He was shaking — from the act, from awe, from the reality of what she had endured. Vents hissed. “You carried the future,” he said. The belt cut into her mouth as her jaw clenched. “Then let me break. But he looked up as she entered. “They will hear us.”
There was no time. His chest was a ruin of ceramite and scar tissue. Her pride shattered. And then the bolter fire began. They threw her into a cell of rot and rust, where Brother-Sergeant Caelen hung in chains. Stripped of weapons, armor, and all outward signs of sanctity, Roxy became a living vessel. The pain was white, all-consuming. The capsule slid in by degrees. Each movement brought fresh waves of agony. But he looked up as she entered. Roxy sobbed around the belt. Not metaphorically, but literally — enduring unbearable physical and spiritual pain to smuggle salvation through her own flesh.
