Nothing I had ever seen matched her beauty, though calling it that undersold what she was: her loveliness had nothing to do with face or figure. In truth I barely registered her physical form at all, because a deeper beauty shone from inside her, one that outshone any body and took hold of my mind and heart completely. Looking at her, I was aware not of flesh, nor even of intellect, but of something else entirely. What met my eyes was a soul.
The one perfect soul.
Seraphiel...
Seeing her for the first time outside of the Holy Transmissions changed something in me, even from a distance. She addressed the gathered crowd in the open-air congregation that day, urging greater devotion to the republic and resistance against the dual dangers of the Blight and the advancing Valrath Dominion. Her words carried grand weight, yet her delivery stayed soft and intimate, so much so that among the hundreds of thousands filling that outdoor amphitheatre, I felt certain she spoke only to me.
I stood so absorbed that I missed the hand on my shoulder until my friend, the one I had come to the rally with, told me that our group was heading off.
"Milva... Milva! We're going to move on and join the line of supplicants... are you coming? Milva?"
I could only stand there, staring.
The following day I went straight to a recruitment centre, ready to answer her call and fight beside the faithful. But standing at the entrance of the temple barracks, doubt stopped me. Did I deserve a place there? Could faith as new as mine measure up, or would presenting myself to the truly devout feel like an insult to them? I felt unfinished, unready, and the thought of joining the Templars, Seraphiel's most sacred warriors, while in that state seemed like it would dishonor her perfection.
So instead I turned away, applied to the ordinary Concordia military, and was placed in the infantry.
◊◊◊
Six months on, I was stationed on the republic's northeastern front, near the edge of the Blight-ridden wastelands. Forces were spread thin, and reports of a Blighted swarm large enough to raze an entire city moving in from the northeast meant even new recruits like me were sent out to meet it. The horde had to be held back. We took up position in a web of old concrete trenches and bunkers, relics of a war fought decades earlier that had gone disastrously for the Republic — defenses raised in a panic when it seemed the Valrath military might strike from the northern seas as well as the southern skies. That invasion by the Vampire Lords' armies never reached this ground, since Seraphiel and her angels had intervened and turned the Dominion back. What came instead was worse: a slow, spreading horror that threatened everything.
My squad formed up along our stretch of trench, waiting on edge for the Blight to arrive. Eight of us held that section, one small piece of the thin line of infantry squads spread across the northern wastes — whatever units could be rushed there in time. Rigel led us; Banshee carried the heavy gun; then there was Huck, Ban, Jak, and the twins, Lexie and Duffy, with me rounding out the group as the newest addition. The rest of them appeared calm in the face of the coming fight, but the wait was wearing on me.
I dug into my fatigues and found the small metal shape I was searching for, then pulled it out and held it close. It was a fetish — a tiny sculpture of a winged eye hung on a chain, its surface ringed with metal spikes like the rays of a miniature sun. I pressed it into my palm, letting the points dig lightly into my fingertips, grounding myself against its reality. With my eyes shut, I tried to find calm through it.
"You nervous, kid?" a familiar voice asked from above. I looked up at Huck, our corporal. "That a good luck charm you're holding?"
I nodded.
"I bought it from a vendor on the day..."
The day I first laid eyes on Seraphiel. The day I chose to enlist.
I left that part out. My squadmates already regarded the new faith and its followers with suspicion, and I had no wish to provoke them or make enemies out here on the front line.
"Don't worry, kid, I'll look out for you. Just remember: keep your head on a swivel. The Blight don't have guns, so you won't even need to keep your head below the parapet. Just pick your targets and make your shots count."
I nodded along, trying to absorb the comfort he meant to give. Instead a troubling question surfaced: if the Blighted carried no firearms, why were we dug into trenches at all? What were the barricades even protecting us from?
"Here come the Templars," Ban called from further along the trench.
"Damn show-boaters with their big swords. Who do they think they're impressing?" Banshee muttered beside me. Her heavy rifle rested across her knees as she leaned against the pale concrete wall, looking relaxed, though I could sense a coiled tension underneath it.
Above us, shapes cut quickly across the overcast sky. A squad of Templars cleared our trench in leaps, their massive swords trailing behind them. Once the last one had cleared it, I climbed onto the fighting step, looked over the parapet, wound the chain of my Seraphiel fetish around my gloved hand, and pressed the charm into my palm. Gripping my rifle, I aimed out across the wasteland. Already the Templars were nearly swallowed by the ruined landscape as they ran toward the enemy lines.
Far off, the ground itself seemed to ripple — the first sign that the Blight was approaching, though at that distance I couldn't pick out single figures within the mass. There had to be an enormous number of them. The Templars would meet the undead first, many of whom had likely once fought on our side before being infected and transformed out in the badlands. The thought that I might share their fate one day chilled me.
I swallowed hard and dropped back down into the trench.
"Damn show-boaters," Banshee said again, bitterly, glancing my way.
"You don't like the Templars?" I asked.
"Those zealots?" Banshee spat. "Girl, I'd rather fight next to a robot than one of those fanatics. Say or do the wrong thing about their precious Seraphiel and you're as likely to get run through with one of those big swords as any Blighted would do to you..."
"Unshakeable faith is a two-edged sword," Jak agreed from nearby, punctuating the thought with a spit on the ground.
"I heard they don't get blighted," said another voice further down — Duffy or Lexie, I couldn't tell. "No matter how bad the wound, they don't turn."
"All right everyone, on your feet," Rigel, our squad leader, called out. "Orders from up top: hold this line no matter what comes at us. There's a large force of Blighted heading our way, and Command can't spare time to shift reinforcements from other zones, so brace for heavy fighting. Firing positions!"
We lined the trench edge, rifles trained on no man's land. Looking down the row, I saw the whole unit braced and ready: Banshee, grim and steady with her heavy rifle; Huck, quiet and composed; Ban, grinning through nerves; Rigel, barking orders to keep our spirits firm; Jak, Lexie, Duffy, and further still, countless other squads crouched along the same defensive line, all of us waiting to hold against the dead.
The Blighted were closing in fast now, close enough that individual shapes stood out from the surging mass. Of the sword-bearing faithful, there was no sign.
"Uh, sir? Where are the Templars?" Ban asked. "Weren't they supposed to slow this charge down? I'm seeing plenty of targets out there and they don't look like they're stopping, any..."
"Never mind about the zealots," Rigel answered. "Just focus on your own job."
I clenched my jaw and aimed, trying to single out one target from the churning crowd of bodies. There were far too many to choose from.
"Okay," Rigel called, "here they come! OPEN FIRE!"
For a moment, our gunfire seemed to slow the charging dead. The whole line fired together, throwing bodies back into the mass behind them. Banshee's heavy rifle hammered away beside me, tearing a line of holes through the Blighted and knocking them down one after another.
It didn't hold.
The front that had briefly slowed was simply pushed forward again by the press of bodies behind it, and the gap between us closed fast once more.
"Oh fuck! They're going to hit us!" Jak shouted.
"Hold the line!" Huck yelled.
Then they were on us, and our thin defense absorbed the full force of the undead charge.
What followed exists in my memory only in fragments: the Blight spilling over the trench's edge in a wave of monstrous bodies overwhelming our small defense. The smell of death everywhere, and Huck simply no longer beside me — there one instant, and in the next, nothing left but a red smear where he had stood. I never saw what became of Ban, Duffy, or Lexie, but I watched Jak get hoisted into the air and torn apart between two Blighted. Banshee was dragged out of the trench screaming, still firing her machine gun the whole time. Something struck me down, tearing a deep gash across my chest with its claws, before turning to behead Rigel as he tried to reach me.
Then the gunfire thinned out, growing sparse.
The chaos and roar of moments before fell away as my senses narrowed. I lay there for some stretch of time I couldn't measure, pain radiating from my chest into my limbs and up through my neck, burning and aching together until it consumed me entirely. At some point I became aware of a massive shape looming over me — a Blighted creature, once human, now gray dead flesh pulled tight over sinew, with crystalline spikes jutting from its papery skin. It lifted its clawed hand.
Then a blade burst through its chest.
The Blighted fell, and behind it stood my rescuer: a Templar, blessed and armed. Even through the agony wracking my body, something in me rejoiced at the sight of her.
She looked down at me for a moment, her expression full of pity as our eyes met. I reached toward her, but she was already moving on, leaving me alone on the trench floor.
Time grew strange and distant — the gunfire and fighting sounded far away, and even the screams took on a strange melody, as if played on a radio in another room of a large house. My skin burned, red mist clouded my sight, and my tongue swelled thick in my mouth. I felt myself slipping away, and as the music of the screaming grew lovelier, I began to give in to it.
Then came light — painful, blinding light.
A shape hovered above me, one that should have been beautiful but instead seared through me and pulled a snarl from my throat. I wanted to strike out, but whatever new strength was building inside me hadn't yet reached my limbs. All I could manage was to lift my gloved hands toward the brightness. Something swung from my right hand, barely recognizable now — an eye, wings, spikes like rays of sunlight. Then, through the red haze, a voice reached me, immensely powerful yet somehow gentle.
"Peace," the voice said. Something pressed against my chest, just above the heart, and the fire spreading across my skin began to fade. Slowly, gratefully, my sight began to clear.
An angel stood over me. The most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The one perfect soul.
"A burgeoning faith requires sacrifice, daughter," Seraphiel said, her words resonating through the very center of my being. "I believe you have made yours. Be at peace."
Then she was gone, and darkness closed over everything.
◊◊◊
Weeks later, I crossed into the temple barracks. The clerics greeted me there with warmth, washing my feet and hands and anointing my head before leading me into a finely furnished room, where I sat before a large desk occupied by another member of their militant priesthood, dressed plainly. I told him everything that had happened to me.
When I finished, the recruitment cleric lowered his head, clasped his hands together, and gave me a serene smile.
"I see from your application your full name is Milva Kontorski, is that correct?" I nodded. "Born on the First of Seraph, ASR 53... Quite an auspicious birthdate, if I may say so?" I nodded again, smiling back at him. "So tell me, daughter-of-the-faith: why is it that you wish to become a Templar?"
I hesitated, just briefly, glancing down again at the fetish in my hand — the eye, the wings, the rays of the sun. Then conviction swept through me, steady as Seraphiel's own touch.
"Because... I wish to dedicate my life to the one perfect soul..."