Sister Miriya

Sister Miriya is a Celestian Superior of the Order of Our Martyred Lady and the central character of James Swallow’s Sisters of Battle novels. She treats her orders as a starting position and then acts as circumstances require. Her superiors find this habit wearisome, but the missions assigned to her tend to demand it.

In the novels Faith and Fire and Hammer and Anvil, Miriya opposes witches, duplicity within the Ecclesiarchy, and heresy carried by bearers of the rosarius. She commands a Celestian squad that follows her beyond the letter of her instructions. The narrative presents this conduct not as rebellion but as a working expression of zeal.

Ophelia VII produces obedient martyrs in large numbers. Miriya differs in surviving long enough to dispute the judgement of the next Canoness and still be dispatched on the mission. The Order has not determined whether this quality is a virtue, but it continues to make use of it.