Chapter 22: Should I Die… - Part 1: Before I Dream… (Jessamine's Perspective)
I see the battlefield through her eyes, through the emerald-tinted lenses of her silver helm. The air is thick with smoke and ash, a stinging miasma that seeps through filters meant to protect.
Her bolter hums in her hands, a righteous weapon turned divine. Each pull of the trigger is a prayer, each explosive round a plea for salvation. She knows I am with her—she feels my presence, a warmth that kindles in her chest and burns brighter with every shot.
Her name is Sister Farah, and she is afraid.
Her fear is not of death; she made her peace with that long ago. No, her fear is of failing. Failing her Sisters, failing the Emperor, failing me.
She doesn't know me, not truly.
She knows only the stories, the hymns sung in my name. Yet in this moment, she offers everything she is to me. Her heart swells with the certainty that I am here, that her saint walks with her.
Her bolter roars, and I feel the recoil as if it were my own hands holding it.
The rounds blaze with holy fire, piercing the heretics' flesh and setting their corrupted bodies alight. Her aim is true, guided by something beyond training or instinct. The Emperor's light courses through her, through me, and together we cut down dozens, then hundreds. The enemy falters before her, their charge slowing as they are struck by the light of her faith.
But it comes at a cost.
With each shot, I feel her strength wane. Her soul is burning, a candle held too close to the flame.
She feels it too.
The warmth in her chest has become a searing heat, unbearable yet glorious. She doesn't stop. Even as her vision blurs, even as her arms tremble, she keeps firing until the magazine clicks empty.
The bolter falls from her grasp, and her body follows. She collapses to her knees, spent, her life extinguished in a burst of holy fire.
I rise from her husk, a small figure of radiant light, a girl with hair like spun silver and eyes that gleam like twin emeralds. The battlefield stretches before me, a hellscape of fire and blood, of screaming mortals and roaring of the horde. The Sister's corpse slumps forward, her armor blackened, her face serene in death.
I leap.
The ether carries me to another.
Sister Constantina stands atop the wall, her power sword carving through the enemy in desperate, sweeping arcs. Her Arbites allies fall around her, their shield line shattered.
She is surrounded now, pinned, back to the hulk of a smoking Chimera which stands atop the wall like a gutted corpse, it's hope-filled charge of reinforcement ended in fire.
The horde presses in, but she does not falter. She swings again, cleaving a traitor in two, her voice a hymn of defiance.
I slip into her soul, and she gasps. The power sword blazes in her hands, its edge glowing white-hot as it slices through heretics like paper. My presence fuels her, fills her with a strength that surpasses mortal limits. She fights faster, harder, her movements a blur. Each swing sends a shockwave of holy energy rippling through the enemy ranks, scattering them like chaff.
But she feels it, just as Farah did.
The fire within her grows, consuming her from the inside out.
Her heart races, her lungs burn, her muscles scream for respite. Still, she fights. She embraces the pain, embraces me, and charges into the throng with a final, desperate cry. Her blade becomes a beacon, a star burning too brightly to endure. She swings until there is nothing left of her, until her soul flares and extinguishes in a blinding flash.
I step out of her empty shell, hovering above the wall.
Around me, the battle rages. The Arbites are scattered, their shields broken, their bodies crushed beneath the weight of the horde or fleeing desperately to the illusion of safety in the makeshift barricades of the courtyard below.
But my children do not retreat with them, strategy or faith or the fog of war, none of it matters, they've all come to pay for my sins.
They are falling, my children, falling one by one, their bolters silenced, their swords shattered. The militia fights valiantly, but they are untrained, ill-equipped, too old or too young.
They die in droves, their screams a chorus of despair.
You're wasting your time.
The voice cuts through the chaos, cold and familiar. I turn to see her—my shadow, my other self. She stands beside me, her decayed form draped in mockery, her power undiminished despite our failing heart. Her eyes are milky voids, her smile a twisted parody of compassion and sympathy.
You burn them away for what? she asks, tilting her head. A few more moments of defiance? A handful of enemy corpses? It doesn't matter. You know it doesn't matter.
"Be silent," I snap, my voice trembling with anger and untold grief. "They are our children. I will not abandon them!"
Our children, she repeats, her tone dripping with disdain. You speak and in our soul you conjure love and compassion, yet you do the very thing you condemned Aurora for. You take their souls, burn them up, use them as fuel for your desperate little wars. Tell me, Jessamine, how are you any different?
I clench my fists, the light around me flickering, fading in and out. "I don't want this. I never wanted this!"
Then stop, she says simply. Stop clinging to this illusion of control. You're dying, Jessamine. Our body, our mind, even this fractured existence we call a soul—it's all crumbling. Why not let go? Find peace.
I look down at the battlefield, at the women and children dying beneath the enemy's onslaught. My Sisters, my Children, my faithful, my flock. "Because they need me," I manage, squeezing the words between iron pillars of despair and desperation as tears of liquid care spill down my cheeks.
They need more than you can give, she counters, her voice soft, almost apologetic, almost soothing. And you know it.
Her words pierce me, but I cannot yield. Not while they still fight. Not while there is still a chance, however slim. I turn away from her, my gaze sweeping the battlefield for another Sister to empower, another soul to guide.
She sighs, her voice softening further, becoming almost motherly. You can't save them, Jessamine. Not like this. And in the end, it won't matter. You'll die, and they'll die, and if the Emperor smiles upon us Aurora's plan will play out exactly as it was meant to.
"Then I'll die trying," I say, my voice resolute.
For a moment, she says nothing. Then she laughs—a quiet, bitter sound that echoes through the ether. No, I'm sorry, but the saint has one more task you must perform, and now is the time.
The shadow pulls me, and I cannot resist. Her grip is cold and unyielding, like the iron fetters that once bound prisoners in the dungeons beneath this very basilica. My feet stumble through rubble-strewn steps, the shattered remnants of statues and podiums that once promised sanctuary. Each tug of her hand drags me closer to something I do not want to see, something I am not prepared to face.
"Let go," I snarl, my voice raw with desperation. My shadow doesn't so much as glance back. Her grip tightens, her steps unhurried, deliberate, and implacable.
Not yet, she says, her tone a mockery of maternal patience. There's more you need to see, Jessamine. More you need to carry.
We pass through the first barricade. It was once a proud line of defense—now it is a charnel house, a butcher's yard of desperation and defiance. The stink of burnt flesh and promethium clogs the air, a cloying miasma that clings to the skin and soul alike.
On the left flank, a Chimera rakes the enemy with its multilaser, its turret sweeping in relentless arcs. The light carves through the horde, severing limbs, melting flesh, and reducing dozens to smoking heaps of ruin. Yet for every heretic that falls, ten more take their place, a tide of madness and hatred surging ever forward.
The Chimera's crew are shouting to one another, their voices strained and raw, barely audible over the weapon's droning whine. Their hands move with frantic precision, reloading, recalibrating, struggling to keep the weapon from overheating. I see their faces through the viewport slits—grim, pale, their eyes wide with the stark clarity of men who know they are about to die but fight anyway.
On the right, another Chimera mirrors their efforts, its multilaser blazing a path of destruction through the enemy ranks. Its tracks are buried beneath corpses, its armor slick with the blood of the fallen. The crew within do not waver, though their machine is battered, its hull pockmarked with lasfire and shrapnel. They fight as though they might yet stem the tide, as though faith alone will hold the line.
Between the Chimeras, a ragged line of wounded Sisters, gangers, and Arbites pour fire into the oncoming horde. The Sisters, their armor dented and scorched, hold bolters that bark with divine fury or clasp makeshift weapons, ready to take just one more with them when they go.
Their eyes shine with the light of faith even as their bodies tremble with exhaustion and wounds that speak to hands that must have carried them to this first line of the last line of defense, that must have propped them up here, where they could die fighting, if not—in many cases—on their feet.
The gangers are a patchwork of defiance, their makeshift uniforms denoting long-dead allegiances to forgotten loyalties. Red, blue, yellow—they stand together now, their stubbers firing in uneven bursts. For every ganger that falls, another steps forward, scooping up the weapon of the dead and continuing the fight.
The Arbites are fewer here, their carapace armor cracked and blackened, their shotguns blazing as they bark orders to the defenders. One Arbiter, his voice hoarse and his helmet lost, grips a shotgun in one hand, the other hangs limp and broken at his side. "Hold the line!" he roars. "No retreat! The Emperor watches!"
I can feel their fear, their hope, their pain. It radiates from them in waves, a raw and bitter symphony that pierces my soul. They fight because they must, because there is nowhere else to go. They fight because to do otherwise is to surrender to the abyss.
And yet, it is not enough.
The enemy surges from three directions. To the left and right, they pour down the battlement ramps, a torrent of screaming heretics and gibbering mutants. Their faces are masks of frenzy, their weapons crude but effective. They scream blasphemies as they charge across five-hundred meters of courtyard, their voices rising above the din like the howling of wolves.
Above the gate, the horde surges onwards and into open air like a dark waterfall of bodies. The hundred-meter drop should shatter them, should break their bones and render them useless. But the pile of bodies has grown so large, a grotesque mound of flesh and bone, that more and more of them survive.
They tumble down, broken but not defeated, dragging themselves forward on shattered limbs, their eyes alight with madness.
I watch as one of the fallen, his legs twisted and useless, crawls ever closer toward the barricade. His fingers dig into the blood-soaked stone, his mouth frothing as he screams incoherent rage. A ganger sees him as he pulls himself up against an overturned pew and steps forward, a brutal-looking axe in her hands. She swings once, twice, cleaving through flesh and bone, silencing the heretic with grim efficiency.
The shadow pulls me forward.
You see? she whispers, her voice soft and venomous. They fight so hard, Jessamine. They believe in you. In the Emperor. And yet they fall, one by one, their faith feeding the fire that will consume them all.
"They're holding," I say, though the words taste hollow. "They're buying time."
She laughs, a quiet, bitter sound that makes my stomach churn. Time for what? For you to drag another soul to ruin? For Aurora to enact her plan? They die for the sake of dying. It is all they are good for, perhaps all they ever were good for. Is that not the Emperor's grand plan?
I wrench my arm in a futile attempt to free myself, but her grip is unbreakable. "I won't let them die in vain," I hiss. "I'll find a way. I'll—"
You'll burn them, one by one, until there's nothing left? she interrupts, her tone cold. And then what, saint? What will you do when there's no one left to sacrifice?
I fall silent, my gaze drawn back to the barricade. The defenders are faltering. The Chimeras blaze, but the enemy presses closer.
A Sister collapses, her bolter clattering from her hands as blood streams from her neck where a hard round found the space between chin and collar.
The female ganger with the axe is dragged screaming into the horde, her cries cut short by the wet crunch of tearing flesh.
And yet they fight. They fight with a ferocity that defies reason, with a courage that should not exist. They fight because they believe.
"Because they believe in me," I whisper, my voice breaking.
The shadow squeezes my hand, her grip cold and final. And that, she says, her tone almost gentle, is the least of our sins.
She pulls me onward, up the stairs, toward the second barricade. Behind me, the first line begins to falter. The screams of the dying echo in my ears.
The second barricade looms ahead, a jagged wall of gilded pews and toppled statues arrayed on the chapel steps like a makeshift citadel. The golden stairs beneath it gleam faintly in the firelight, sullied with ash and streaked with the blood of the defenders who fought to hold the line below.
The shadow pulls me onward, her grip still unyielding, though her pace slows. Her demeanor shifts as we approach the defenders—no longer mocking, no longer cruel. She brushes a hand lightly against a Sister's shoulder as we pass, her touch tender, almost reverent.
They're fresher here, she murmurs, her voice soft, nearly a whisper. Stronger. Not yet wounded. They've yet to feel the fire at their heels. But they will.
The defenders here are resolute. Sisters stand in well-formed ranks, their bolters methodically spitting death into the horde that surges up the steps below. Their aim is precise, their discipline unwavering. Behind them, old women and young teens crouch with autoguns and lasrifles, firing in short, controlled bursts. I see a Sister raise her hand in a signal, directing their fire into the densest part of the enemy swarm. The militia obey without hesitation, their faces grim but determined.
An Arbite strides the line, her riot shield battered but intact, her shock maul crackling with residual energy. She shouts commands, her voice cutting through the chaos like a blade—one of my own children.
"Hold your fire until they breach twenty meters! Save your ammunition! Focus fire on the heavy targets!" Her words are calm, calculated, directed at evenly spaced knots of black carapace bristling with shotguns and shockmauls. The voice of a woman who has long since accepted the inevitability of death but refuses to let it come cheaply.
Yet even here, even among this determined stand, the shadow leans in close, her voice dripping with sorrowful certainty. They fight well, Jessamine. But the tide will break them too. No line holds forever, not when the enemy is endless.
I wrench my arm again, futilely, trying to break her grip. "Let me help them," I hiss. "I can give them strength. I can—"
She turns her gaze to me, her milky eyes filled with a strange, almost mournful understanding. You could, yes. But you'll burn them, Jessamine. Just like the others. You'll make their deaths faster, more glorious, but no less inevitable.
Her words cut deep, but I cannot stop. I glance out over the battlefield—at the wreckage, the burning field tents, and the charred remains of the wounded who could not even reach the first barricade. The screams rise and fall, punctuated by the guttural laughter of the enemy as they finish their grisly work.
My chest tightens, a raw ache blooming where my heart should beat. "I have to try," I whisper, my voice almost a whimper in my ears.
The shadow doesn't answer. She pulls me through the line, pausing briefly to rest her hand on the head of a young Sister kneeling at the barricade. The woman, no the girl, can't be more than ten years old. Her hands tremble as she reloads a battered autopistol. At the shadow's touch, she straightens, her fear melting into calm determination.
There is a will here, the shadow says softly, almost to herself. Yours, Jessamine. Mine. It burns bright in them, doesn't it? She glances at me, her tone almost kind. You think of me as a monster, and I am. But I kept one good thing from all that you were.
I glare at her, my voice taut with anger. "What could you possibly claim as good? You're a parasite, a cancer—"
She cuts me off with a faint, humorless laugh. The will to fight, she says simply. To survive. To win. Untempered, yes. Untethered from empathy or morality. Truly terrible. But right now, Jessamine, it's what's keeping them standing. What's keeping you standing.
The third barricade rises ahead, smaller, tighter, set halfway up the stairs. The defenders here are sharper still, their formation perfect.
Sisters crouch behind the barricade, firing with precision that speaks of both faith and brutal necessity. Their movements are fluid, mechanical, every action honed to a razor's edge. They are not exhausted yet, not like the others, but I can see it in their eyes—they know what awaits them.
Riley strides along the line, her power sword crackling faintly with blue energy. She pauses to help one of her subordinates adjust her aim, her voice low and firm. "Pick your targets, Milena. Every bolt must count. They'll hit us hard, and when they do, we hold. There is no retreat."
The shadow watches her, a flicker of admiration passing across her decayed face. She'll burn beautifully, she murmurs. When the time comes.
I shove against her grip, my voice rising in frustration. "Stop speaking of them like that! They're not fuel for your fire!"
Her gaze softens, her smile almost gentle. Aren't they? she asks, her tone laced with pity. Haven't they always been? You know better, Jessamine. This isn't your first battle, merely your last but no different than any other. Every one of them was forged to be what you see before you—tools of war, sacrificial offerings on the altar of the Emperor's victory. You didn't make them this way, He did, but you've wielded them for Him just the same. Humanity, an endless supply of souls sacrificed on the altar of the next batch, burned to keep the flame alive so that it can consume another generation; the Emperor's vision, His humanity.
Her words weigh heavy on me as we pass through the line. She speaks without mocking, without complaint, without sarcasm or hint of judgement. The mere facts of our life, leading lesser faithful to their own slaughter, spending their souls as currency to buy just one more victory. And yet the cost here seems higher, somehow, more personal, than ever before.
Another Sister pauses her fire to glance my way, her eyes wide beneath her helm as though she senses my presence. She whispers a prayer under her breath, her voice trembling with awe. "Saint Jessamine, guide us."
I want to scream, to tell her not to believe in me, not to hope. But I cannot. My shadow pulls me onward, toward the fourth barricade.
Here, at the top of the chapel's great stairs and before the bronze gates, the defenders are a wall of steel and fire. Their lines are unbroken, their faith unwavering. They fire in perfect unison, a symphony of death and defiance. The stairs far beneath them are slick with blood, the enemy bodies piling high at the base of the steps.
We step past them, through them, and towards the doors behind them where my own visage stares down at me in judgement. I feel the weight of inevitability pressing down on me like an iron shroud. The shadow releases my hand, and I stagger forward, the enormity of the sight before me pulling the breath from my chest.
There they stand—ten figures in ancient plate, armor that feels more memory than ceramite.
Each plate is adorned with scars from battles long past, their burnished surfaces etched with the stories of countless victories and sacrifices. The armor is heavy with history, a weight they bear as surely as the shields they hold aloft.
These are my honor guard, Aurora's honor guard. Ten sisters and a hollow gap where the Chief Hospitaller once stood, and another where the High Dialogus once stood, the latter's armor incinerated in Gabriel Mossad's fiery defiance. The absence of those two cuts deep, the space they leave a wound in the formation, but one that the defenders seem loath to close.
They do not shoot.
They do not speak.
They are silent sentinels against the tide, bolt pistols at their sides, ceramite shields held high, their backs to the bronze doors of the chapel. Their power swords rest across their shoulders or hang in scabbards at their hips. One carries a power hammer so massive it seems an extension of the Basilica itself, ancient runes glinting faintly along its haft.
The honor guard waits.
Each of them carries a single clip of ammunition, no more. Their grenades have been handed down to those who still fight below, their weight exchanged for one last chance at glory. The bolt pistols in their hands are held loosely, reverently, the weapons an afterthought compared to the blades that slumber across their backs.
Those blades—each with its own name, its own soul—seem almost alive, their faint glimmers of light visible even through the haze of smoke and ash. I see the subtle twitch of the Sisters' fingers, the faint tremor in their frames, as if the weapons are calling to them, urging them to be unleashed.
But they wait.
They will wait until all else has fallen, until the last barricade is overrun, until there is nothing left to hold but these final steps. They will fire their single clips, and then they will draw those venerable weapons, the spirits within them taking hold. In that moment, they will become avatars of war, their bodies and souls offered wholly to the relics they bear.
It is not a matter of faith or duty—it is inevitability.
The shadow at my side tilts her head, her voice laced with something akin to admiration. Beautiful, aren't they? The last line of faith. They know they will die here. They've accepted it, embraced it, even. And you— she pauses, her gaze sharp as a blade. You taught them this.
My heart clenches as I take in the sight of them.
I can see the faintest reflections of my own honor guard in their visors, spectral faces superimposed over the younger Sisters who now wear the ancient ceramite. The memories hit me like a hammer, fragments of the past flooding back unbidden.
I see the faces of those who once stood where these Sisters now stand—women I knew, trusted, loved. Their voices echo faintly in my mind, their laughter, their prayers, their battle cries.
I see Sister Corinne, who once wielded the hammer now borne by another. Her laughter was loud and infectious, her faith as unyielding as the weapon she carried.
I see Sister Fable, whose blade was as sharp as her wit, who once told me that dying for a saint was the closest a mortal could come to true immortality.
I see them all, their faces mingling with the present, with the ten who now carry the weight of my legacy.
They're not yours, the shadow says softly, her tone almost gentle. Not truly. They're hers now. Aurora's. But still, they reflect us, don't they? A mirror of what we were, what we believed. Do you see it, Jessamine? Do you see the truth in their stillness?
I do.
It's not just stillness—it's resolve. The kind that comes only from absolute certainty.
These women do not flinch, do not falter. They are more than warriors; they are monuments, living relics of faith. They are the final defense, the last bastion. And they will not yield.
One of them, the Sister bearing Corinne's hammer, turns her head slightly, as if sensing my presence. Her visor tilts toward me, and for a moment, I swear I see Corinne's ghostly face staring back at me, her expression an infectious grin full of teeth, unyielding, fierce, and proud.
I want to speak, to tell them to run, to abandon this doomed stand and save themselves. But the words catch in my throat. Who am I to demand such a thing of them? Even if I did, I know they would not listen. They would not even acknowledge the suggestion.
Their place is here, and they will not leave it.
The shadow places a hand on my shoulder, her grip firm but not unkind. They are ours, Jessamine, even if they are hers. And they will die for us, for her, for this Basilica. There's nothing we can do to stop it.
Tears blur my vision, but I refuse to let them fall. I take one last look at the honor guard, standing like statues against the chaos, their armor gleaming faintly in the firelight. They do not look at me, do not see me. Their gazes are fixed ahead, on the battle, on the end, the goal, the death that is rushing toward them.
"Emperor preserve you," I whisper, though I know the words are hollow.
And then the shadow pulls me onward, through the line, and toward the bronze doors that seem to tremble under the weight of the screams beyond. Behind me, the honor guard remains, a wall of silent, unbreakable faith.
For now.
I turn to face her, my voice breaking with desperation. "Why are you doing this? Why show me this, if you believe it's all for nothing?"
She tilts her head, her smile faint but genuine. Because you need to understand, Jessamine. You need to see what you are, what I am, what Aurora is. We're not here to save them. We're here to make their sacrifice mean something.
Her words linger, heavy as the world teeters on the edge of oblivion. The great bronze doors rise before us, their surface vast and unyielding, trembling with the weight of the unspeakable purpose waiting behind them. They seem to devour the light, to drink in the warmth of my failing body, stealing the last shallow breaths from my trembling lungs.
The faint cries of infants filter through the seams—soft, fragile, yet piercing in their innocence. The murmurs of mothers, broken and fervent, knit desperate prayers to the Emperor that rise like the faintest smoke against the storm of slaughter behind me.
Beyond those doors, I feel Aurora, her presence like the faintest ember in the void, steady yet sorrowful. She is waiting for me, and for what lies ahead. Whatever it is—whatever horror they have woven together, she and my shadow—it waits in the chapel's terrible stillness.
I stumble, the weight of it all crashing over me, grinding my soul into dust beneath its enormity. The screams of the dying outside are a storm at my back, but my steps falter not from their terror. It is the knowing—the cold, grim understanding of what these sacrifices must mean—that binds my legs, twists my insides, drags my soul down.
"Then let me bear it," I whisper, my voice a reed in the tempest. "Let me carry their burden."
I pause, and the last threads of my mortal body unravel. I feel it—the heart that once pulsed with furious purpose now silent. I feel the pain of stimulants coursing in vain, the machinery of my failing flesh giving one final, broken effort to hold me tethered to life.
But it fails, as all things must.
My shadow catches me as I slip into nothingness, and I feel no sorrow for my passing. Her grip steadies me, unrelenting and almost... amused.
I glance down at the battlefield one last time, the storm of blood and fire swallowing the remnants of those who once stood for me. My children. My flock. The sacrifices they made crash against the weight of my own failure. My throat tightens with unshed tears, and in my mind—whatever fractured remnants of it remain—I mutter a final prayer.
"Forgive me, Emperor. Forgive me for whatever I am about to become."
My shadow crouches low, her blackened form rising like a mountain as I stand on her palm, no more than a doll perched on a titan's hand. I stare up at her, her decayed face a void of mocking sympathy. "Tell me what I must do," I say, my voice fragile, trembling under the sheer weight of resignation.
The shadow tilts her head, her milky, lifeless eyes gleaming with something too complex to name. You already know, she whispers, her voice both motherly and merciless. You've always known. You only needed to let go, and here you are.
The finality of her words pierces me, but I do not flinch. There is no room for resistance now, no place for doubt. Whatever they have prepared—whatever abomination or rite waits behind those doors—I will see it done. My honor guard, my flock, my children—they gave their lives in faith, and I will make that faith mean something. I will make their sacrifice more than a desperate gasp in the dark.
"Then lead me," I whisper, and her blackened lips curl into something that might have once been a smile.