Blackness.
Cold metal bands digging into her flesh.
Her eyes snapped open – with no result. Panic. Had they taken her eyes?
No, she realized. A thick sack shrouded her head. The coarse weave scraped her skin like penitential sackcloth.
The stench of dried blood mixed with that of stale piss. The rank, pungent odor assailed her senses. She forced it aside; she'd experienced worse in the hospital rooms.
Fear surged through her limbs, lending them desperate strength as she struggled against the bands clamped tight around her neck, wrists, and ankles. She might as well have tried to lift an Exorcist launcher by herself. The seat she'd been strapped to didn't yield either; the hard metal plank pressed against her spine, cold through her thin robes.
What was happening?
She took a shaky breath. The last thing she remembered was going to bed after the evening prayers following her night shift in the infirmary wing. Now she was here, blindfolded and strapped to a restraint chair. Cold seeped through her robes like blood from when she'd been forced to hold a thrashing Guardsman down for surgery.
Stay calm, she told herself. The Emperor protects.
Her mouth felt like it'd been stuffed with medical gauze. Her stomach churned with nausea. A deep breath: these symptoms…
She ceased struggling as she heard quiet, even breaths nearby.
"Awake already." The voice belonged to a woman – authoritative, slightly accented. Not from Abracus Minor. It came from somewhere close, right in front of her. "The dosage should have remained in effect for another quarter hour."
"Phanthedrol." The act of speaking parched her lips, confirming the drug to her mind. "The recommended doses always were conservative."
"Indeed?" Amusement tinged the unseen speaker's voice. "I shall bear that in mind for future applications." There came a rustling of cloth and a soft creak of metal; the speaker had sat down. "So, Sister Kaitlin Gallia, I imagine you're wondering what's going on."
"Yes." Kaitlin struggled against the bonds again. "You have me at a disadvantage then. Do I get to meet the person who drugged and abducted me?"
"Impertinence!" Another voice, also female.
This one Kaitlin recognized. "Palatine Athyia?"
"Silence, girl! You heap further guilt atop the shame you bring upon the Order."
Ah. So that was the crux of the matter. Kaitlin took another deep breath. There is nothing to fear but failure.
"Judging that reaction, I assume you've some idea of why you're here," the first voice said.
"Yes," Kaitlin whispered.
"Markel Froust. A patient of yours. Recidivist. Cultist."
"Heretic," Palatine Athyia added, her voice an angry snarl. "And you treated him!"
"I did," Kaitlin said.
"You admit it so openly?"
"Interesting," the other woman said. "Most Sisters in your position would not confess to such an act so readily."
"The Emperor knows our deeds," Kaitlin said. "My actions are not in doubt here."
"No, they are not. Your judgment, however, is."
"Healing a heretic?" Athyia snapped. Footsteps beat a cadence before Kaitlin as the Palatine paced. "'Cursed is he who succors the faithless.'"
"Let us backtrack the tale," the calm voice said. "The Adeptus Arbites raid a lair in the undercroft: a long suspected cultist stronghold. Many are slain, others captured. Some escape. Among them, a wounded Froust."
"Again, you know more than I," Kaitlin said through her hood. "My first contact with the man was in the hospital wing. An odd choice for a heretic on the run."
"He wasn't exactly infamous then. And gunshot wounds are hardly unique in this section of Abracus Minor, are they?"
Kaitlin took a shallow breath. "Who are you?"
"More impertinence!" Athyia said. "Know your place."
"Is this where you acquired your suturing skills, Sister Gallia? I commend you on the craftsmanship: nearly like a work of art. It was almost a shame to undo them across Froust's body."
"The faithless deserve no better," Kaitlin said.
"The faithless deserve no such comfort and succor that you gave him!" Athyia raged. "Were you aware of his perfidy, his heretical nature?"
For the first time in years, Kaitlin considered lying. She sat, bound to the metal chair, in silence. Finally, she whispered an answer. "Yes."
An angry scoff sounded from off to her side. "She admits her guilt," Athyia said. "What more is there to know? Do you think the God-Emperor would forgive such a thing?"
"I wouldn't presume to know His divine will in all matters," the other voice said calmly. "What I'm curious about, Sister Gallia, is why a Hospitaller would treat a man she knows to be a heretic. I dare say none of the others in your convent would have done so. Was it weakness? Misguided compassion, perhaps? We can ill afford such things in this dark age. Mercy belongs only to those loyal to the Emperor."
"And only as necessary in the furtherance of His domains," Athyia added.
Kaitlin's hands clenched into fists. "There was no mercy in my actions. I bound the heretic's wounds that he would live a while longer, true."
"Why?"
"Even those who have turned from the Emperor's light may serve Him in other ways. A heretic such as Froust may still be interrogated, or made an example of."
"You dare to presume it is your place to make such judgments?"
Kaitlin took a shaky breath. "I dare to take action on the Imperium's behalf."
"A bold claim," said the other woman. There came the scrape of a chair against rough metal. "Very… independent… of you."
"I've heard enough," Athyia said. "The events are clear; were it my choice I would ignite the Purgation Throne now and be done with it."
Fear jolted down Kaitlin's spine like a dagger of ice. So that was where she was. The Purging Chamber, with its baroque chair fitted with flame emitters, was a section of the convent fortress seldom used by the Hospitallers. After all, those dragged in had little need for medicae attention – they were under death sentences already.
A clunk and the squeal of metal from somewhere before her sounded; the chamber door had just opened. "What of Froust?"
"Dead, of course," came the amused reply. "We'll see if you share his fate presently."
Another snarl of contempt came from Athyia as footsteps heralded them leaving the Purging Chamber. The door slammed shut with a tortured shriek. Kaitlin held still for a moment, then broke into trembles. The bonds held her in place of course, suppressed the worst of it. She couldn't even hang her head with the clamp around her neck.
We remember the Divine Emperor. Where the faithless fall and are broken, we are risen and victorious.
Time passed.
Thirst ravaged her throat.
Her arms and legs ached, held immobile in their restraints.
Kaitlin could only take shallow breaths through the sackcloth hood and the clamp around her neck. She shivered in the cold, trying not to think of how warm it could be getting shortly. Would they formally pronounce judgment on her? Execute her in all ceremony – make an example of her? Or would the seat beneath her just start hissing without warning and consume her in blazing promethium?
Which would she prefer?
A quiet ignominious death, or a public spectacle of shame?
She slowed her breathing as best she could. The Emperor sees all, she told herself, particularly the manner in which we lay our lives down in His service.
It felt like the next millennium had dawned before the door opened again with its tortured squeal. Two sets of footsteps entered the chamber; Kaitlin held her breath as somebody approached. Somebody tore the sackcloth hood off her head. Harsh white light pierced her eyes, painful after her enforced blindness.
Kaitlin blinked through her tussled hair up at Athyia's stony face. The Palatine wore her time as a Sister of Battle clearly upon her features. Three parallel scars running diagonally across her sun-baked face spoke of close encounters against the Emperor's foes while the bionic replacement for her left eye glared an angry red. An acid burn across one side of her chin had left it pocked like the blasted surface of a moon.
She glared down at Kaitlin for a moment before reaching out and ripping the Hospitaller patch from the restrained sister's shoulder. Kaitlin felt a mournful pang as she looked at the furled wings representing her Order. They bracketed a Fleur De Lys symbol, common among the Adepta Sororitas, on the cloth patch.
Athyia clutched the patch in one hand. "Kaitlin Gallia, I hereby cast you from the Order of the Argent Pinions. You are no longer a sister of these hallowed halls; you are outcast." She leaned closer and lowered her voice, her stern expression softening for just an instant. "Be brave in the face of what comes."
With that, she spun on her heels and walked away towards the chamber's other occupant. Kaitlin finally got a good look. In contrast to Athyia's battle-worn visage, the other woman possessed features that could have belonged to the immaculate porcelain dolls sold in the uphive boutiques. Tall and thin, her smooth pale skin practically glowed, accentuating the shapes of her eyes. Her midnight black hair sat in an elaborate coif, contrasting the cream-colored bodysuit she wore. Kaitlin's eye picked out the subtle armoring integrated into its curves.
She looked like she belonged in a highborn party, were it not for the air of quietly lethal authority emanating from her. Athyia halted at her side, facing away from Kaitlin. "I leave her in your hands then." She passed Kaitlin's order patch to the woman, who had a look of sympathy mixed with amusement on her face.
"So you wash your hands of this matter?"
"There is nothing more for me to do," Athyia said. She left without so much as a glance at Kaitlin.
"Abrasive, isn't she?" the woman said. She sat down behind the wide, table-like console that controlled the Purgation Throne. As much a work of art as machine interface, gold and silver carvings across its surface depicted the Emperor in his aspect of judgment, bringing wrath upon the faithless, the alien, and the daemon. Ivory keys, once an incandescent sheen, were now cracked and yellowed with age and use. The whole thing looked like some archaic organ instrument.
The statuesque woman ran a hand over the controls. "Where were we? Ah yes, Froust. As I said, bold of you."
Kaitlin said nothing, just stared back defiantly.
"I think you deserve to understand some context, at least. Froust died in interrogation: hardly an unexpected end. He broke before he did so. Also not unexpected, given the… methods available to us." She nodded once at Kaitlin. "Froust gave up his network; safe houses, meeting locations, the institutions they've infiltrated, and many of their members. The cult of the Imminent Transitory has been dealt a critical blow. There's just one more loose end."
"Me."
"Precisely. You should be proud, Gallia. Your reasoning was correct; even one such as Froust may still serve the Imperium of Man in his own way."
"What a shame that ours is not an age of reason."
"Indeed not." The odd woman chuckled. "Believe me, I understand this more than most."
"Who are you?" Kaitlin asked again.
The woman gazed back at her in silence for a moment, then sat up and leaned forward slightly. "My name is Victoriana Shou. As to whom I am in the Imperium…" She brought a hand up and placed an item on the console in Kaitlin's view. It was a slim red bar shaped like a stylized I, with three short crossbars protruding perpendicularly from the middle. "I assume you recognize this?"
Kaitlin's blood froze. "Of course, Inquisitor."
"Excellent." Shou reached over to one of the ornate control keys on the console before her. Kaitlin tensed, expecting to feel the blaze and the pain.
Instead, the thick band clamped around her neck unlocked with an echoing clack that sounded like the charging handle of a bolter slamming home. The cuffs around her wrists and ankles followed suit. Kaitlin remained still despite her desire to get away from the immolating chair.
"Wh-" It took her three attempts to find her voice. "What is this?"
"I should think that rather obvious," Shou said, arching an eyebrow.
"I'm… cleared?" Kaitlin stood up, winced at the soreness and the tingles in her limbs. Nevertheless, she took several grateful steps away from the sinister black chair and came before the row of controls.
"Indeed. I've determined you are free of taint. Palatine Athyia disagreed."
"'Innocence is no excuse.' She's quite fond of that quote."
"I believe that. She was being genuine about burning you at the throne."
"And you weren't?"
Shou's smile didn't change, but her eyes took on a cold, flat edge. "Oh, I was waiting to hear your reasons out. If I'd judged you tainted you'd be burning right now."
"As opposed to cast from my order? Small mercy."
"The Palatine would have roasted you and been done with it. In the end, it wasn't her decision to make."
"It was yours."
"Correct."
"Why this outcome?"
"Only in death does duty end, Hospitaller. The Imperium needs its wardens."
"You didn't notice Palatine Athyia stripping me of that status?"
"It isn't the title that makes the identity, Gallia. It's the identity that makes the title. You've demonstrated initiative, lateral thinking, and sound composure in the face of probable death."
"Such things typically get Imperial citizens executed," Kaitlin said.
"You're not wrong." Shou stood up from the control seat. "In this line of work however, such things may be… assets."
"This line of- What are you saying, Inquisitor?"
"Think of it as passing the first stage of an interview, Hospitaller Gallia. I'm here to offer you a job."