Within the cathedral of Jinju Parish, a fortress at the front line of the militarized zone, Yoon Si-nae was prepared to march alongside her sisters. Her face was painted , dusted, and plastered by the famulous to emphasize her scars to pop for the pict-thieves. Their novitiate garb was altered for ceremony: pauldron, rerebrace, and vambrace replaced with opera gloves that emphasized the cleavage of their biceps and deltoids, as well as removed leg armor hidden by long skirts. The wimple covered their hair entirely but the veil was left behind so as to not obscure their faces too much. Today, they were meant to be seen. Today was graduation, for both the sororita novitiates and the defense force cadets.

  Dozens of vehicles rumbled the floor from outside. The parade, equal parts celebration and drill, would take them from the edge of the militarized zone to the streets of Gyeo, where they would break off to their respective spires.

  Ready, Yoon Si-nae joined her class under Superior Hae Nyeo. They were joined by dogmata, in yellow vestment and with mace in hand, and a reliquarius, who had the honor of raising a staff that bore a statute of Saint Arabella. Other classes’ reliquarius bore images of martyrs and saints of Incheo from wars and crises past. She was thankful that a fellow sister had the honor of lugging a statue on a stick for the miles of marching they would soon be doing.

  Her class was called last. The remaining novitiates crossed their autopistols over their hearts in the sign of the aquila and marched forth from the cathedral’s layered fortress walls. The clergy and frateris militia were not part of the parade but did assist in organizing it as part of their own training drills.

  Each class joined the parade in between companies of cadets, classes of officers, orchestral bands, and columns of vehicles that were already in march. The defense force cadets were dressed in their light blue uniforms with their rifles held at the butt by their hips and leaned upon their shoulders, led by standard bearers of blue and yellow cloth rather than marble idols. The officer classes were distinguished by their ivory epaulettes and silver swords. The excess crew and engineseers sat atop their vehicles in proudly dirty robes and overalls in intentional contrast to the pressed and cleaned image of the rest of the parade.

  The audience in the militarized zone were future fellow soldiers in arms who, save for a few passing salutes, were more concerned with their work, including managing the logistics of the parade. They passed by the network and lines of trenches, ferrocrete bunkers, depots, airfields, and parish fortresses that made up the layered defensive lines. It was not until they reached the suburbs that blended with the militarized zone that they met the civilian crowd and the theatrics began.

  From the side of the road up to apartment windows, they cheered and tossed pink flower petals like confetti. Pict thiefs in photographer hands or attached to servoskulls captured the images of the parade in still frames or for broadcast. Families of the cadets came out to wave down their children. These people were as much part of the militarized zone as the soldiers were; formality though it was, they were proud to see their sons and daughters be inducted into the ultimate service.

  Defense force planes roared overhead, the fighter jets screaming past low to the ground while the bombers and transports growled along high above, both with smoke trails dyed yellow and blue.

  The bands provided intrumentals to go along with the vox-casted vocals of the dogmatas. Out of petals, the civilians danced to, and sang along with, the marching tune as if the war was already won.

  By the time Yoon’s class reached the city walls the gates were long open. She remembered the days in the underhive when the rumble of treads and march of a thousand thousand boots shook walls far beneath the surface. She was certain she would be another corpse that littered those tunnels. Now she walked a boulevard under the gaze of the sky and artificial hills that vibrated from the colossal cheers of a billion voices; all for her, she liked to imagine.

  The great houses, from Gyeo and beyond, spared no expense in celebrating their children’s graduation from the progenium as officers in the defense force and sororitas in the Righteous Symphony. Groves of cherry blossom trees were planted and fertilized with growth hormones so that petals would fall in unrivalled numbers. Some caged doves and ospries to be released at the right moment in such great flocks that the sun was clouded. Others had whole hab hills cheer their child’s name, further stuffed with people who did not even live on that hill or even had a home at all, competing in volume with other hills that were doing the same. Those with the connections to coordinate with the airforce set off fireworks that lit up the clear blue sky for miles around. The lack of coordination with the bird flocks provided the Gyeons with a free rain of fried wings to go with the show, some of the more impoverished holding out nets to catch the windfall.

  When the novitiate classes split off from the parade to march to their convent, they were joined by flocks of cherubim that held up house guidons and memorabilia. Choristers added their voices to the chorus, partially to give the sisters a break. Many of the criminals, vagrants, and malcontents they wrangled in their last trial in the underhive were burnt at the stake along the road.

  They only found rest when they passed their convent’s gate. But that parade was for the public, the common folk. The true initiation ceremony would take place here. They were allowed a moment of respite before they continued on deeper into the convent. Within these depths were a familiar staleness of air and moribund walls that knew only the artificial light of lumens.

  The class arrived at a candle-lit chapel. Here they undressed from sweat soaked garb, knelt on hard tiles, and held silent vigil before an altar to the Emperor. While music was His gift to direct the thoughts of fallible mortal minds, now was a time for those who proved worthy to contemplate His will, perhaps even hear His voice. The only interruption to that silence were the servitors that came to collect their clothes. They would wait like that until the gate opened for them.

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  She looked around the room at the familiar bodies of her classmates genuflecting. For her, the only future allowed was the ordo militant, but these noble daughters had been raised for different roles. The hospitaller, the dialogus, the famulous, the madriga, the princeps, even the fenestrus and hagiolater, these were all positions of prestige and influence for the learned and pure. Consistently safe postings that put their faces forward to society. Her position, they say He willed, was to take orders and kill and die. She could do the first two just fine, but if He or His enemies were hoping for another martyr, they would be sorely disappointed. Whatever the galaxy or the Empyrean, the witch or the fly god, the traitor or the ‘ally’, would throw at her, she would ensure that she came out alive. If she had His ear now, and had any oath to make, that would be it.

  The gates opened to allow in artificial evening light. Under warm orange, the class rose and filed forward into a garth. The superiors, mistresses and abesses, clothed in yellow habits, watched from the cloisters surrounding the garth. Ahead was their pathway: a pool of water, columns of driers, and a staircase that led up to the Canoness, dressed in rhodonite, the Legatine and the Palatine, both dressed in ivory, and an altar dedicated to Saint Nadezhda, the last novitiate accepted into Saint Arabella’s service.

  The class walked forward in harmony with the aquila held over their hearts. The bone-chilling water would leave anyone else shivering and clattering yet they passed through with their eyes open, without so much as a smirk or grimace to crease their periorals. The driers unleashed scathing heat and battering wind, neither of which hindered their steps or stole a blink from their eyes. Baptized by water and fire, their bodies were cleansed of impurity. The class filled the staircase, up to one step below the canoness, and kneeled in silence oncemore. That they reached this point should have been reason enough to see this ceremony as the formality it was; still, the faintest probability that she might be rejected tied a knot in Yoon Si-nae’s stomach the likes of which she had never felt before.

  “My sisters,” began Bae Doona in her soprano, “you are here because you have passed many trials to prove your devotion. Perhaps you faltered, perhaps you failed, but you have not been found wanting in dedication to your duty, and that is all He asks of us. We gather here so that we may all bear witness to the passion and sincerity that has brought you so far. We gather here so that you may promise to us that you will give your heart and soul to service unto death in His name. Hae Nyeo. You have borne witness to this class. Do you pledge to their dedication?”

  “I do. By my name and life, I have no doubt to their dedication.”

  “My sisters, do you accept your holy duty with all its burdens and its joys, to walk in the footsteps of Arabella the Liberator, to wield bolter and flame in holy reverence until death relieves you of your service?”

  “We accept in reverence, in duty and in joy.”

  “Then, my sisters, recite the litany of purpose. Make your promise to us as we are gathered here.”

  As one, the class recited the litany and declared their vows to the Order, the Imperium, and He on the golden throne of holy Terra.

  “For our God-Emperor, we serve,

  For He on Terra, we serve,

  For the King of Kings, we serve,

  For the Lord of Lords, we serve,

  For the Master of Mankind, we serve,

  For the Guardian of Humanity, we serve,

  For the Shepherd of the Flock, we serve,

  For the Light in the Dark, we serve,

  For the Bane of Devils, we serve,

  For the Ruler of the Galaxy, we serve,

  Through Fire and Storms, we serve,

  Through Quakes and Blizzards, we serve,

  Through Blight and Sickness, we serve,

  Through Temptation and Deception, we serve,

  Through Pain and Terror, we serve,

  Across Plains and Mountains, we serve,

  Across Desert and Tundra, we serve,

  Across Villages and Cities, we serve,

  Across Oceans and Stars, we serve,

  In Peace and War, we serve,

  In Body and Mind, we serve,

  In Heart and Soul, we serve,

  In Life, and in Death, we serve Him and no other.”

  “Thank you for lending your voices. You may rise. You have your leave to take to your places as Daughters of the God-Emperor.”

  As she stood, an unexpected feeling of relief washed over Yoon Si-nae, but she was not quite done yet. The non-militant had their leave of these depths, yes. For them, they would neatly return to the roles they had already been filling as novitiates and noble scions. For the ordo militant, however, one final trial awaited them.

  On an all too familiar surgery bed, Yoon Si-nae was fastened tight. Her steely gaze belied the fear in her heart, her inner pace only steadied by the soothing anesthetics of the Genetor. In her sleep, they weaved cogitation wires with her neural system to connect it to neural ports that were grafted into her flesh. Some of the more pious sisters opted to be awake to experience the procedure, to feel all the pain of ascendance without any medicinals to dull the sensation, but she was not one of them.

  When she awoke, she saw the world with a new pair of red eyes that pierced all darkness and deception. She had grown an exoskeleton unmatched by natural evolution and wings eager to be unfurled. She had vigor so effortless that it made her realise the frailty and weakness that she lived with all her life.

  Yoon Si-nae was now a Sister of Battle in His Righteous Symphony.