Weeks pass, and my relief fades.

The tipping point comes one Midweek afternoon, during the weekly sermon. We kneel in the space above the temple, listening to the congregation file in below. The Proxy arrives a short while after us, leading our new sister in by the hand. Sholanan wears a white-and-green robe to match ours and her eyes are no longer swollen and circled in red, though their sky blue has yet to become gold. She hasn’t found enlightenment yet. She’s close enough, however, that she dons a face mask of her own.

It hurts. I know that’s stupid of me. We all need the Proxy to teach us. Sholanan would never be able to join us without her guidance. But it’s the wrong time for me to see it.

That thought stays latched onto me. Every word of praise for my sisters, every trusting look or hair brushed out of a shimmering golden eye, becomes another thorn caught in my skin. I try to ignore them. My mission is to serve Queen-Minister Charith. So long as I do that, nothing else truly matters. A nice thought. But it matters to me.

She’s across the shower room from me now, eyes closed as she works her fingers through her short hair. I swear she has that smug little grin on her face. The thorns sink in. I can’t ignore them anymore. I storm across to her. Her eyes open just in time to see me push her up against the tiled wall, take her by the back of the head, and kiss her.

Brea looks up at me. A drawback of the peace always reflected in our eyes is that it’s that much harder for us to know what the others are thinking. Does she understand? Did she feel me use her at leisure and know I won’t let her best me so easily?

What she does then is less kissing than her bringing a meal to her jaws, hungry and tactless. Her tongue slides in between my teeth as she presses her lips to mine as if to swallow me. Mercifully, she keeps it short, biting my lower lip lightly and pulling it with her as she retreats. Pain jolts through the skin until she lets go. Now I stand dumbstruck, watching a little smirk play across her face. The serenity in her expression only makes it worse- only deepens the sense that she’s mocking me. She’s still got my hair, twining the long red curls between her fingers. I tear her hand away. With a huff, she returns to bathing.

***

A stack of letters and papers stands at the head of the Queen-Minister’s table. The air of Her quarters is cold despite the sun flooding in through the tall windows, and the air smells more of ash than cinnamon. I don’t see the Queen-Minister herself. The Proxy leads me to the front of one of the lavish cabriole sofas arranged around the fireplace. “Wait here.”

She looks over her shoulder at me. I straighten. She’ll say something now. Give me some hint as to our purpose here. Several moments pass. A shrill warbling reaches my ears as the kettle begins to boil. She has said nothing yet. Clarification, and the relief it might bring, dangling just out of my reach. Perhaps it’s part of my punishment.

Finally the door swings open, and She enters. Queen-Minister Charith outshines the daylight, a cape of ivory and gold flowing from the shoulders of Her coat and a crown of silver atop her head, decorated with discs of polished emerald. Her bootsteps fill the room as Her presence warms the air.

I kneel before the sofa, its back blocking my view of my Queen and Her Proxy. I only hear boots on marble, then whispers. A shiver runs through me as I catch the husky music of Her voice.

She says, “Confess.”

She takes a long sip from her tea. “It troubles me as well, Lakera.”

The Proxy comes to us and hands my Queen several papers. Reaching past me to set Her cup on the table, She accepts them and begins to read. “Families burning their own furniture for firewood as winter approaches.” She shuffles to the next page. “People catching rats and birds for food.” Next page. “The Engineering Corp fitting trains with new engines that run on shit because we’re low on coal.” She peers over the papers down at me, eyes severe. “Cratavn is an island, Lakera. We are running out of space, and running out of resources. We cannot afford failure.”

“And now I have you,” She cuts in, “pouncing on your sisters in the showers.” She lowers the papers to fix me with Her full attention. It’s an avalanche barrelling towards me. “We must expand. We must take back the world outside. I need your choir to do this.”

No, this thought is heresy. Questioning Her is heresy. My Queen expects more of me because I was better. She must believe I can be again.

My breath catches.

I nod. “Yes, Queen-Minister. Whatever you wish.”

I lean in to examine it. The slanting lip of a dark grey ridge covers the bottom half while the upper half is blinding white sky. It takes me a moment to notice the shape standing between them. It’s a lighter grey, blending in somewhat with the sky, but I discern its tall figure.

Perhaps it’s the graininess, or the slight blur suggesting the photographer had taken this in a hurry. But the thing looks to be wearing a hooded white overcoat. If not for its inhumanly lanky proportions, one could almost mistake it for the Proxy. Scrawled in ink along the blank white sky is the heading, “Hierophant - River Jeshein”.

To me, it’s more than concerning. Every so often a new Host variant will emerge, some fresh horror we’ll have to adapt to as we encounter it. The seraphim were the worst for a while. But this creature’s mimicry disturbs me in a different way. Impersonating the Proxy feels like a deliberate and targeted affront.

“Yes, Queen-Minister,” I say.

I can almost imagine it’s Her hand on my skin, Her soft palm and loving caress. I nuzzle into it as if it were. “Yes, Queen-Minister.”

***

Cratavn is not entirely an island. After years of fighting- only a few of which my choir has partaken in- its armies have driven back a little of the rot. A day into the train ride, we spot a small lumber camp set up behind chain link fences and watchtowers, harvesting the scattered stands of birches or oaks. In the past we’ve glimpsed similar small, guarded mining operations closer to the mountains in the northwest. There’s efforts to reach the Osceller Coast in hopes of reclaiming the eastern ocean’s bounty, as well. From what little we hear, however, the Coast remains out of reach. These lumber and mining camps are a start. But they alone will not keep the desperate beast of Cratavn fed.

A small dugout has been reserved for us, occupied by a few small cots and a table crowded with an arrangement of ceremonial candles. As we settle, soldiers carry in the wooden crates containing our weapons and armor, as well as a smaller box holding flasks of ambrosia. We must feed at least once a week, and we can no more prey on soldiers of Cratavn than haul the ambrosia tanks here with us. The flasks sustain us until we return home.

My eyes wander to Brea, who picks at a loose thread in the shoulder of her suit. I wonder if what Getye and Imeshan have is a version of what I attempted in the showers. That action taken to its logical conclusion, in which one submits to the other. It’s hard then not to imagine Brea’s lithe body curled against mine, her face turned down in silent defeat, letting me run my nails over her scalp. All her skill and smugness, yielding as I assert myself as her better. I start to harden.

We all perk up, expecting the Proxy. Except that isn’t who it is. Leaning in through the half-open doorway, face dumb with surprise, is a young woman with green eyes and a stubby sandy brown ponytail sticking out from under her helmet.

Hearing her voice, I realize I’ve come across her before. The girl in the truck, en route to the Bone Factory.

Truck Girl watches her come with a kind of hesitant excitement. Tense, as if she’s ready to bolt at any moment, yet she stays. “I, um…” Lips twitching with half-formed words. “I wanted to see you all again. Before anything happens.”

The girl’s head snaps between us. There’s a light dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks, though dark bags have begun to form beneath her eyes as the front takes its toll on her. “Some of the others pray to you and the Goddess,” she goes on. “You know, for protection. I thought if I did it in person, it might…?” Again she trails off as we crowd around her, a slight blush blooming in her cheeks.

But she isn’t for us. The Proxy hasn’t said so.

Our answer is a curious stare.

“Silver light of dawn,” she begins, “please reach me through this long night.” Her voice is so quiet, meant only for ears which hear all. “I ask the Silver Goddess and you, her angels, for protection in the battles ahead. I ask not for glory nor blood, only that I live to return home. I do not need, nor want any more.” Her voice shakes for a moment, rises as her resolve wavers. She pauses to compose herself. “Pa got sick just before I deployed. He can’t work the farm like he used to, and the cows aren’t gonna wait for him. Danie does what she can, but there’s only two of them. We don’t have money to hire help. We don’t know what we’re gonna do.”

There’s little we can do for her. If we come across her in no-man’s land, will we protect her? For a moment, if it won’t interfere with our orders, yes, we will. Only for that moment, though. Only for those few extra breaths.

I kneel with her. Perhaps we’d be able to pull a few words together, if we could speak freely. We’ll protect you if we can, little one. Or perhaps we’d let our thoughts stray to the fact that we haven’t soaked in the ambrosia tanks since the morning before we left. We’re not hungry yet. We do have the ambrosia flasks. But I can hear the girl’s heart pounding in her chest.

“Th-Thank you,” she says.

The door swings open again. This time it is the Proxy, glowering down at the girl. We all assemble into a line, sitting prettily for our guiding star, as Truck Girl spins around and clambers to her feet. She notices she’s left her helmet on the floor, and snatches it up to set back atop her head. “Officer,” she blurts, giving a quick salute. “Ma’am, I was just...”

Truck Girl gives a quick, guilty nod. “Yes, ma’am.”

Truck girl has nothing to say for a moment. “They’re… The servants of the Silver Goddess. Sent down to help us. Aren’t they, ma’am?”

“Well, Private?” the Proxy asks. Patient, but no warmer than a winter night.

The Proxy gives a mirthless chuckle. “Not as close.”

The girl’s shoulders are almost at her ears. “I don’t know then, ma’am.”

Ducking her head, the girl hurries out.

We, in our shelter behind the trenches, are spared the shelling. Even so we feel it tremor through the earth at all hours, the grinding percussion of it battering the defenses. We also hear the wailing of injured soldiers on their way to the field hospitals. Our chance to avenge these losses will come. For now we wait with the Proxy, who leads us in prayer and song. The music competes with that constant rumble of thunder, just a mile or so away, but we feel the hymns in our veins.

We embark into the trenches. As always they reek of offal and smoke, especially once we reach the ruin of the forward trench. Whole sections of the parapet have been smashed in, spilling reddish mud and sandbags onto the duckboards, which throngs of exhausted soldiers work to push back up. The damp soil shifts under their boots and they make little progress. At one point we pass a collapsed dugout, pushing yet more muck into the narrow passage. A furrow gouged into the heap suggests the troops had needed to dig someone out of it.

Four bolt action rifles stand propped against the front wall with clips waiting on the ammo shelf. “You’ll defend against their charge first,” the Proxy had explained on our way here. “Then you’ll lead the counter-charge.” Not our usual order of operations. I’ve heard us described as shock troops by the upper brass in Vandett Tower. We’re designed to attack, sharp arrows ready to spring from taut bows. But we are trained with the bolt actions, and if the Proxy commands us to defend, we will.

Then, suffocating silence, thick as the stench of wet rot in the cold air. It lingers until, very quietly, someone along the step begins to hum. Something jaunty and light. One by one, others join in. I hear Getye among them, her voice soaring airily over the rest.

The first shot thumps into a sandbag further down the line. An officer bellows, “Charge coming,” but her voice is already half-buried beneath the return fire. I seek targets in the Forest’s shadows and find a wall of dark figures surging forward. Instead of the expected thin and misshapen shapes, these are mostly tall solid squares. Shields. The Host deploying their own shock troops? It makes no difference to the contempt roiling in my chest. I take aim at the ankles visible beneath a shield’s bottom edge. Once I pull the trigger, the creature falls like any other, ripe for the artillery to finish off.

Wave after wave. Plumes of mud and meat. Broken bodies littering the cratered land. Thick dark blood drips from our wire, the enemy using both their shields and sheer numbers to get close. But eventually, once their dead cover the blasted earth, they stop emerging from the tree line. There’s no retreat. Those that had come keep on until we cut them down. Life holds no value to the great march of undeath. They simply stop coming.

Swapping our rifles for the SMGs, we climb out and charge. The torn limbs and bodies half-buried in the rent earth do nothing to slow us. My sense reinvigorated, I scan the trees for fresh kills. An officer’s whistle blows next and the troops follow close behind. An unusual act of haste. Do they worry we four would be overwhelmed, even if nothing has before?

Damp leaves and flesh creep squelch under our boots as we enter the Ghost Forest. The land here divides itself into shallow gullies and small hills, the subtle lines and bulges of creeks and rocks buried by the rot visible here and there. A bullet snaps into a tree beside me and, unable to see the shooter yet, I duck into a gully. The troops aren’t so cautious, washing through in a mob driven by equal parts bravado and adrenaline, all wild eyes and ragged war cries. Following the gully I emerge to find thralls, no shields this time, firing up at them from what looks to be an old trench. With a focused hatred I mow the horrors down.

But I can’t forget. If I don’t find the Hierophant, would She still absolve me?

Beside us one of the soldiers wails, pulling their helmet down over their rictused face. It happens at most battles, the weight of it simply crushing one or two of them. They’re mice sent to do a lioness’s work. A handful of their fellows lay at the foot of the hill. My loathing surges and I make sure to hit the next thrall I fire on. The abomination convulses as the three bullet burst perforates its center of mass and it crumples down the hill.

I duck back down, and find Getye has as well. We exchange a glance. Did we see that? A choking cry from one of the infantrymen answers my question. “It’s Burkam! Burkam’s up, he’s ali—!” A rifle shot cuts the man off, his body thrown back onto the earth, a wine red ruin where his left eye had been.

That’s when I spot it, atop the hill. It’s as tall and slender as the photograph suggested, perhaps seven feet in height. I might have noticed it sooner did it not blend in somewhat with the trees. Long folds of white fabric do hang like a trench coat from its body, stained with grey and brown. What the photographs couldn’t show is its cream-coloured hide, like an exoskeleton of bone, nor the metallic ball joints in its limbs, nor the second pair of arms reaching out from its coat, fingers twitching as if to puppeteer the dead. What grabs my eye, however, is its face. From this distance, it looks almost human. Almost like a woman. It’s too stiff, though. A doll’s face, obscured in the shadow of its hood.

It reaches down towards me, unfurling delicate fingers which end in wicked hooks. It’s almost inviting. Cold but not inhospitable. For a delirious moment, I want to go to it. To feel those hooked fingertips tickling beneath my chin, lifting my face to look up into its dark eyes.

I turn and retreat. All my Queen requested was that I observe the creature. The soldiers fled moments ago, even Getye runs ahead of me. Cries of “Fall back” echo through the trees. Catching up to my sister, she and I dart through the Forest together, the world alive with hissing bullets and dying wails and the reek of blood and guns.

Stumbling as I try to turn around, I hurry back to her. She’s crawling to catch up to me, but there’s three bullet holes in the armor of her back, oozing rose gold blood.

I help Getye to her feet and pull her along with me. She struggles to keep pace. Scooping her up into my arms, I carry her that way. She’s not large even in her armor and I’m strong, but even so, she feels too light. Wrapping her arm around my neck, she curls into my chest. Screaming lead pursues us but the forest’s edge is close. Hold on, sister.