Katherine walked among the beds of the infirmary, taking a few moments to check on each sister. She would speak with those who could, or just lay a hand upon their foreheads for those that could not. She laid a blessing of prayer on each. She knew she had to lead sisters to martyrdom, it was why they existed, but she could not help but feel guilty when she looked down at the faces of the teenaged girls there.
Of the forty-five Acolyte sisters she had taken into combat, eleven had been martyred. Another eight were wounded so terribly they would likely never recover enough to don the Vestments. They would be transferred to the Hospitallers or Dialogus to continue to serve the Emperor, but they would never again wield the holy retribution of the bolter or flamer. Only six had escaped the attacks unscathed, the others injured to some extent by Daemon or corrupted Sister.
She stopped at the bed of Acolyte Cornelia, where a hospitaller was cutting away the bandages that wrapped practically her entire head. Her once flawless teenage face was horribly scarred where a Daemon's claw had ripped away most of her cheek. As the bandages were pulled away, she blinked in surprise, her jaw dropping, "What? How? My eyes?" In the catacombs under Pompeii's estate she had screamed as one of the corrupted sisters had plunged her claws into her beautiful brown eyes.
She caught her reflection in the spectacles of the Hospitaller, "Why…why are my eyes blue?"
Katherine sat on the edge of the bed, laying her hand upon Cornelia's, "Your eyes…were too damaged to repair. The Hospitallers had to replace them…"
Cornelia's face went pale as she recognized those eyes, the eyes of her long friend Julia who had been slain in the bathhouse of Caracalla. "Emperor's Mother! Get them out! Get them out of me!" She screamed, clawing at her eyes.
The Hospitaller grabbed one wrist while Katherine took the other, pulling them away from her face. The Canoness tilted the girl's chin up to look her in the scarred face, "Listen to me, Sister Cornelia. Your friend was martyred by the filth that threatens this world…and the Imperium. She will always live on in the rolls of the Adeptus Sororitas, and in your memory. And she had yet one more gift to give. She gave you sight. She gave you sight so that you may gain vengeance for her…so that you may cleanse this world of the Daemonic filth."
Cornelia stopped struggling, but continued to sob, tears running down her cheeks from the eyes of her dead friend. Katherine continued, "Each time you look in the mirror, remember her…remember her sacrifice…the sacrifice that enables you to continue to serve the Emperor…Sister Cornelia."
"S…sister?" Cornelia blinked the tears free to bring the Canoness into focus.
"Yes, you have earned your Vestments, Cornelia." She laid a hand on the girl's shoulder and kissed her forehead, "You are a Sister of the Adeptus Sororitas. When you are well enough, we will have a ceremony for you and your fellow sisters at the convent."
The girl caught her breath and moved to stand, "I am ready now, Mother Superior!"
"Easy, easy," Both she and the Hospitaller placed hands on her shoulders to prevent her from rising, "To all things their time. For now, rest easily with my pride in you, and the Emperor's blessing." She rose and gave the girl a beatific smile.
In the next bunk, Flavia lay, listening to the exchange. She too cried as she listened, for Julia had been her best friend since she had joined the Acolytes ten years ago, She had her head turned away from Cornelia, because she could not bear to look upon her own right shoulder. It was a ghastly mass of pulpy flesh, where her arm had been ripped from its socket by the unnatural, daemonic strength of the possessed Sister. Flavia had thought she was dead, and she nearly had been. Despite the blood loss, the hospitallers had managed to bring her back from the brink of death.
