Danie Ware’s third Black Library story featuring the Adepta Sororitas of the Order of the Bloody Rose, Forsaken features a younger version of Sister Augusta as she and her Sisters search for survivors in the darkness of a drifting Ecclesiarchy vessel. When the sepulchral quiet is shattered by alien ambush, Augusta finds herself cut off from her Sisters and lost deep in the bowels of the ship. Faced with endless emptiness stretching away all around, Augusta falls back on her faith to sustain her and drive her on, but what she finds down there in the darkness tests even that.
Previous Augusta stories (Mercy and The Bloodied Rose) have shown her to have utterly unshakeable faith, but by winding the clock back to this earlier incarnation Ware is able to tell a story of a time when that conviction wasn’t quite so well-formed, and of a brutal, soul-crushing test for Augusta. Alone, without the support of her Sisters and the tangible evidence of her faith, her fundamental character is challenged, and we see how she rises to the challenge and conquers her fears. Beautifully balancing action and introspection, it’s tense, claustrophobic, insightful and instantly engaging, reinforcing the reputation that Ware is developing for writing powerful, impactful Adepta Sororitas stories.
