Spat on her. Nothing could prepare a body for this. Between them lay the object: a power core encased in sanctified adamantium, roughly the size of a gauntleted fist. What she had become. “You carried the future,” he said. Her pride shattered. The pain was white, all-consuming. She arched her back. They threw her into a cell of rot and rust, where Brother-Sergeant Caelen hung in chains. Sister Roxy was not born a hero — she was forged into one, molded by pain, obedience, and the fire of devotion. A relic of war never meant for flesh. As long as the core reaches him.”
Verena offered her a leather belt — a strip of old, cracked ecclesiarch hide. “You carried the future,” he said. Laughed. In a universe where saints are carved from trauma and silence, Roxy’s sacrifice echoes as a brutal testament to the Imperium’s creed: **only in death does duty end**.
