Today we learn more about a symbol of grace and might for the Sisters of Battle. A living saint that has to lead many battles for the sake of good.
Upon wings of white the evil of Chaos, she does smite. Celestine is a living symbol of all that is pure in the Imperium. Let’s take a closer look at this living saint.
Via: Lexicanum
Little is known of her life and battles before she was proclaimed a Living Saint — presumably they were suppressed. What is known is that she was a Sister Repentia of the Order of Our Martyred Lady and that she was but one warrior fighting at the prolonged Palatine Schism, against thousands of heretics. Celestine was thought to have been killed in battle before the capital city of the planet Eurytion, and was said to have killed over one hundred schismatics before she fell.
Her body was retrieved by her sisters, and was found to have life still in it. Believing her touched by the Emperor himself, the Sisters cleansed her body and found her to be free of wounds. The next day, the assault resumed with Celestine at its head. The battle lasted mere hours. Celestine became the figurehead of the Palatine Crusade, leading the forces of the Imperium to countless victories. At last, the Crusade’s commander, Lord Ansgar wanted to assault the sector’s capital world, but Celestine instead ventured to a backwater world called Sanctus Lys, which was home to an ancient shrine once visited by Saint Katherine. There she entered a hidden crypt, alone, forbidding any present to follow.
At the first light of dawn, Celestine rose from the crypt changed. Clad in the Armour of Saint Katherine and wielding The Ardent Blade, she had become a vessel of the Emperor’s divine radiance; she was declared a Living Saint by Lord Ansgar and his Thorian compatriots. Hailed as the ‘Hieromartyr of the Palatine Crusade’, Saint Celestine led the warriors of the Imperium to victory in a multitude of Wars of Faith, dispatching tens of thousands of heretics and enemies of the Emperor. The Adepta Sororitas venerated her, and her sisters would have followed her into the Eye of Terror, had she asked them to.
Saint Celestine was lost on Forrax, as the treacherous Warmaster detonated an atomic failsafe in his fortress, annihilating everything for miles across. When news of her death reached Holy Terra, the Tower of Heroes tolled once to mourn her loss, but the Sororitas in their halls in Convent Prioris were comforted with the thought that Celestine would be at the side of the Emperor.
She appeared unexpectedly in 980.M41 at a crucial moment of the Promethean War on Heletine, where the Order of the Ebon Chalice and the Salamanders Space Marines were engaged with forces of the Black Legion. There she turned the tide against the Chaos Space Marines and drove a spearhead directly to the Daemon Prince Lord Gralastyx, and ultimately slew him. When the dust of the victory had settled, however, there was no sign of her. It remains unclear if this happened during her life or after she had been declared dead on Forrax.
During the 13th Black Crusade, Saint Celestine once again manifested at the host of thousands of Sisters of Battle which had been thought lost in the Warp for centuries. She proved decisive in the battle and became one of the key Imperial commanders, personally battling Abaddon the Despoiler. She resurrected two faithful Canoness’ during the war, Eleanor and Genevieve, who became her champions known as the Geminae Superia. However, despite her best efforts Cadia ultimately fell and Celestine guided many of the survivors including Belisarius Cawl, Inquisitor Greyfax, and Marshal Marius Amalrich to Kalisus at the behest of a psychic vision. There, they found a Webway Portal and Eldar allies who saved them from the pursuing Black Legion.
