaning to that moment is the bond between him and his battle-brothers.

“‘You… atone… by… living… until… until the last… blow… of the sword.’ Something in the ruin of meat and twisted armour shifted. It might have been a hand reaching to grasp, or just the shudder of life fleeing the will holding it. ‘Until… the last blow… of the sword… Swear it to me.’

‘You have my oath,’ said Sigismund.

The machines stopped. A high wail replaced the bubbling hiss and thump.