Chapter 9: Of Metal and The Forge
The corridor is a shadow, lined with the ghostly shapes of machines that seem too large and too silent. I shuffle forward, the fabric of my surgical gown whispering against the cold, metal floor. Ahead, the waiting area is just a dim glow, a soft bluish island in the oppressive darkness of the Apothecarium.
Valeria is there already, looking smaller somehow, nestled in the vastness of that grim space. She offers me a smile as I approach, her presence a small comfort in the vast, echoing chamber.
"They've allowed me to observe," she whispers as I settle beside her on the cold bench. Her voice is hushed, reverent almost, as if the sacredness of the place seeps into her bones. "I'll be with Magos Biologus Harspes and Tech Priest Adonas, but only to assist in the cleansing rites. Nothing more."
I nod, my gaze drifting towards the figures moving in the distance. The tech-priest, draped in robes of Martian red, his, or perhaps her body more machine than flesh, prepares the instruments with methodical precision. Their movements are silent, coordinated, and utterly alien. It's mesmerizing and terrifying all at once.
Valeria nudges me gently. "I heard what happened, with Sister Helena, the tithe I mean."
I don't respond, but a small sense of relief comes over me. I hadn't been sure how to explain the decision or my disappointment to Valeria. She seems to expect me to say something. But what? I've barely come to terms with the idea myself, barely strung together a strand of faith to cling to. I have no idea if it will hold my weight when I am finally forced to pull on it.
"You seem… sad," she says, her brow furrowed as she studies my face.
I look down at my hand, fidgeting with the broken guardian in my lap. "I'm never going back to the scholam, am I?" The words feel heavy, laden with a finality I am only beginning to come to terms with. "I'm just… Sister Helena's servant now."
Valeria's hand finds mine, her grip warm and reassuring. "I looked into it," she murmurs, "in the Librus Progenum. Being a tithe… it's not just servitude. It's apprenticeship, Aurora. Perhaps it could be that you'll skip right past years of study and straight to sisterhood. Sister Helena could be setting you on a path to become a full sister of battle much faster than others."
Her words mean to comfort, to inspire, but a heavy doubt weighs on my heart. A tithe is still a tithe—a belonging. And yet, the thought of standing alongside the Sisters of Battle, armored and fierce… it sparks something within me, a tiny flare burning its timid strength into the tether of my faith which hangs limp in the dark of my soul.
"But what about my arm?" My voice is a soft echo in the cavernous room as I change the subject. "It's going to be big and clunky, isn't it? Just something practical… for cleaning and helping Sister Helena."
Valeria's eyes sparkle with something unspoken, a secret she seems to savor. "You'll have to wait and see," she teases, a playful tilt to her voice.
Before I can press her further, challenge her knowing smile, the heavy steps of the Magos Biologus approach. His form is a towering silhouette against the dim lights, his limbs also mechanical though he doesn't wear the Martian red, click and whir with each movement.
"Aurora," he intones, his voice, male but modulated through vocalizers that make him sound less human and more like a cafeteria servitor. "It is time."
My heart thuds painfully in my chest as I rise, Valeria's hand squeezing mine one last time before letting go. I follow the Magos, each step taking me deeper into the heart of the Apothecarium, into the unknown that awaits me beyond the waiting area's fragile light.
As the towering doors to the Apothecarium's surgical suite swing open, the cold air brushes against my face, smelling sharply of metal and bitter medicine. I step inside, my heart thumping loud in my ears. This place is nothing like I imagined—a surgery room of bright whites and golds, with candles and warmth reflecting the Emperor's light and protection. But this room... it's a dome of darkness, vast and echoing, filled with shadows and the slow, rhythmic movements of machines.
The ceiling is lost to darkness, but I can hear the machines there; they undulate and whisper, their parts moving with a life of their own. Beneath this strange ballet, the floor gleams with the slick sheen of antiseptic gel, reflecting odd angles of light from the sparse illuminations that do not warm but only cast deeper shadows. The air is damp, clinging to my skin, as if the chamber itself sweats.
Tech Priests Adonas and a Magos Biologus Harspes move through this dimness, their robes, and those of the dozen or more figures shrouded in shadow deeper in the room, brush against the ground. Their forms are mechanical their movements inhuman, with limbs of metal and eyes that glow with a faint, eerie light.
They do not need more light to see. They do not need the comfort of warmth. They chant in a language that sounds like clinking metal, perhaps binary, their voices harmonizing with the mechanical hymns of those deeper in the room. The walls bear the dark icons of the Omnissiah, splashed with reds and golds that catch my eyes and send shivers down my spine.
This place, so opposite of the chapel and yet so equally filled with the Emperor as Omnissiah. The contradiction assaults all my senses at once. I do not feel the Emperor here, only cold, metal, and fear.
Valeria is beside me, her face a mask of concentration as she murmurs along with the chants. Her voice is steady, a litany of cleansing and preparation that she reads from a small, worn book. She catches my glance and gives me a tight, encouraging smile, but it does nothing to ease the knot in my stomach.
I'm led to a table at the center of the room, its surface cold and hard under my hand as I'm helped onto it. The straps that hold me down are firm and tight, designed more to restrain than to reassure. The Tech Priest approaches, its, for I cannot fathom how it at one point was a he or she, mechanical appendages click together softly in sympathy with he chant. The voice that emerges from it, and not even from where its face may once have been, is a rumble, modulated by vocalizers that turn his words into an unsettling, metallic timbre.
"Fear not, child. You are under in the hands of the Omnissiah. Your fear response, adrenal, hot, wasted, unnecessary. The Omnissiah takes from you in this hallowed place, flesh, most feeble, and in its place the purity and perfection, of the machine. Fear is, unnecessary. Rejoice, for the time of your cleansing has come." it intones, and I try to believe it.
The surgical gown is gently pulled from my shoulders, the air cold on my bare skin. I shiver, not just from the chill but from the reverent touch that strips away that last barrier between myself and the ritual that awaits. Tech Priest Adonas is so close that I can see behind through the folds of his robe to a form within, a labyrinth of metal and mystery. It extends a mechadendrite, a slender metal tentacle, and dips it into a vessel that holds a thick, black substance that smells like oil. The oil glistens darkly as it's painted along my side and shoulder and neck and across my torso on the left where my arm that no longer exists aches in sudden, phantom pain. The lines precise and intentional, forming symbols whose meanings are lost to me.
The scent of incense fills the air, heavy and cloying. It is lit from small braziers, carried by unseen servants deeper in the gloom, the smoke spiraling upwards, mingling with the mechanical hymns that never cease. Each breath I take is laden with this sacred perfume, and it makes my head feel light, my thoughts dizzy with a mix of fear and awe.
As the Tech Priest's mechadendrite moves over me, another joins, this one holding a censer that sways rhythmically. The sweet smoke billows over me, and I can almost believe it seeps into my pores, purifying me, preparing me for what is to come. The chant of the Tech Priest rises and falls, a living thing that seems to pulse with the rhythm of my heartbeat—or perhaps it is my heartbeat that tries desperately to keep pace with the sacred song.
The Magos Biologis, draped in robes that whisper with every movement, begins his own part of the preparation. He reaches upwards, his hands commanding machines that descend from the shadows above. They are nameless, terrifying in their alien complexity. With each machine he brings down, he murmurs blessings, his voice a low rumble that vibrates through the floor, the table, and into my bones. The machines hover near, some with arms that end in scalpels, others with lenses that focus intently on my marked skin and still others I don't' even have words to form proper thoughts about to guess at their function.
I squeeze Valeria's hand, my grip tight with a mix of terror and an inexplicable thrill. The ritual, the attention to every detail, it's overwhelming. Valeria, however, looks transformed. Her eyes are wide, her lips moving with fervent passion as she continues her chant. She seems caught in a spiritual rapture, finding beauty or grace in this ceremony that escapes me.
My left side, marked and exposed, tingles where the oil marks it. I watch, fascinated and horrified, as a mechadendrite equipped with a fine brush traces more symbols around the surgical site. The black oil shines under the sparse light, a stark contrast to my pale skin. The chanting crescendos, a wave of sound that crashes over me, making my heart race faster.
I try to focus on Valeria's voice, the only familiar thing in this sea of ritual and fear. Her words wrap around me, a lifeline in the dark. As the preparations reach their peak, the intensity of the moment feels like it might swallow me whole.
Then, suddenly, there is a brief, almost sacred pause. The air is thick with incense, the chants hold a breath, and the room feels suspended in time. I am at the heart of a dark ritual, a child caught in the gears of a machine far greater than myself. This moment, heavy with anticipation, feels like it stretches into eternity.
The needle comes, the first breaking of flesh in this sacred moment. What comes with it is cold, sharper than any pain I've known, and I can't hold back a sudden scream. My cry seems to have been the trigger for the ritual to continue. The chanting roars back to life as the needle retracts away from my neck. Valeria's hand holds mine, squeezing gently even as I begin to feel my own hand relaxing its death grip. She continues her chant, her voice, her words, are supposed to purify, to protect me, but they sound like just another layer of the noise that fills this dark, imposing room.
My eyelids grow heavy, the fear mingling with a sudden, dragging tiredness. The last thing I see is Valeria's face, framed by her hood, her lips moving in prayer. The last thing I feel is the cold metal against my skin and the tight grip of her hand.
Then darkness swallows everything.
I wake in a haze, my limbs tingling with the fading numbness of sedation. My eyes flutter open, adjusting to the soft, gentle light of the unfamiliar room. The air is cool and sterile, a stark contrast to the cold chaos of the operating chamber where I last remember being. My left shoulder, where I've long felt only absence and ache, pulses with a strange mix of tingling and pressure.
Sister Helena is standing beside my bed, her presence undeniable. Her expression is unreadable in the shadow, but I can feel the intensity of her gaze. It's demanding—awakening, recognition, maybe even fear. I'm too drained to offer any of those responses right now. I just want to understand, to see the change that's been made to me. I dare not look…
"You have not yet looked," Helena notes, her voice commanding yet tinged with something softer, maybe curiosity.
My heart races with apprehension. I'm terrified to look, scared to see a utilitarian prosthetic, a constant reminder of my servitude. The thought of cold, unfeeling metal replacing the warm flesh that once moved so freely fills me with a profound sadness worse than when the limb was first lost to me.
Yet, Helena's words push me forward. "Look, Aurora. See what tool I have chosen for you."
Taking a deep breath, feeling like it's the first of my new life, I turn my head to look at my left side. The sight that greets me is nothing like I expected. Instead of the bulky, utilitarian prosthetic I feared, there lies a masterpiece of augmetic engineering, so lifelike, so artfully crafted it could almost pass for my original arm if it weren't metallic grey.
It's slender, covered in a scale-like interlocking plates that gleam subtly under the light. The fingers, delicate and perfectly formed, rest by my side, palm up as if inviting me to examine them. I lift it hesitantly, marveling at the weight—it feels right, not too heavy, perfectly balanced. The fingers respond to my thoughts, curling into a gentle fist, then extending smoothly with an almost imperceptible whir of hidden mechanics.
"It feels…" I begin, searching for the right words. I reach out with my good hand and touch the forearm. "It feels!" I gasp, running my hand over the plates and feeling the sensory feedback that clearly isn't and yet is the feeling of skin on skin. "It feels… real."
"That's because it is as real as the Martian master and magos could make it, despite his… preferences, it was crafted to my own specifications," Helena says, pride evident in her voice. I feel my gaze drawn to Helena suddenly by her tone and words. I notice that she isn't robed, nor armored, standing practically naked in what must be her own hab. For the first time I see the extensive metallic artwork of bands, tubes, wires, and plates that extend from her shoulders to the center of her chest and around to her back.
Sister Helena follows my gaze and flexes her arms which bend and torque, not unnaturally, but now that I can see them bare, not wholly naturally either. "You did not imagine I was here in scholam, teaching young upstart fools and cowards to be warriors because I like children, did you?"
"Never crossed my mind…" I must still be under the effects of the anesthesia because the words make it out before I can stop them. My eyes widen in horror but before I can take them back or apologize, Helena laughs.
"I have spent six years here, child. Two learning to walk on legs said to be worthless. Four more leaning to move and fight with hands and arms and neural pathways severed and cut. One day I will return to my order, whole, and ready to offer what is left of my flesh to His glorious crusades once more. But that is for later, and you, my tithe, are for now. I have lost much flesh, and much has been given to replace what was taken. If I return, I shall return with flesh yet to give."
I swallow, realizing she means me, even as Helena's eyes return to the cold, hard, steel that I've always associated them with.
"But why?" My voice is a blend of awe and confusion. "I thought... I am to be a serf. I expected something more practical, less... this."
Helena's laugh is soft, almost unheard over the humming of the chamber. "And you will find that it is practical, exceptionally so. It is not merely beautiful—it is deadly. You must be capable of both serving and protecting, of beauty and brutality. You are mine now, tithe, and you will reflect that in all aspects."
I flex the fingers again, each movement tinged with new sensations that whisper of touch, of texture, of life. "Thank you," I whisper, gratitude not just for the arm but for the new chance at life it symbolizes.
Helena snorts, "you are a coward with faith as frail as that bare flesh you so foolishly lost," she replies, "but then…" her face seems to soften for a moment and her eyes take on a far off look, "so is everyone before they face their crucible." Her eyes return to me and I can feel them stripping the varnish from my soul, "you have chosen to live, to live for the Emperor. One time, one choice, and that when only internal doubts, feelings and fears stood against you. What will you choose when true pain, true suffering, and true fear rise before you? Will you choose to live for the Emperor then I wonder?"
I swallow and nod.
Helena nods back, accepting my decision with her usual stoicism. "We shall see. You may regret thanking me, tithe, it will take time to fully adapt. You will train, you will learn to fight, to serve as my serf and possibly, one day, as my Sister."
The possibility still feels surreal, like a distant dream; but as I sit here, my new arm a tangible proof of my path, it starts to solidify into something real, something achievable. Helena gives me a small, rare smile, filled with all the warmth of a predator.
"Get some rest, tithe," she advises. "I have borrowed your life from the Emperor and unlike you, I don't intend to waste a single moment of it."
As Helena turns to leave, I look again at my arm, turning it in the light, admiring the play of hydraulic and cable beneath the artificial, scaley skin. For the first time in a long while, I feel a spark of hope, a surge of excitement. I close my eyes and allow myself a moment to dream, to believe in the path that lies ahead
As sleep draws me in, my new hand clenched softly by my side, a faint warmth spreads up my arm, like a promise made of steel and skin, of faith and flesh. The Emperor protects, I think. And perhaps, in His vast, unfathomable plans, He also rebuilds.
His rebuilding begins.
Pain explodes in my shoulder, sharp and hot, as another blow lands. My augmetic arm jars against the mat shooting fireworks of needles up my back and into my spine as I hit the ground, gasping. The air in the training hall feels too thick, laced with the scent of sweat and oiled metal. It's only morning, but it's the twelfth time I've fallen.
Sister Helena's voice cuts through the haze, sharp as the blows she delivers. She's speaking to a group of novitiates, young girls with fierce eyes and clenched fists. "Your enemy won't relent," she tells them as she circles me. I push up, my arm whirring softly, the sound now familiar, almost comforting amidst the throb of pain.
"Teaching is for Scholam Progena," Sister Helena words from the first day I came to attend her as a teaching assistant burn through my mind much as she burned out my protests. I stagger to my feet, shaking. "Learning is for you, Aurora. Simple, brutal. You want a lesson? Getting hit hurts. Don't get hit."
The words sting more than the bruises blossoming across my skin. Days, months have passed since my surgery, and each day folds into the next under Helena's relentless regimen. My mind reels back to those first days when she tended my wounds with a cold sort of care, promising growth and survival. Her definition of growth, I've come to realize, mirrors a blacksmith's craft: relentless beating shaping metal into a weapon. In this grim forge, I am the metal, and Helena the blacksmith.
As I brace for another attack, the room shifts—a blur of motion and combat. Here in the padded arena, where novitiates learn to fight, I am less a student and more a tool—an example of resilience, or perhaps futility.
Scenes of my daily trials flicker through my mind like a vid-screen stuck on repeat. In weapons training, low-powered las-bolts sear into my skin, each shot a lesson in cover and maneuver that I learn through failure. Each echo of the las-rifle is a reminder of my slow, painful progress.
With training chainswords in hand, the low hum of their power fields is a constant buzz, a background to my struggles. The burns they leave are superficial but painfully instructive. Helena moves like a specter through these lessons, always the relentless teacher, the predator, using me to demonstrate a parry, a strike, an overextended reach.
Back in the present, I dodge a sweeping leg kick, barely keeping my balance. Helena uses my faltering steps as a lesson. "See? Balance is key," she lectures the novitiates. My muscles scream, fatigue setting in, but there's no stopping. Not here, not under Helena's watchful eye.
The lessons continue, each one a brutal symphony of strikes, blocks, and evasive maneuvers. I'm a living training dummy, enduring each hit to forge resilience, to somehow mold me into a weapon worthy of the Sisters of Battle. Each fall, each bruise and each moment of getting back up builds something within me—a determination, perhaps, or maybe just the stubbornness to keep standing.
Or am I?
The moment of doubt slows my already slow limbs and a glancing blow becomes a full contact that spins me face-down into the mat once more. I tremble there, daring to take a moment to breathe three breaths.
Am I learning, growing, being forged? Or am I simply being spent, tithed, worn away to the point of uselessness for the growth of other, more worthy servants of the Emperor? Does it even matter? Is this not a Holy calling as well?
Helena's earlier words echo in my heart, shaping my understanding of this brutal tutelage. "You chose to live for the Emperor," she had said. That choice, once made in a moment of desperate hope, now defines every painful lesson, every harsh word. I understand, with a clarity that cuts deeper than any blade, that this path is no gentle journey. It is a march through fire and shadow, a trial by combat meant to burn away weakness and forge strength from the ashes of my old self.
The next blow comes, I roll, dodging, on my feet. The room is swaying on its own now, even more than my body on my overtaxed legs. My arm comes up on pure reflex, my eyes full of stinging sweat and useless.
The blow lands, my block holds, my legs tremble but refuse to buckle. The pressure recedes and I wipe my eyes, earning a rare nod from Helena, something shifts. Maybe it's my reluctant acceptance of my lot in life or perhaps it's the faint flicker of pride in Helena's eyes, but for the first time, I feel a shard of victory pierce the doubt.
Standing… my first block, and stills standing.
I am Aurora. I am ten. And I am still standing.
The kick snaps out with a speed that would defy even the heightened senses of a freshly rested opponent.
When I hit the ground no air leaves my lungs for none remains that the kick didn't remove. Below the ribs, fire burns in my belly. I can't breathe, I can't roll, I can't move. My back twitches and jerks as vomit spews out of my mouth, what remains choking off my attempts to breathe. I turn my head, retching again, and a lungful of air burns into my aching body. It leaves as a cry and tears, unbidden and unrelenting, wash the sweat from my eyes.
The world spins, a dizzy carousel, and the pounding of my heart thuds loudly in my ears. I can't breathe right; every gasp is a fiery stab through my battered body. I lie there, a crumpled, bruised figure on the cold mat, my face smeared with the bile that the last kick wrung out of me. My eyes burn, not just from the pain but from the tears that streak down, mingling with the dirt and sweat of the arena.
"Who will volunteer to demonstrate?" Helena's voice cuts through the haze of my pain. It's sharp, commanding. There's a shuffle of feet, the eager murmur of a novitiate stepping forward.
"No, not against me," Helena corrects the girl sharply as she steps forward with a gleam of challenge in her eyes. "You will demonstrate on Aurora. Show us what you have learned."
I barely process her words. My stomach clenches tighter, a deep, throbbing pain that makes it hard to even think about moving. The bile on my face is sticky, a humiliating reminder of my failure to protect myself.
The footsteps approach, hesitant yet determined. I turn my head slightly, catching a glimpse of the girl—a novitiate, fourteen, taller and stronger. She begins, her kicks landing against my sides, each blow punctuating the air with the thud of her boots against my ribs. I groan, the sound dragged out of me by pain, my body curling protectively.
The blows weaken, pause, she hesitates, her next kick pausing mid-air as she sees my lack of defense, my groans of pain filling the space between us. Her eyes flicker with uncertainty, perhaps pity. In that brief moment of her indecision, my augmetic arm lies next to her leg. Everything is a blanket of pain and numbness that promises the return of pain that comes with recovery. None of my body responds to my commands, commands I'm barely lucid enough to give.
Almost without thought, my fingers curl around her ankle, the cold, hard grip of metal unmistakable. The augmetics obeys my commands, my thoughts, and I push through the pain and humiliation, making space, the tiniest gap for a single word, one command. Squeeze.
I squeeze.
The reaction is immediate. Cold, senses deadened by my battering but served by hydraulics and cables that feel no weariness, fingers close, and close, and close…
The blows resume with desperate fury, but only for a moment, then there's only screaming, then tearing, and a sudden snap and silence. The girls body drops beside me, unconscious from the pain. My hand, slowly, opens its bloody fingers, releasing its grip.
Adrenaline pounds into me harsh and hot and I roll onto my chest, relying on my augmetic arm to lift me, steady me, forcing myself to half stand half crouch. I can't see beyond blurs and shadow, my ears ring, my head throbs. My mind repeats a mantra, the only thing I can think. I am Aurora. I am pain. I am endurance. Molded by the forge of Helena's relentless will, I am becoming something hard, something sharp. Maybe not yet a weapon, but no longer merely a victim. Not a victim. Not anymore. Not ever. Never.
"Feeling pity, compassion, empathy for your enemy will get you killed." Helena continued the lesson, ignoring both me and my victim, a hapless girl, a novitiate, not me. "The lesson here," she turns, her voice a blend of command and instructive calm, "is not merely about striking. It's about awareness, control, and understanding your opponent's state."
Even though I can't see it, I feel Helena's gaze on me, hard and unyielding as ever, yet I detect a trace of something in her voice, approval perhaps, perhaps respect even, perhaps the illusions spawned of trauma. "Every opponent has a weakness and a strength. Aurora's strength is not obvious, not in her flesh, but in her resolve and her augmetic. Learn this well."
"Emperor's Mercy!" The hospitaller is beside me, I didn't even notice her arrival. Is it Valeria? The voice is familiar. "You had her, Aurora! Did you have to crush her bone!?"
Did I?
I wanted the beating to stop.
I wanted to win.
I did.
I nod, or, or maybe I just sway a little.
The girl is taken away quickly.
"Who would like to demonstrate next?"
I raise my head to stare out at the novitiates. I can't even see them, just a haze of grey and white and red. But they can see me. I know they can see me. They can see my eyes, the vomit, the grime, the blood, the bruises, the scars. They must, because none of them volunteer…