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Chapter Text

Darrow

It has been a year since the Gala, nine months since the Lion’s Rain and my Triumph in Agea, six months since the Second Moon Lords Rebellion began, and three months since I last walked on Mars and felt her fertile soil beneath my feet. The Society is in chaos, torn by civil war. Gold kills Gold, while Grays and Obsidians are fed into the meat grinder of battle. Now dubbed the Solar War, it is the greatest conflict the system has ever known, far outshining the Conquering; and it is all by my hand. I smile.

My ‘father,’ Nero, sits on a throne-like chair at the head of the table in a smaller meeting room aboard the Invictus. Small only in comparison to his elaborate and flamboyant war room, it is still an intimate space, reserved for close allies and key leaders. I sit at his right hand. Further down the table, Lorn, Romulus, Agrippina, Victra, Fitchner, the Telamanuses, and a few others sit sombrely as a Logos drones on about the cost of our war effort. He speaks at the behest of Mustang, now Nero’s Quaestor, who sits across from me on his left, beautiful as ever, her cheeks still soft from pregnancy. She catches me staring. A faint smile curves her lips, and for a moment I feel her love, her warmth, her devotion.

The moment fades, tempered by the stark reality that we are at war. “That is all, Cybelus,” she says at last, her eyes returning to her datapad as the White bows deeply and withdraws. Around the table, the Golds relax, as though the man himself had been tension incarnate. No one likes to hear how much this war costs us, but they dislike the Core far more. The Core, now reduced to Mercury, Venus, and Luna, enjoyed early success after Roque and the Jackal’s betrayal at Deimos. But when the Dragon Armada arrived, one of three in the Rim, we slowly began driving them back.

Now the war is in full swing. We drift between the orbits of Earth and Mars. Luna is the prize, but Earth is the easier target. All we can wage is a war of attrition. The Rim’s ships are faster, my tactics aggressive, and our Martian fighters brutal; but the Sceptre Armada remains the greatest force the Society commands. The Martian Armada, drawn from the 6th Societal Fleet, Classis Libertas, and the remnants of the 5th Fleet, is joined by every Martian house and any sizable force from Ceres to Hildas Station in the Belt.

The 2nd Fleet, part of the Sceptre Armada, still holds its ground above Earth, but only barely. Its defence is strained on all fronts. Helium-3 grows scarce, bleeding the engines of both fleet and city shields. The Ash Lord has shifted his focus to the orbital space above his Grimmus strongholds of Africa, Europe, and parts of the Americas, leaving the rest of Earth exposed and vulnerable. Worse, the vassals of House Thorne whisper with unrest, their loyalty fraying as the war grinds on, in remembrance of the injustice allowed by the Sovereign at the Gala. Each thread pulled weakens the whole; soon Earth itself may be ripe for the picking. When that moment comes, it will not be banners and declarations that fall upon it, but an Iron Rain, and I will be the one to lead it.

Venus teeters on collapse. With Dido returned to the Core at her husband Romulus’s side, her birth house, House Saud, faces mounting threats to its rule from the Carthii, the Cerana, and a host of other Venusian houses. Their allies dwindle, and their grip on the planet slips away.

The Sword Armada locks with the Dust and Shadow Armadas of the Rim. Revus au Raa and the Moon Lords strike against Roque, who drives relentlessly for the Jovian moons, Ilium most of all.

And on every planet and moon, another war plays out. A silent one, deadlier for me than the fleets above. Fitchner has awakened every cell of the Sons of Ares in the Core, their mission simple: sabotage. In time, Octavia may look deeper. For now, the war consumes her. Perhaps she still believes it is Nero who wears the mask of Ares. If so, she knows nothing of her former friend. He would never aid or abet the lowColours, not even at the cost of his own life.

After a short discussion the meeting adjourns, and we rise, many departing to their ships. We may be an alliance, but trust is scarce. Mustang and I remain on the Augustan flagship, awaiting dinner with Nero.

***

We wait in a spacious room two levels below the meeting hall. It is tastefully appointed, stripped of the ostentation that marks much of the ship. From her place on the lounge sofa, Mustang reads The Path to the Vale, a curious collection of esoteric meditations I received from an unknown operative in the Rim. Slipped to Theodora by one of Romulus’ Pinks, I have yet to decide whether it is a warning or an overture of ally-ship.

“You still don’t approve?” Mustang muses, turning a tattered page with a sly smile tugging at her lips.

I glance at her and huff in mild frustration.

“It’s not that,” I reply. “I worry about its origin, and who sent it. Now, more than ever, I have a lot to lose. You, Pax, this life, our life…”

My words trail off as she closes the book and looks at me with unreadable eyes. She rises and crosses the room, placing a soft hand against my cheek.

“It’s not this that worries you,” she says, pausing. “It’s Roque.”

“And the Jackal,” I murmur.

“And the Jackal,” she echoes, a grimace twisting her lips. “Darrow, they do not know the truth. They cannot.”

I search her eyes, golden pools rich with conviction, and sigh.

“Why did he betray me? Why did both of them? And for what? The Sovereign’s favour, so he can cosy up to Quinn’s killer? By the Vale, they tried to have us killed at my Triumph!”

“I know, husband,” she says, caressing my cheek lovingly. I smile, still not used to that word on her lips.

“But all strings have been cut; Sevro made sure of that.”

While I recovered from the Lion’s Rain, Evey reached out to Ares and told him of Harmony’s erratic behaviour ever since she found out he was a Gold. Even though we did not know what she might do, we would not be safe if she was left with a free rein, so he sent Sevro to ‘fix’ the problem.

“You lost Roque on Luna,” she says, almost accusingly. Then, with a smile to ease the sting, she adds, “I told you to fix it, but the Reaper of Mars has no time for feelings.”

“As for Adrius, he was always so desperate for Father’s approval. He craved it like a Gray with a Zoladone addiction. So when he pushed you to be Father’s heir, it was probably just a ploy. You know him and his schemes.”

“But what if—” I begin, but a knock at the door stops me.

It opens and Niobe walks in, Pax cradled in her arms. She greets us warmly and hands Pax over to Mustang. His golden eyes twinkle as he gurgles with delight when I wag a playful finger before him. Whatever trace of Red he might have inherited from me, Mickey scoured away before birth. It was so slight he nearly missed it, but for his safety, I’m glad he did not.

“Time to supper,” I say, and together we leave the room and my fears behind.

***

In the great room of the Invictus, Nero, the rest of the Telamanuses, and Nero’s only surviving niece sit gathered around a vast mahogany banquet table. In a rare show of emotion, Nero smiles, most likely because of Pax, as he motions for us to join them. I take my seat at the other end of the table, Mustang at my side.

“How is my grandson?” he asks.

“The little lion cub is healthy and strong!” Niobe beams before I can answer, and Kavax laughs, turning to his wife.

“Little cub indeed! The boy will be a strong Peerless, just like his father,” he booms, winking at me.

I smile, though weakly, remembering my conversation with Mustang. The Telamanuses, like her, know that I am a Red. They took it well, caring little for bloodlines, only that Mustang was happy. Even cut off from Lykos and my family, these giant foxes keep the hearth of kinship alive in my heart.

Dinner begins, and slowly I feel my panic fade. I laugh, I eat, I drink. My eyes drift to the far end of the table where Nero sits engrossed in conversation with Thraxa. His third wife, now dead, betrayed him at the Triumph, and perhaps that loss and betrayal has made him value this little fellowship of ours. We do not dine together every day, but on the rare occasions we do, I glimpse a side of him I never thought existed.

Still, when I look at him, I remember Eo singing her song, Persephone’s song, how he listened dispassionately, and how, with only the flick of a wrist, he sentenced her to die.

A hand on mine draws me from the memory. It is my wife, his daughter, and I smile. For all the pain and hurt I carry, Virginia, Lionheart, Mustang, is there to fill the void.

Chapter Text

The man watches from the far side of the orbital lane, his ship silent, cloaked against the chaos raging above the curve of Earth. Beyond the Pacific arc, the battle unfolds in brutal symmetry.

Cornelia au Falthe, a Praetor of the Raven Fleet, commands only a third of her house’s strength, yet she wields it like a razor. From Earth’s shadow, the lesser Martian houses, Sarna, Tanus, Savag, throw their first blow: squadrons of leechCraft hurled forward in a reckless tide. Their engines flare red against the black as they drive forward in a desperate bid for glory.

The swarm of leechCraft, specks darting across the void, are shredded before they ever reach her line. Flak and plasma fire turn them to tumbling wreckage, scattering panic through their wings. Sarna’s cavalry breaks, colliding with their own retreating craft.

Cornelia strikes without hesitation. RipWings pour from her bays, hawks loosed into a field of sheep. Tanus’s escorts fold first, driven back toward the shadow of Earth. For a moment, it seems she has already claimed the day. Then Savag commits their core. Heavy dreadnoughts crash into the gap left by her vanguard, their broadsides carving bloody rents through her destroyers. Two of her ships bloom into fire. The man can almost feel the tremor as the Raven Fleet staggers under the assault.

She does not break. Orders roll out from the Sagitta, calm, precise, binding her line together. For hours the fleets grind against one another, neither gaining the edge, the orbital sphere thick with drifting husks. Wreckage gathers between them, broken ships burning in the void. The battle hangs in the balance. And then, the turn.

From beyond the battle’s rim, her RipWings return, squadrons that had vanished early and presumed scattered. They fall upon the Savag rear in a blaze of missiles and plasma, tearing engines, gutting hulls. Hemmed between dreadnoughts and fangs, the Martian line collapses. Sarna flees. Tanus dies screaming. Savag fights, and then is gone.

When silence settles over the Pacific, the Raven Fleet alone remains.

The man leans back in his chair, expression unreadable as wreckage drifts in the light of the world below. Cornelia au Falthe has proven herself again. One-third of a fleet, yet she commands as if the void itself bends to her will.

***

“Cornelia the Corvine,” I almost bark. My face, unadorned by a Scar, remains impassive across the holo.

Cornelia only grunts, not bothering to acknowledge her new epithet. “What do you want?” she asks, her voice edged, almost too aggressive. She does not like me, nor my “supervision,” but she is only a Praetor.

“Congratulations are in order. Thanks?” I pause, goading, then continue. “No matter. This is atonement for my failure. Shall I join you in the Taj?”

She nods dismissively, and the holo disappears in a flash.

A short while later I descend from orbit, arriving over the Indian subcontinent, the splendour of Neo Bharat stretching below me, a testament to the immense artistry of Earth’s Master Makers. I care little for it.

The palace, Cornelia’s wartime residence, dominates the horizon. The Taj Mahal, reborn and reimagined, floats a hand-span above its foundations, levitating on AntiGrav stilts that make it shimmer as if suspended by divinity itself. White marble domes gleam with inlaid gold veining, while the reflecting pools below ripple faintly from the hum of its engines.

A Gold, shorter than most warriors of his ilk yet still taller than I, greets me on the AeroTerrace, flanked by four Grays in polished armour. I am led through winding halls, grand in their Mughal-inspired design, jewelled mosaics and calligraphic inscriptions glowing faintly under modern lumens.

The procession halts abruptly before a heavily gilded door. The Grays snap to attention as the Gold opens it, almost timidly.

Inside, the jharokha chamber, a high pavilion room with wide, arched windows opening directly over the Yamuna, blurs the line between inside and out. Intricate arabesque arches frame the river, letting in the rush of air and the heavy perfume of burning oud and rosewater.

Cornelia has shed her PulseArmor and lounges on a lectus. Around her, a coterie of her trusted soldiers loiter, while lithe Pink courtesans drift like the Charites of Olympus, their laughter and touch weightless. Cornelia wears a sheer V-cut gown, a gold necklace resting between her full breasts, the Falthe raven sigil gleaming proudly at its centre. Her long flaxen hair spills lazily to her waist, her cheeks flushed with drink, her lips tinted a rosy hue that belies the monster she becomes in battle. Yet her eyes remain hard, alert, scanning the chamber until they land squarely on me.

“Jackal,” she drawls, her Terran accent thick, her tone languid in mock civility.

I smile, hiding my disdain. “I see the feast began without me. Shame. It is our victory, after all.” My words are playful, but the edge beneath them is clear.

Her flock stiffens. The Pink courtesans withdraw into the shadows, as if anticipating violence.

“I had hoped to discuss our next engagement,” I say, sighing as I lower myself into a curule seat across from her. “But you seem… otherwise occupied.” I murmur looking around, “Earth and its excesses.”

Cornelia does not rise to the bait.

Instead, she turns, gazing past the room to the lands and wealth sprawled beyond, as if to flaunt all I do not possess. Cast out from my family, a pariah in all but name, I feel the old familiar pang of inadequacy, the way Father always made me feel. I crush the bitter thought before my expression betrays me, but she must have caught it in my eyes, for her lips curl into a knowing smile.

“Earth and its excesses,” she echoes, snapping her fingers. A Pink hurries forward, presenting a chalice half-filled with a Martian vintage from the vineyards of Thessalonica. Her mockery is subtle, elegant. I feign surprise, lifting the cup to my lips but, I cannot help the small pang of sadness that sweeps over me. It tastes of home.

“What is our next engagement?” she asks, tilting her head slightly, curiosity and calculation mingling. “Your intel, I must admit, has been more than helpful against your father,” she pauses, then adds, “and brother.” The word strikes like salt on an open wound. The Reaper, the Golden Son, has taken the worlds by storm. First ever to rise against the line of Silenius and House Lune. True, it is in my father’s name, but whispers of Darrow au Augustus circulate everywhere, Andromedus all but erased from memory. His little family, Virginia and their son Pax, dubbed the Young Lion, fill the HoloNet. They are a constant reminder of my failure in Agea. Roque left with his ships and for that he became the Imperator of the Sword Armada, second only to the Ash Lord. I left with my tail between my legs, my boneriders and a smattering of ships. My wine sours on my tongue; I move to set it down, but no abacus waits for my drink. I grimace. Her smile only deepens.

“The Sovereign demands bays of blood. She wants you to strike before the remnants join the Julii and Valii-Rath. I will, of course, join you with the Lion of Mars and part of the Thorne fleet. Every single soldier is to die. Their heads hanged, their houses consigned to history.” My voice rises, crescendoing without conscious thought.

Cheers erupt around us, a living wave of sound. Pinks move from the periphery and dart between soldiers, refilling pewter mugs and chalices. Some of them spill over laps, even then still graceful, as hands snatch them up mid-fall. Soldiers leap to their feet, pounding mensas, voices rising in a frenzy of lust for glory and blood. The room becomes a storm of movement, shouts and laughter colliding, and above it all rises a single chant, slicing through the chaos:

“The Corvine! The Corvine! The Corvine!”

Chapter Text

Darrow

Aboard the Pax, I sit in conference with the Imperators and Praetors of the combined Alliance Fleets via Holo. The defeat of Sarna, Tanus, and Savag is met with mixed feelings. While some of their closer Martian allies voice outcry, the rest of our alliance regards it with indifference. Their stock is not as valuable as they would claim. Everyone expected victory, but this is the way of war.

My thumb drifts over the hilt of my razor unconsciously as the gathered officers debate the outcome. I sit in anticipation, careful to unveil my plan slowly, lest I alienate any of my allies.

“Part of the Falthe fleet pursues the remaining forces, intending to expand their hold eastward with the help of the Thorne fleet,” Gaius au Hostus rumbles. “They draw closer to our fleet than comfort allows.” Gaius, a brute of a man and Praetor of House Julii, appears bored, but that is his demeanour. “Together, they may pose a challenge given our position.”

Discussion erupts over what to do next, many arguing for a tactical retreat to regroup. I wait.

“Are you so scared of a little raven and her thorns, Gaius?” Apollonius au Valii-Rath taunts. He has surprised me over the course of this war, championing my cause at every turn. His lustrous golden hair, long and coiled, dominates his holo frame. His eyes, like hot coals, burn with hunger for war. I wince.

“I only counsel caution, Rath,” Gaius retorts, an unusual flash of emotion breaking through his stoic mask. Apollonius smiles but says no more.

“I agree with Gaius,” I interject, drawing all eyes to me through the holo. “We want Earth, but I will not waste more of my allies’ lives to sate the Core.” Gaius practically beams at my words. Apollonius’ zealotry seems to humble him in the eyes of others, and some of my allies take a quiet, almost mischievous satisfaction in it, more than I would like.

“If you can gather the remnants, do so, if not join me north,” I finish. Disembodied heads nod in acknowledgment and wink off the display as the meeting closes. I remain on the bridge of the Pax, engrossed in thought.

Orion lumbers toward me just as Sevro enters the bridge, Clown and Pebble in tow. “Fine actor you have become, boy,” Orion says. Even now, as I rise to Imperator of the Augustan Fleet following Adriatus’ death protecting Nero from the Jackal’s Boneriders, she still sees me as the boy who first boarded the bridge of the then Vanguard.

“How’s it going, boyo,” Sevro begins just as I stand to face them all. I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose before answering. “As good as I can hope for.” “Still on for our Howler special?” Sevro asks. I nod and gesture to an enclosed chart room to the side.

Inside we sit and begin to plan.

***

The Jackal

“How long till target?” Cornelia asks one of her Blues, eyes fixed on the display. I do not catch their answer, but she turns back to me, thoughtful. I continue, “As I was saying, the Julii and Valii-Rath will almost certainly retreat, leaving their remnants exposed. They will not wait, not for the Sarna. With our combined forces, we can rout them if we catch them before they cross the northern Tropic and join the Reaper nearer the Arctic.” She nods, weighing the suggestion carefully. “If we do so, we can fall from Atmosphere, using cover from our Railgun installations before reinforcements arrive from the North.”

The Ash Lord has effectively granted the Falthe free rein outside his strongholds. He seems preoccupied with Luna and leaves Atalantia to manage his forces. Few are aware of this. Part of his strategy lies in his name alone: it evokes fear, hesitation, and caution, slowing even the boldest strikes.

“I accept your proposal, Jackal,” she says, her tone making me sound like a supplicant at her throne. It is a gambit, a race against time, but the potential reward is worth it: to weaken the Alliance while minimizing our casualties.

We close in on the remaining Sarna and are surprised to find a few Savag and Tanus stragglers among them. We do not destroy their ships outright; instead, we board and capture them, cutting down their Golds, Grays, and Obsidians.

With our numbers bolstered, we press on, hot on the heels of the Julii and Rath. From my bridge on the Lion of Mars, I study our plan. It is sound. I have never prided myself as an astral commander, yet my intellect surpasses many who do. We hold the slight numerical advantage over the Martians, and our route of escape is easier, our atmosphere friendly. We control the advantage.

We draw close. Through the comms, I hear Obsidians chanting their war songs, building rhythm and menace. Grays secure their armour, while the remaining Blues enter into the sync. The battle is imminent. At the rear, some of Rath’s vassals turn to cover the retreat. Few in number, but still a threat. I do not dwell; Apollonius is wantonly reckless with lives, especially those he deems weak. His lifestyle in Agea is proof enough of that.

The ship’s HoloDisplay flickers, Cornelia’s face appearing. She smiles, predatory and confident. “You were right,” she purrs.

“I always am,” I smirk, feigning pleasure.

“Shall we?”

***

The opening salvo is nothing short of glorious. RipWings sweep forward in disciplined squadrons, harrying the flanks while Storm-class corvettes trade lances of plasma fire with Rath vassal frigates. A destroyer lunges ahead, its broadsides raking a Raven corvette into silence before it, too, is gutted by concentrated torpedo fire. LeechCraft spill from bays on both sides, darting through the chaos like biting insects, some latching onto hulls while others blossom into fire under well-placed flak. The lines waver, bend, and reform, each side probing for weakness, the void alive with flare and recoil.

Then the boarding begins. Obsidian Berserkers thunder through the first breaches, massive and unyielding, their war cries bleeding across the comms. Behind them come the Golds, razors flashing as they carve with ruthless precision, and after them, the Grays: methodical packs flooding corridors, finishing what the Berserkers and Golds began.

The bulk of our forces, still uncommitted, ready themselves for the full assault. Both the Julii and Valii-Rath wheel about to face us, abandoning retreat for the last stand we expected. We hold the advantage, and they are on the back foot. We toy with our prey, savouring every drawn-out moment.

The lines form again, both sides braced for a storm. I shiver with anticipation.

Four short bursts flare from a Julii TorchShip, harmless at this distance. I wait for Cornelia’s signal to unleash the second leg of the battle.

And then it happens.

From my position at the edge of the fray, I see fire rip through the Falthe core, not from our guns, but from the captured ships themselves. For a heartbeat I cannot breathe. Our prizes, the very spoils Cornelia denied me, are tearing into our own. The betrayal is sudden, violent, absolute; it freezes me where I stand.

***

“By Jove,” I whisper, voice raw and hollow.

Mars Ultor, once ours, tears through the Falthe, its torpedoes gutting the Crow’s Eyes. Plasma lances from the Neptune’s’ Beard rake across the Paralos of the Sea, snapping her spine. What was a wall of steel becomes a jagged, burning wound in the centre of our line.

Praetors bellow commands, but the order is gone from their voices. Legates shove destroyers forward to plug the breach, yet corvettes we thought bound to us pivot without warning, vomiting fire into our ranks. Decurions rally their wings to screen the dreadnoughts, but half their squadrons are shredded before they even form up.

Then the enemy surges. The Pandora thunders from the haze, Victra at Gaius’s side, her guns flaying the Claw Maker. The Jewel of Thessalonica drives behind her, Praetor Ignus au Rath at the prow with Apollonius at his shoulder, RipWings and ThunderWings boiling ahead of their charge. The Styx cuts into our flank, torchfire crippling the Black Hand.

The void becomes chaos. Friend and foe blur in the glare of plasma, the groaning of tortured hulls drowning out reason.

Cornelia’s voice seizes the channels. “Close ranks! Hold the Sagitta’s line!”

Her dreadnought anchors, a fortress in the storm, her broadsides hammering in desperate rhythm. Berserkers roar through corridors of crippled vessels, and Grays in armoured ranks claw to hold fractured decks. For a heartbeat, we steady.

The Rose wheels about, trading blows with the Jade Princess. The Claw Maker, limping but alive, drives lances into the Anubis, stalling its pursuit. Venators spear through gaps with reckless precision, their strikes carving out brief moments of order.

On the Lion of Mars, I watch as Cornelia forces fragments of our fleet to realign. Decurions drag squadrons back into formation, Centurions pushing frigates into the gaps. For a moment, I almost believe.

And then the hammer falls.

The Julii and Rath converge as one, their dreadnoughts wheeling in perfect symmetry. The Pandora’s broadside tears the Rose open from keel to spine, fire spilling across the void. The Jewel of Thessalonica cripples the Claw Maker with a single devastating volley, silencing her guns. TorchShips sweep in behind, burning through corvettes and frigates like paper.

Venators cry for reinforcements, but none come. Sergeant-led Grays vanish by the deckload. Berserkers die without making it off their bays, vaporized before boarding craft even launch.

Cornelia holds too long. The Sagitta bleeds fire, plating sloughing from her ribs as the Julii TorchShips circle her like wolves. Still she refuses the retreat, calling her Berserkers and Stained again and again, her voice iron through the comms. Her defiance buys us minutes, no more.

The Sagitta finally erupts, a sunburst ripping through the dark. The shockwave shudders through my hull, and with it the Falthe will to fight.

The centre is gone. Our line breaks.

Around me, destroyers scatter in panic, corvettes wheel wide without orders, frigates vanish into the black. Praetors fall silent, Legates are ghosts. The chain of command disintegrates with the fleet.

The enemy presses the slaughter. The Pandora hunts down crippled corvettes, while the Jewel of Thessalonica drives TorchShips through our splintered rear. The void is a graveyard of fire, every wreck another heartbeat lost.

I give the order. The Lion of Mars surges away from the carnage, shields screaming as we carve through burning debris. A handful of Thorne vessels follow, a limping destroyer, two corvettes barely intact. Behind us, the Falthe are consumed.

What began as triumph ends in ruin.

Chapter Text

Darrow

Our little gambit worked. The Julii and Valii-Rath join me above the North Pole of Earth, Falthe and Thorne ships captured. Curiously, the Lion of Mars was spotted escaping the battle. The Jackal? I file that away into memory as Apollonius sings praises and lauds me: Africanus reborn. While many are jubilant and there is celebration throughout the fleets, I can already see a divide forming within the Martian ranks: the bloodthirsty and the sated. Bloodydamn.

To them, it appears that I turned what would have been a defeat into a victory. Few question how the captured ships were able to fire on the Falthe. Some whisper that it was just like the horses at the Institute. Most are too drunk on my legend; they do not dwell on it too much.

I spent the Sarna, Tanus and Savag, sending them on a suicide mission. They just did not know it then. I knew Cornelia would field a slightly bigger force than I let on, that she would manoeuvre as she did. I practically begged her to attack as she did with the formation and plan I gave. Fitchner, thankfully, did his part too.

I receive a tight beam from Nero while in my stateroom. His face appears on the HoloDisplay, passive and unreadable.

“Darrow,” he says, pausing, “the pride of a father is his son; you do me well.”

“I bear your name and honour: the glory of a child is their father’s,” I intone.

“You have won a great victory. I laud you, my son. At the cost of some of our allies, but a victory all the same. How did you do it? Know that they would pursue the remnants? Race for the Julii and Valii-Rath?” The flurry of questions is surprising from him.

I tense but do not show it. “I have Mustang to thank; her spies were useful as ever. And my bloodlust as well,” I finish with a small smirk. He takes it wholesale, a slight smile forming. He is a ruthless man and sees in me a thirst for violence he has always had but never unleashed. I am his sword in truth: his son in every way but by blood.

“Father, I would call an Iron Rain. A second Lion’s Rain.” I say it and let the words hang in the air. He does not react. This does not surprise me. He knows this is the only course of action.

With a third of the Falthe fleet destroyed and almost half of the Thorne, the 2^nd Societal Fleet is weak. We hold imperium over Earth’s airspace, but we must act soon. The war in the Core hangs in fragile balance. The 1^st, containing almost two-thirds of the Sceptre Armada, guards Luna; the 2^nd is condensed over Africa, Europe, and parts of the Americas; while most Martian fleets and some Rim houses loom over the rest of Earth. The remainder, containing the core of the Augustan forces, remain a bit away, between the orbits of Earth and Mars with Nero and most of Romulus’ Dragon Armada. They occasionally move for Luna, testing the 1^st.

With this victory, my forces are the only ones who can break the deadlock. If the 1st moves to cover Earth after my proposed Rain, Nero and Romulus will move on Luna. So they must all stay put. The 4^th, Classis Venetum, remains over Venus, unable to unite for war due to widespread sabotage by the Sons and the Saud-Carthii tussle.

With all of us occupied, the Votum of Mercury have seen an opportunity and entertain both Lune and Alliance envoys. Their hold on Mercury and their vassals is firm; there is no room for division there.

“And I ask your permission and seek your blessing,” I continue. It is a dangerous dance, this war. Burn too bright and I may risk him thinking I intend to usurp his place. But if I do not show results, I may find myself on the chopping block, as I did more than a year gone. He looks thoughtful, his eyes revealing the fast inner-workings of his brain.

“I grant it freely, my son,” he says solemnly. “Whatever you do, do in my name.” We talk a little more; briefly, our conversation comes to an end.

Before I can move to check on Sevro’s progress, I receive another tight beam, this time from my wife.

“Lo, wife,” I say calmly, though my face betrays my excitement.

“Lo, husband,” she replies; a slow smile parts her lips and infects me. We both chuckle, hers more a giggle. I ache for her in such moments, separated by kilometres of distance. She is my home: not the Pax, not Agea, not even Lykos, as sad as that makes me.

“How is our son?” I ask gently. As if on cue, Pax babbles in the background and the holo expands to show a room in the Citadel in Agea. Mustang returned to Mars once the war moved fully to Earth. She maintains a small force above Mars led by the Dejah Thoris for its defence. She is also overseeing construction of a shipyard on Phobos in preparation for an extended war. Interestingly, Quicksilver was more than happy to join that enterprise.

My son is as radiant as his mother. At five months, he is a precocious lad, already ahead of any Gold child of his age. I call out his name playfully and he looks to me, some cognition in his eyes. He reaches for me and my heart almost breaks. I should be there with him.

When I began this life as a Gold, I never thought I would find love again. I had lost Eo and never believed I would come to love a Gold, no less marry one. My mission was to destroy them and watch their civilisation burn. Now I have a wife and a son born while I was already committed to prosecuting Nero’s war, my war. I started this all at the Gala. I cannot simply leave. I will be hunted by enemies and allies alike. I have led the sons and daughters of Mars so far from our own sphere to just leave them to hang. I have friends now; allies I care about.

Mustang notices my thoughts drifting and asks about my victory and the way forward. I tell her of the Rain I intend and, for a time, we strategize like soldiers. I love that about her: how we fall in and out of our different roles so effortlessly. No hard feelings, no complaints. Just love and support throughout. She really sees me, knows me, understands me, and still loves me.

Unlike my meeting with Nero, I am reluctant to end our conversation, but duty calls. I am surprised we spent more than an hour chatting. It only felt like minutes, seconds even. The holo of her and Pax disappears and I am left in silence. An emptiness grows within me as I already begin to miss them. I long for Mars, for home.

***

The Jackal

I sift through the little footage I managed to find of one of the captured ships. It was a hard task, placing a Green in the Mars Ultor. I watch as the Sarna Golds, Grays, and Obsidians are executed as per Octavia’s orders. Only the crew remain: Greens, Reds, Oranges, Blues. Naval warfare demands such Colours submit to their new masters. It has been our way.

As the ship approaches the battle, Reds and Oranges gather in one of the bays. I switch from one feed to the next. My Green had little time to connect to the ship’s mainframe and only managed to snag every other camera. I cannot follow everything chronologically, but what I see is enough.

A diminutive Red incites his fellows to violence. I listen as he shouts in a Martian accent. All around him, they roar. I continue watching as the fever spreads to the midColours. As we attack the Rath rear-guard, little mobs form and soon subdue our Grays and Golds. Some Obsidians fight, some do not. The rest of the fleet is blind and deaf to this, all thanks to sabotage from the Greens. Cameras all around the ship finally go dark as they begin firing into their neighbouring ships.

“Reaper!” I say fiercely. I should have known this was Darrow’s work. But how? Unlike his taking of the Vanguard, the Pax now, this crew did not have a dashing young Gold whipping them into a frenzy. If this happened in all the ships we captured, he must have planned it from the beginning. Again, how?

Would he really sacrifice Sarna, Tanus, and Savag? Would he gamble on the slight chance the captured crew would mutiny? I know Golds; they would not sacrifice themselves for any man in this way. Not even the Reaper. But…

I huff in annoyance, the holo flickering off. I mull over what I have seen, running a thousand different scenarios in my head. I have a vast spy network in the Martian fleets. Could he have one as well? I built up my network over the years since the Institute. It was hard work but I did. He was too busy at the Academy. Mustang? If she did, there is no way he could relay messages that quickly and execute with such precision.

I have never been one to buy into his myth, as the worlds do. But increasingly I worry I may be blind to something.

Who are you, ‘brother’?

Chapter Text

Atalantia

I pace the length of my sleeping chamber, twisting my House Apollo ring, lost in thought. Cornelia’s defeat has left Terra exposed, exposed to the rebels and to an Iron Rain. I had hoped to protract our space battle until Venus and Mercury were brought to heel, yet soon we may find ourselves defending against the Reaper and his Martian savages.

From her open vivarium Hypatia hisses, sensing my unrest. I have always been called charismatic and even savagely intellectual, yet I have never been esteemed as my sisters are. Aja is a beast, the Sovereign’s attack dog, while Moira’s weapon is her smile, sharpened for political machinations. I am known only for my profligacy and licentiousness.

Before this war I cared nothing for the image I had cultivated, for it served me well. When all eyes lingered on my excesses, no one could see the hidden hand I played. Now I find it harder to navigate this shifting political landscape. Gold has always favoured strength, military accomplishment and ruthless resolve in times of crisis, and I unfortunately fell short. What I had thought a sojourn on the Palatine now proves to have been a grave misstep. Octavia loved me for my spectacle, for the theatre I wove, the perfect veil for her obfuscations, but now I am nothing more than a reminder of why we teeter on the edge of civil war. Bile rises in my throat. That bitch!

A knock, soft and sensual, draws me from my abstraction. I answer. Eros enters: a willowy Pink, draped in colourful silk, his body half-bared in practiced seduction. My cursor, though in truth little more than a valet, is a Rose raised in the Venusian Gardens. He pales beside the rest of my harem, yet he serves well enough as a messenger.

“The Grimmus Praetors are assembled in the war room, Domina,” he murmurs, eyes downcast, voice timid.

I acknowledge him with a flick of my hand and stride from the chamber into the brutalist halls of our citadel in New Sparta. Laconic, severe and hewn to resemble the dwellings of the Peloponnese peninsula, it offers nothing by way of comfort or ornament. Portraits of my ancestors, from Seneca who fell on Earth to Vitalia the Great Witch, peer down at me. They weigh and they judge. At the threshold I pause and compose myself. Time to plan.

The Grimmus war room is grand and foreboding. At its heart stands a circular marble table, every seat filled but one, the apex seat. I glide lasciviously to it and arrange my skirts with care as I sit. As though summoned by my presence, a holo flares to life from the table’s centre, coalescing into the disembodied head of the Ash Lord.

“Atalantia.” My name comes out clipped, the voice sonorous, face austere. I swallow.

***

Darrow

Assembled on the bridge of the Pax, my generals prepare for war. Every fleet and every house that makes up my army is represented by an Imperator, a Praetor, or a Primus. War drums and Obsidian chants blast through the comms of every ship, and I feel them beat in my chest with every step I take toward the gathered Golds. The cacophony rises, reaching a crescendo as I turn and face my allies.

The disparate Golds look up at me, some with anticipation, others with fervour. They are thirsty for this war, begging to be unleashed upon Earth. This is the second Rain in less than a year. Many of them fell with me onto Mars, others fought against me, and the smallest group, from the Rim, watched through the HC. Now we gather here as one, preparing for our assault on Terra and on the Grimmus hordes.

At my signal, a spindly White begins the customary benediction. More move from Gold to Gold, slicing palms with ornamented iron blades, while others press laurels to our brows. “My son, my daughter,” they whisper to each kneeling Gold, “now that you bleed, you shall know no fear, no defeat, only victory.”

Close behind, Chances hum liturgically as they bear the traditional standards of Golden war: a sceptre, a sword, and a scroll crowned with a laurel. “Your cowardice seeps from you. Your rage burns bright. Rise, warrior of Gold, and take with you your Colour’s might.” When the circuit is completed, we smear the blood upon our faces.

“Like our Iron ancestors, we fall upon Earth today,” I begin. “We free her from the unjust rule of the Grimmus. We purge her of the tyranny of Luna. Today we are liberators, and today we are conquerors.” A resounding stomp shakes the bridge. “Children of Mars, rise!” THUD. “Lay waste to their armies!” THUD. “Take their cities, kill their soldiers!” THUD THUD.

I drive them on, inciting violence against their fellow Golds, riling them to bloodlust. By the time I finish, even the most stoic of the Rim Golds stomp their feet, while my most zealous Martians bellow openly, “Reaper! Mars! Reaper! Mars!”

When their shouts subside, I begin the litany of our enemies’ names: Magnus au Grimmus, the Ash Lord; Scipio au Falthe; Isa au Thani; Swati au Dlami; Atalantia au Grimmus. The last I shout with relish. To me she has always been the very embodiment of Gold failure, the exemplar of those who have fallen beyond redemption into corruption.

“Qui sumus?” I roar.
“Sumus Liberi Martis!” they answer.
“Quid cupimus?”
“Libertatem!” THUD THUD. “Igni et sanguine!”

***

My army divides, fleets breaking off to hover over the sections of continents they will fall upon. Of all the Spheres, Earth is the largest, and the scope of this Rain is immense; the logistical intricacies are my greatest challenge yet.

Legio IV Alata, Winged Legion, prepares around me, Golds and Grays and Obsidians alike. While we fall, the bulk of the Martian fleets will engage the 2^nd over Africa and Europe. The rest will splinter into many small engagements across Earth; speed is our advantage. I aim for the Horn on the eastern edge of the continent, where reconnaissance has identified weaknesses in the defence of the coastal cities.

In one of the fitting bays, Cohors Diaboli Rubri waits as Oranges rush to seal them in StarShell armour or HivePods. Rows of Grays and Obsidians, many veterans of past Society wars, raise a cheer as I enter. Only the elite of each warrior race are admitted into this cohort of a thousand men and women.

The cohort is divided into twenty packs, each composed of five Gold knights, fifteen Obsidian slave-knights, and thirty Gray legionnaires, fifty soldiers in all. Each pack is commanded by one of some of my closest Gold allies, the Howlers. Ragnar falls into step beside me as I make my way deeper into the bay. He bows his head, voice low. “Are you well, brother?”

I nod, my eyes scanning the assembled packs until they settle on a familiar face: Screw. Only five of the twenty packs are present, and of the original Howlers, only Screwface is here. Sevro and the others are engaged elsewhere, burdened with work too important to leave. A small smile touches my lips. As the Oranges fit me into my StarShell, Screw’s voice crackles over the comms.

“Rule one?” he asks jovially.
“Never bow!” Thraxa and two others, former Arcosian Knights of Elysium, roar back. The litany carries on, one rule after another, until I cut them short.

“Howlers!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Don’t die.”

The Shell seals shut.

Chapter Text

Atalantia

“We will try and divert them to the Sahara and the Kalahari,” my father instructs. “Deserts are as good a dying ground as any.” It is meant as a joke, but no one laughs; his unchanged tone prevents it. We have been at this for over an hour, planning and preparing. We try as hard as we can to devise a strategy, but what use is a plan when the Reaper of Mars is involved?

I employed Yellows, Violets and Pinks to analyse his behaviour after he defeated the Bellona over Mars. I made them watch hours of HC footage in an attempt to combine their skills into a profile. They all failed. Every spy I sent is either dead or useless. Something about the man gnaws at me. He is an enigma that I, and even Octavia, cannot fathom much less fight.

Still, we plan as best we can, analysing every troop movement and every past battle. We are interrupted by a loud bang as the door is flung open. A Praetorian Gold rushes in, drops to a knee, and blurts, voice strained, “The Martian rebels have begun to move into formation!”

Panic grips the room while the Praetors argue. Reports from our spies - Octavia’s, Adrius’s, and mine - had confirmed that the Reaper did not intend to fall for at least another week. He was waiting for his broodmare, Virginia. Logs from Agea showed an Augustus Whisper-class corvette headed straight for Earth at top speed. Was this another of his little ploys? Damn that weasel of a man. At every turn he fights tooth and nail, befogs any intelligence we try to gather, and mystifies each of his battle plans. Goryhell!

My father calls the meeting back to order and quickly begins to adjust the plan. A secondary holo blooms beneath his head, showing a map of Earth. The Reaper’s forces glow red, ours glow gold. We are matched in ships, but his crews are far more experienced and more agile. Martians are bred for war; even their Reds and Oranges are vicious when cornered. Worse still, the lowColours show an unfounded, irrational even, loyalty to Darrow. We only hold the advantage on the ground, where we outnumber them 3 to 1.

“Seneca, Pilus, Mavia, hold the southeast and push them west,” my father barks. He issues commands, and the gathered officers relay them in real time. On the holo, warships shift to match his orders, while troop markers, tiny golden dots, crawl across the surface like sand in a storm. I watch closely, breaking down and analysing every facet of my father’s defensive plan.

“Cynane, Demetrios, make your stand along the Niger and push them north into the Sahara. Atalantia,” he says, his eyes flicking to mine, a small grunt escaping him before he continues, “be the hammer to their anvil. Move south from New Sparta and crush them. Arsinoe will join you from Memphis in the east.”

On and on he parcels out the troops. He directs our European forces, who join via holo, and the few in the Americas on how to engage. Scipio au Falthe appears on the feed and is ordered to recall his ground forces from across Asia. He is not pleased, but he complies all the same. When the Ash Lord commands, you obey.

I am about to interject when the room is racked by a wave. The holo shudders and freezes, static crackling across the screens. Then the first of the bombs fall. Shock grips me, but I force it back and rush to the window, where I am met by a scene of horror. The sky is alight with nuclear warheads, streaking toward the city. Our anti-missile guns beyond the city’s shields struggle to intercept them, many failing. Why?

Panic, the likes of which I have never felt, rises from the pit of my stomach and spreads outward. It crystallizes into fear. I grip the silk of my skirts as my eyes dart across the sky, skittish, as if I have never truly witnessed orbital bombardment. Instinctively, I begin to murmur the recitation Octavia taught Anastasia, Kalindora, and me as girls: “Do not let fear touch you. Fear is the torrent.”

I turn from the window. “The raging river. To fight it is to break and drown.” I shout to the officers to move to their troops. Men and women dart from the room, seeking transports to their ships, to their commands.

“But to stand astride it is to see it,” I intone as I rush to a fitting room, Praetorians flanking me. “Feel it,” I continue, surrounded by Oranges who work swiftly to fit me into a StarShell. I dash across the citadel toward my command room.

“And use its course for your own whims,” I finish, now protected in my shell, just short of the room, as the shield protecting New Sparta collapses. Despite myself, I scream. The horizon erupts.

The first orbital strikes hit with brutal precision. Military installations and barracks along the city’s periphery erupt in fire and smoke. Explosions tear through the ground, sending concrete and steel into the air. Ten thousand tons of ordinance disintegrate under the heat and force. The first four legions, twenty-five thousand men each, are gone before anyone can react. Barracks crumble, tanks are thrown like toys, and StarShells erupt in molten showers.

Smoke and debris swirl around the citadel, set apart from the main city. I press against the StarShell’s controls, stunned, my vision swimming with heat and light. Instinct drives me to reach the comms. My voice cracks as I attempt to warn the remaining legions moving toward their peripheral barracks.

“Stop! Do not proceed to the barracks!” I roar, urgency overriding protocol.

Through my optics, I can see them, columns of soldiers and armoured transports advancing, unaware. A second wave of bombs slams down with deafening force. Barracks, depots, and training grounds disintegrate under precision fire. Legions five through ten vanish in a haze of molten stone and fire. Nothing remains but blackened craters and the echo of explosions.

The fallout spreads outward. Smoke rolls over the city, covering the Mediterranean sun. The sky goes midnight black. Shockwaves ripple across the ground, knocking my StarShell against a citadel wall. Heat scorches the edges of my visor. I clutch the controls, trying to orient myself. My mind reels at the scale. Two hundred and fifty thousand soldiers, obliterated before my eyes.

Even the peripheral defences fail to withstand the carnage. Reinforced bunkers collapse. Secondary anti-orbital batteries explode from the shock. The city quakes, though the core remains mostly intact. Civilians, though spared the initial focus of the strike, are not safe from the fallout. The air tastes of fire and metal.

I stare at the ruined map of New Sparta below, the truth settling like ice in my chest. The Reaper has destroyed my personal army before it even had a chance to deploy. The citadel holds, barely, but the strategic backbone of our defences is gone. My hands shake as I consider the few remaining units. Survival will depend on improvisation, on speed, not on any plan we could have made.

I know him. I know he will land here. And as if to prove it, StarShells tear through the atmosphere, bright specks of metallic fury. The few railguns that still function fire blindly, slamming into nothing. I shudder, indifferent to the lives lost. Victory is all that matters now. I hope Arsinoe is moving as fast as he can.

New Sparta’s shields are isolated from the rest of the North African cities. If they failed, the betrayal is from within. Cold sweat drips down my spine. Every shadow makes me flinch. Dust motes swirl in the air, harmless but threatening, as though the Reaper himself might materialise.

I rush through the citadel toward the command bunker. I had never imagined needing to be here. A handful of Greens and Yellows, and a few scattered Golds, are all that remain. I bark at them to send a tightbeam to my father. Most stare at my shell, stunned and confused. Frustration explodes. I strike a Green so hard his head separates from his torso at the base of the neck and goes flying. The body collapses, lifeless. The shock jolts everyone into motion.

“Sceptre command, this is Black Cobra. New Sparta hit.” My voice trembles with urgency, betraying my fear. I slam the controls, but static is all that answers. I leave the Greens to scramble and move to an alcove, trying to think. What can I do? How can I salvage this? My mind runs dry.

“Black Cobra, this is Sceptre command. Standby for Flint King.” Relief floods through me, sudden and sharp. Maybe, just maybe, we still have a chance.

***

Darrow

The whine of the magnetic charge builds in my ears, a high keening that vibrates through my teeth and bone. I am a Gold now, encased in the rigid armour of my StarShell, yet my body remembers the rhythm of being Red. I remember the first Rain, and brace for the second that comes now. I feel the pulse of the tube, the anticipation; my stomach rising into my throat, bile and adrenaline riding together. My fingers tighten around the controls, waiting for ejection, for velocity to claim me.

The moment comes and I am flung into the void. Silence greets me first, absolute and unbroken, filled with the gentle thrum of my heartbeat and the rigid containment of my armour. The Earth grows beneath me, a sphere of jagged continents and blue oceans caught in the light of a rising sun.

Memories rise unbidden. Lykos. My father’s hand on my shoulder as we walked the winding streets of the mines, learning to read seams and shifts in rock, learning how the world beneath us could kill or sustain. His voice guiding, correcting and praising even the smallest skill honed. Then Pax. My son, golden-eyed, reckless and small, staring at me with trust and curiosity. Deanna, his grandmother, I wonder if he will ever know her. Mustang. My wife. I hope I survive this Rain to see her face again, to hold her, to feel the quiet certainty of home that this storm will never provide.

Space pulls me back to the present. A faint vibration in my armour tells me we are approaching mesosphere breach, the shielded cities below coming into view. New Sparta lies to the north, a warning in fire. Mushroom clouds bloom over its skyline, shield flickering like a dying star. Nuclear warheads streak across the atmosphere in silent arcs, detonating on military targets. Railguns flare from below, claiming some who fall too close, vaporizing them before they touch ground. The shockwave and fallout ripple across the continent, a brutal reminder that the Reaper’s cruelty has no hesitation.

To the east, the Horn is cradled by the glittering Red Sea on its upper limb and the Indian Ocean on the Swahili coast. My eyes take it in: the city of Gedi, perched where ancient sultanates once thrived, streets layered with centuries of history. The knowledge that I am about to plunge into that tangle of steel and stone presses against me, and for a moment I am weightless in thought and body. The silence begins to fracture as we enter orbit. Engines hum, gravBoots adjust, and the distant roar of the Pax reaches me as a muted pulse.

RipWings pour from orbiting vessels, climbing and diving, exchanging fire with each other while strafing our descent. The engines scream, tracer fire arcs through the sky, and the chemical tang of burning metal seems to press against my visor. From the surface, corvettes rise in plumes of dust and flame, gun ports belching molten projectiles at us. Some are cut down by orbital batteries; others crash in clouds of fire, scattering debris into the ocean. Chaos blooms in layers, relentless and consuming.

Ragnar is near, steady as ever, his presence a tether against the vertigo of space and memory. Behind us, my pack moves as a single organism, StarShells in tight formation, HivePods glinting, fifty strong; five Golds, fifteen Obsidians, thirty Grays. Five other packs fall around, mirrored and echoing our descent toward the Horn, toward Gedi.

The comms scream with the torn voices of men and women as they die, some cut off mid-word, leaving their last sounds ragged and broken in the air.

I gag and hold down the sick threatening to rise up my throat and burst out of my mouth. Panic follows close behind, all-consuming, like a supernova. Oddly, my thoughts drift to Mustang’s night-time reading, The Path to the Vale.

“The First Understanding,” she would begin, a knowing, mocking smile on her face, then recite:

‘The Path to the Vale is inscrutable, eternal, and perfect.
It cannot be seen with the eye,
nor felt underfoot.
It winds as it wills.
It ends where it must.
It climbs when it does.
It falls when it should.’

“Your ancestors were wise, unlike you,” she would finish with a giggle. The words linger in my mind like a small, fragile talisman, barely shielding me from the reality around me.

The city draws closer, the air below alive with smoke and fire. My visor reflects the green and gold of protective shield, flickering and impermanent. The smell of ozone and scorched earth rises, a metallic tang that clings to my senses. I focus, letting muscle memory take over, adjusting thrusters, reading currents in the atmosphere, guiding us through a storm of fire and steel. This is an Iron Rain.

I am not Red anymore, but Gold. Still, every heartbeat carries the lessons of Lykos, the courage of my father, the love of my mother. Another part of me remembers home, Mustang and the hope of Pax. Survival is not guaranteed, but I will reach the city, land in the chaos, and face what awaits with every fibre of myself intact, every thought sharpened by the silence that space gave me before the storm returned.

***

I pop the top of my StarShell and inhale the crisp air. We land fifty kilometres east of Gedi: the Ash Lord expects me in New Sparta. After all, it is their ancestral seat and the one city where my act of sabotage has been openly revealed. But I will not be there. Like a leopard in high grass, I stalk my prey and wait. This is my arena now, and I make the rules.

Most of the Cohors Diaboli Rubri make landfall. Screw, Thraxa, Ariadne, and Prius take count and ready the troops for movement. Ragnar, in his larger StarShell, follows me to the cusp of a hill, looking down at the city and my men surging forward to claim it. From a distance, I see the Augustus lion, the sword and crown of Raa vassals, the Julii sunburst and more. Larger than all of them stands a red, howling wolf overlaid with a curved slingBlade, my standard. It towers, proud, rallying the troops around it.

I turn away and begin my race north. Though I have crippled their command, I know Grimmus ground forces will recover quickly. I intend to wait for their troops to gather around New Sparta hoping to surround me. For them, it will be symbolic. The survival of New Sparta, the fall of the Reaper in the Grimmus capital, the destruction of the Martian armies without their alpha wolf. Atalantia is probably revelling in that at this very moment, erotophonophilic fuck!

They still do not understand me or my motivations. They think I fight for glory, for fame, for recognition. That I rise as Gold, the scion of a dying, oath-breaking house turned Martian prince. How wrong they are. I can bide my time. I can be patient. I have learned the restraint of aureate. I will eat my fish but leave some flesh on its bones.

As we make angled bursts with our gravBoots, descending to avoid aerial and ground fire on our hike north, I think of Sevro. I hope he is safe, that his mission succeeded. New Sparta has fallen, but that was only one step in this intricate war dance with the Ash Lord. Is he up there, hidden among the fleet? Is he here on Earth? Aboard the Annihilo, safe in Luna’s airspace? I cannot dwell on that. I must keep moving.

Ragnar lopes ahead of me, scouting for threats and neutralizing them before they reach us. I thank the Old Man for my brother. Like Sevro, like Mustang, like the Telamanuses, he has been a grounding force. One of the few among billions who knows the truth, my truth. I feel safe near him. I feel seen.

We come across our first enemy positions, and then the killing begins.

Chapter Text

Darrow

Three hours, 1,700 kilometres and four engagements later, we stand at the base of the Abyssinian Highlands. Of the two hundred and fifty I set out with, only twenty have fallen. The Winged Legion fans out across a fifty-kilometre radius, broken into small mobile packs like mine. Thirty-five thousand men drive north, stirring dust storms that roll for leagues and blur the horizon.

From the high ground the snow-capped peaks cut white against the sky. The cold line of them sits like a promise beyond the heat and grit, a hard, indifferent beauty above our fevered march.

Our first clash came in the Great Rift Valley, four hundred kilometres in. They died before they knew we were on them. The second and third groups met the same fate. The fourth, not an hour past, numbered five hundred. I took twenty lives and lost three men. The Ash Lord’s forces outnumbered us three to one, but orbital bombardment has thinned their ranks. We judge the balance closer to two to one now. The odds are still severe, but their command is staggered and slow.

Reports arrive that Society forces not already fighting are pushing north to New Sparta. The men who fell near the city carried only my wolf and curved slingBlade standard, no other banners. Let the Ash Lord stare at that mark while his real trouble closes in.

Across the continent my armies seize cities; I skirt these engagements. From a distance I watch whole neighbourhoods collapse into smoke and flame. Armoured men and tanks thread the streets like angry veins. Above, my fleets pummel the 2^nd. I order my naval commanders to capture where they can. There is no rush. This war will be long. Down here we can hold and wait.

“Grain King, this is Julii Command,” Victra says over the comms. She uses my new call-sign for this campaign.

“Lady Jade, this is Grain King,” I answer.

“Falthe hostiles are racing across Asia. They gather in Arabia. Be fifty-one leagues north by their first crossing or you will be cut off. Prime?”

“Acknowledged. Moving soon. Battery pack drops?” I ask. The coordinates bloom on my StarShell HoloDisplay.

“Be safe, darling. And find my goblin,” she says on a private channel.

We resupply along the Nile just short of Khartoum, water gleaming like a blade through sand. Men free of StarShells, drink from the river, and wash grit from their mouths. Dust clouds trail us as we move again. By Aswan, four hours since landfall, more forces join our line. Cohorts of Legio IV Alata, the Winged Legion, arrive in strength. Soon the 15^th, the Minotaur’s own, the 22^nd, the Armoured Lions, the Cape Cadre Phalanx, and the Iron Phalanx from the Rim form up to link with us. These reinforcements are drawn from all across our theatre of war.

Nearly two hundred thousand men now march under my shadow. Even as the sun begins to set, the roar of distant guns never stops. From the ridge I see cities fighting on, each a pocket of furious light. By now the Ash Lord must know where I am.

***

Cassius

I rest a hand upon my knee, watching the great host below. My white Morning Knight cloak flutters in the wind behind me. I am lost. Since that day I left Darrow in the mud I have been lost. My life has not felt my own. Every choice I have made has been born of rage, or of familial obligation, or at my Sovereign’s command. I am an Olympic, a hero of the Society, yet I feel lost.

I think back to that day in Agea at Darrow’s Triumph, after my family’s utter ruin. I remember descending from the stealth ship, a god of light and fury, Protean Knight at my side. I was so full of hate, so full of wroth. I remember turning my razor on men, women, and children, even as the Howlers, flanked by a limping handless Lorn, dragged Darrow and the ArchGovernor to safety. Lilath’s blood was still slick on Lorn’s bare hands. High above, Roque’s mutiny unravelled; some Praetors too loyal to the Reaper resisted, others shot them down as they fled toward the Augustus fleet.

The Lionguard were swift to arrive, the Knights of Elysium too ready to defend. Had they been warned? Only Roque, the Jackal, and his boneriders knew what was to come, so how were they so prepared? It stings to remember the loyalty and love that rallied around Darrow. Lorn, distraught, tried to reach him even at the expense of his grandchildren’s lives. He called for the Howlers to guard the Reaper. Augustus looked to Darrow for salvation, seemingly relieved to be cocooned beside him as they fled to the Citadel. The Julii, ruthlessly disowning Antonia as Victra cradled her mother in one arm and held out a hand protectively to Darrow. And Mustang, she was not there that day, but, I remember how she looked at him just before our duel at the Gala. Such love, such devotion, even if it was just in a fleeting gaze. I glance down at the crushed protein pack in my hand and sigh.

The plan was a disaster that dragged the Rim into war, open rebellion ignited by Thesalia au Raa’s death. The nine-year-old girl became the Persephone of the Rim. Her grandfather could not protect her from Antonia, spirited away along with Nero and Darrow. “The Young Dragon,” they name her now, posthumously. In the face of death, she did not beg or cry, but stood unflinching like a true Gold. It is said Rim soldiers watch the holo of her dying before battle, and that it stirs a fervour the benedictions of the Whites cannot match. We left Praetorians, Gray and Obsidian, to cover our retreat as the plan failed. Not ours; the Jackal’s and the Sovereign’s. I want no part of that stain, but the histories will chain me to it all the same.

“Why so glum, my goodman?” a voice asks from my side, bright and intrusive. I did not hear him approach, so lost in reverie. Arsinoe au Antigonos is more beautiful than handsome. His long, lustrous hair, golden as wheat ready for harvest, billows loosely in the wind. His eyes are like ichor, his mouth set in a faint, petulant upturn, though he is far from petulant in truth. Kind-hearted, he seems almost unaware of his own beauty. He is well into his forties but looks no older than twenty-five. He is tall, a finger’s breadth taller than me and a little leaner.

He leads a huge contingent of Grimmus men, four hundred thousand strong, that were garrisoned in Memphis and the surrounding cities to the east, where Egypt stood in the days of old Earth. We push west, having abandoned Memphis for New Sparta. The Ash Lord himself ordered haste; his darling Atalantia needs men. He may not show it, but he can be a sentimental sod at times.

I smile tightly, then stand and walk down toward the army. He falls into step at my side, silent except for his eyes, which scan the gathered host. I like the man, though he follows me like a lost puppy, claiming he has had no civilised company for a long while. I sneer at the thought. Here on Earth anything Lunese is lauded; many are desperate to mimic the customs of Hyperion. I have been resident on Luna for only three years, but that seems enough for him. Apart from his odd obsession with the palatine and his general obliviousness, he is good company and an excellent fighter, better than most I faced in Luna’s duelling circuits.

“How was it, being brother turned sworn enemy to the Reaper?” he asks, eager. He must have watched countless holo experiences from my year at the Institute. I do not answer and keep walking. “Oh, sorry, I overstep.” He adds quickly, finally catching a hint. “It’s just that he is strange for a Gold. Charismatic. Like those they called Pentecostals long ago. At the same time, he is cultured, possessing the virtues we aureate aspire to.”

“If you keep talking like that I may think you want to bed him, Arsinoe,” a new voice interjects from his other side. It is Bria au Severus, the Cloud Knight. She does not wear her gray cloak of office or ostentatious armour, preferring unassuming PulseArmour that blends with the rest of the army. She is tall and in her sixties. A contemporary of Aja, she does not flaunt her skill and her name does not carry the same weight, but she is deadly in her own fashion. Not like the fury, but close.

We were sent to Earth days ago to prepare for the Reaper. We thought we would have time; whether days or weeks have passed I do not care. I am ready to face him. Arsinoe laughs nervously, his voice taking on a strained edge as he attempts to dissuade any notion of loyalty to the Reaper. I actually roll my eyes. We continue walking, Arsinoe offering small talk that falls away as we near my StarShell.

“Want to get moving already?” Bria asks flatly. She is normally laid back and has not questioned my lead, but she has repeatedly cautioned against pushing too hard. I stiffen at her tone and Arsinoe backs to the side. I turn to Bria and arrest my irritation.

“The Ash Lord would like his daughter alive and in one piece, Cloud,” I begin. “Reports say a force bearing his standard made landfall south of New Sparta and are fighting their way to the citadel.” I do not need to say who ‘he’ is. “If we rush, we can smash them along the city walls, kill the man, and end this gorydamn war.” My voice rises without my permission; by the end I am almost shouting. I glance around, embarrassed, and then school my face to stillness.

“That is well and good, Cassius,” she says gently, using my name and not my title, “but you push these men so hard they may not be fit to fight when we arrive. And we will arrive; it is only three hundred kilometres.”

I huff in annoyance but yield. “Are you sure you are prime?” she asks, sudden empathy softening her tone. It grates, but I force a smile and answer, “Prime, Bria. I just do not want what happened on Mars...to Mars,happen here.” She smiles softly, her eyes brimming with a kindness that makes me think she understands how I feel. I am tempted to believe it, but I do not. “Two more hours, then we move,” I finish.

“Arsinoe,” I call out to the man.

“Yes, sir.”

“Make sure the men have taken their anti-rads. We move soon.”

I turn, intent on finding a replacement for my ruined protein pack, when a sound cuts through the night. At first, I think it is only the wind. Then it comes again, longer this time, and from the far side of the camp.

Howling.

My stomach knots.

“Shit.”

“Grimmus! To arms!” I bellow, scampering into my StarShell, but the camp is already in bedlam.

Chapter Text

Darrow

My men howl, already falling upon the sizeable host. Our scouts estimated four hundred thousand, almost double our number, but they had pushed hard for New Sparta and were tired. Few were close to their StarShells or armour and fewer still in them. Even as I descend on gravBoots into their midst, I imagine their shock. Clown and Pebble have turned their comms into a maze of static and lies. They are not blind, but they are very misinformed. The Grimmus rely too heavily on their rigid chains of command, on satellite machines instead of men, and tonight it costs them.

The slaughter is immediate. Obsidians roar, their PulseAxes carving glowing arcs through enemy ranks, cutting suits in half as if they were parchment. PulseSpears thrust, hissing with concentrated energy, punching holes through chest plates and helmets alike. Grays pour disciplined volleys from plasma rifles, acid-green bursts ripping through unarmoured flesh, while the whine of scorchers fills the air, followed by oily smoke and the stink of charred bodies. Above it all, Golds clash. Razors sing, slashing and snapping into whips, each duel exploding in a spray of sparks and blood as gravBoots slam into the ground with bone-shattering force.

Ragnar and his cabal hunt the enemy’s Peerless like predators. They move with a savage grace, like lions in a pride, like wolves in a pack, each one anticipating the other’s strike. Their ForcePikes gleam with white-hot energy, punching clean through StarShells, skewering Golds who moments before thought themselves gods of war. Each kill is clinical, efficient, as if they were born for this singular purpose. I see Ragnar split an enemy Knight in two with a twist of his weapon, the halves tumbling into the dirt still smoking. Even among monsters, he is a titan.

The Minotaur fights close to me, clad in a customised StarShell bristling with horns atop his helm, a nightmare given flesh and metal. He looks manic, his laughter booming through the din, a guttural sound that rattles bone. He cleaves through men with unhinged joy, StarShell PulseFists obliterating, his weapon smashing foes into heaps of twisted armour. Around him, the enemy buckle, their courage splintering under the sheer terror of his charge. I am glad of such an ally, but I feel a slight tinge of envy in my chest. His destruction is raw, primal, and in its madness there is a terrible freedom I will never claim.

The Grimmus attempt to rally, but their cohesion dissolves under our assault. GravBoots scream as we crash into their formations, tearing gaps wide for plasma fire to rake through. My Knights tighten their cordon, razors flashing as they intercept challengers before they can close on me. For a brief instant, their officers find their voices. Orders barked through the racket crackle above the chaos, driving companies to form staggered firing lines. Plasma bursts streak toward us in ragged arcs, searing through the dust. A few of my men fall, armour melting, but the lines collapse as quickly as they form. Obsidians crash into them like a tide against driftwood, scattering the survivors with sweeping arcs of PulseAxes. Their resistance feels desperate, the strikes of drowning men clawing for air.

Still, desperation breeds ferocity. One Gold captain in a dented StarShell hurls himself at me, razor snapping with furious speed. His skill is not lacking, and for several heartbeats our blades spark in the dust and smoke, his blows hammering against my guard. But he is sloppy, driven by fear more than form. I feign a stumble, then whip my blade across his helm. His headless body twitches, collapses, and is trampled beneath the stampede of his retreating soldiers. The brief stand dies with him.

I fall upon a cluster of Grays attempting to set up a heavy QR-13, their dark rifles glowing with the charge of fresh globes. They are unarmoured, only scarab skin and helmets, thin fabric against the weight of a Gold’s fury. I cut through the first man with a downward stroke, my razor parting him from shoulder to hip, the heat sealing flesh even as his insides spill steaming onto the dirt. Another screams and fires point-blank, the plasma burst whining against my shield in a shower of sparks. I answer with a slash that severs his arms at the elbows, his weapon clattering as he collapses to his knees, shrieking until I drive my blade through his throat.

The others panic, trying to flee, tripping over the smoking corpses of their comrades. I follow, merciless. One I split through the spine, the blade snapping out into a whip to coil round his torso before I yank him back in two twitching halves. Another I impale through the gut, lifting him clear off the ground and shaking him free like refuse. Blood spatters across my helm, across my armour, hissing as it cooks. Their volley never fires; their emplacement never completed. Only silence and ruin remain where they stood.

I come upon another of the few remaining rallying points, ready to break them. Then a man gives me pause. Cassius. My breath catches in my throat as I see him shouting orders behind a line of Grays and Obsidians. It really is him. His StarShell is without its helm, blood running from his temples, and still he is beautiful. Oh brother, why did you come to this sphere?

I try to hold back my men, but it would mean death, and in truth it is futile to stop them now. Still, I halt, and my Golds halt with me. The chaos of battle surges around us as I pop my helm free: screaming and shouting, the roar of guns, the stench of charred flesh. It is overwhelming, yet my focus is on him. For me the world narrows, the noise fading into a dull roar as though I stand in still water while the tide thrashes all around. He looks panicked, struggling to plug the holes in his battered defense, razor slashing and stabbing any who break through. I want to call out, but my throat is dry, my mouth failing to form the words.

Then his gaze finds my coterie, and I freeze. He must have noticed the lull in our advance. We lock eyes, and more than four years of memories strike through me like lightning. I feel something between us, though I cannot name it. My hand moves instinctively, half raised in penitence, before I snatch it back to my side. For a heartbeat, his eyes soften, then harden again into stone. Around us the slaughter rages on, but between us there is a stillness, fragile and absolute, as if the world itself holds its breath. I lose him once more. But I never had him in the first place.

A pang of sadness cuts through me as another Gold in a StarShell, bearing the mark of the Cloud Knight, drags him back. Cassius resists, his eyes never leaving mine until he is forced to turn and flee. And as he vanishes into the chaos, it breaks my heart.

Then comes the collapse. At first a trickle, then a flood, they break west in a disorganised retreat toward the safety of New Sparta. Standards fall and are trampled into the dirt, once-proud banners abandoned in the crush. We drive them mercilessly, cutting down the slow, scattering the bold. Four hundred thousand strong they came. Already they flee, leaving only blood, ash, and broken armour in their wake.

***

Cassius

A few leagues short of New Sparta, our small party comes to a halt. We look haggard. Our hours-long retreat, if it can even be called a retreat, has broken us. My band is only made up of Golds now. Darrow ran us right into a bog of nuclear fallout. We lost the Grays first, then the Obsidians. It began with blood in their phlegm, then vomiting and fever. Within hours some went mad, DNA unravelled, seizures and delirium tearing them apart. Their skin blistered in the moonlight, hair came away in clumps, and late into the night their organs failed. They decayed before our eyes, bodies collapsing as if unmade from within.

Bria hands me a flask of water. I snatch it and drink greedily, letting some spill down my face. She grunts but says nothing. Her eyes are red with strain. We are Golds, not gods, and she looks like she wants to speak but cannot find the words. I share the same silence.

The ambush came out of nowhere. We had not seen any sizeable troops for kilometres. Where did they come from? Darrow and his men were vicious. The Minotaur, Apollonius, himself was there, raging like a bull let loose, his StarShell crowned with horns that caught the last rays of the sun, gleaming gold for a heartbeat before sinking into shadow. A beast clothed in iron. The most skilled of the Martian host seemed gathered there, masters of the battlefield led by their god of war. I shiver, though the night is warm.

Darrow is no longer a man. His skill has grown monstrously since the Lion’s Rain. He must have trained with Lorn every waking hour not spent warmongering. His planning was masterful, his execution meticulous. He set his stage like a Violet playwright: first the howls, echoing from all sides until fear crept in; then the ScatterFlashes, frying optic nerves, blinding all who looked; then sonic detonators, shrieking at frequencies that split skulls with pain. From that moment we were finished.

Many men could not reach their StarShells. They died first. We tried to mount a defence, but it was futile. He had us by the balls. His formation shattered any attempt to rally. Some wore demon helms that bled terror into the green recruits. Packs of Obsidians moved as one, hunting Peerless Scarred with ForcePikes and Aegis enlarged beyond reckoning. Even Lurchers could not match them, not even Olympics.

Now I see Darrow as he truly is: a warlord with a thirst for blood the worlds have not seen since the Conquering. He has changed war for the worse. New Sparta was a lure. He means to smash us against the very walls I thought to use against him. Slag him. Slag all of this. Men that have served long than I have been alive were cut to ribbons before my eyes by the Reaper of Mars. A boy still, like me, but one whose skill beggars belief.

“Such mastery of war,” Bria croaks. She looks as shocked as I feel. “In my sixty years,” she whispers, voice breaking, “never have I seen it. Not when Venus almost bled into civil war, not in the Rim’s first rebellion, not even after Rhea. Never a man like that.”

The silence between us is heavy, broken only by shallow breaths and the quite whistle of the wind. We are numb, trying to prepare for what lies ahead and forget what lies behind.

Darrow, Darrow, Darrow.

Would it have mattered if I forgave you for Julian? If I had been less blind to the realities of the Society? What it meant to be Peerless? Or would you still have become this?

I wonder, Reaper.

Chapter Text

Atalantia

“Hold!” I shout, and the razor answers. I toggle the hilt and the blade stiffens to a metre of humming polyene fibre. Stab. With a flick of my thumb the blade loosens into a whip twice its length, lashing into a serried sweep, a living lattice of fluid blade that catches incoming thrusts and severs shafts. A PulseSpear snaps against it and unwinds, its tip sheared clean; a ForcePike bites uselessly and then falls apart. The weapon is monstrously versatile, and I use every mode it offers: stiff to pierce PulseArmour and slit open recoil plates where the joints betray weakness, supple to entangle and whip foes from their feet.

We have been at it for hours and no one has yet seen the Reaper. I expected a singular presence, a figure to mark the tide of battle, and I find none. Disappointing. We have fought on the streets and quays of New Sparta through the night into the pale rise of dawn. There was a lull in the wee hours, but the enemy took heart before light. I am hollow with exhaustion. Reinforcements from the south, those who were to come up from along the Niger as the anvil to my hammer, arrived just in time and broke the enemy’s chance to mass after landfall. They resorted to highly mobile strike groups, guerrilla fighters in truth, that have proven to be a thorn in my side. They have engaged us at close quarters, forcing us to fight in the narrow streets and stripping us of our numerical advantage. Are they stalling us, or do they mean to wear us down?  

“They are falling back,” a lanky Gold reports with a salute. For a moment a fierce urge to press a final, decisive blow rises in me; then reason takes hold. We do not advance. We secure what we hold, most of the city now. Men haul wrecked tanks and drag blocks of concrete into place, stacking them to form crude bulwarks. We line the western edge of the city, between the docks and the citadel, and convert ruined metal and masonry into barricades and choke-points. Despite my weariness I walk around, inspecting the work, making terse comments, offering orders that are more for the men than for the work. I am repulsed by war, at least by the parts where I must dirty my hands. An officer approaches, flanked by two Praetorians.

“The troops led by Arsinoe au Antigonos encountered a host from the south-east,” she reports. “They ambushed them east of New Sparta. Survivors are trickling back in small bands. The Cloud and the Morning Knight accompanied them.” She finishes abruptly with a bow and little else. This is bad news. I was relying on those men to finish off this pestilence I now fight. The Bellona on Terra though—he is an attractive man, and that shadow of sadness he has worn since Mars only deepens the pull. I file that away for later. Are there any more troops heading my way?

***

My quarters are modest. A sleeping chamber, a compact bathroom and a small sitting room, nothing grand, nothing to mark me beyond the simple comforts I allow myself. I would move back to the citadel but I want to be near the troops; they respect proximity. I recline on a récamier, wrapped in a sheer silk kimono, and sip a glass of vintage port. It is only afternoon but I send a brief hail on my datapad for a Pink to ease my aches and perhaps to soothe other tensions; field life has stripped the pleasures thin. Instead, the doors open and a Brown steps in.

“You have guests, Domina,” he says demurely, voice low, eyes briefly flicking over the corridor behind him.

I rise, smooth the silk at my hip and walk into the sitting room. Two figures stand in the doorway: Cassius au Bellona and Bria au Severus. They look worse for wear. Bria’s face is drawn, her hair loose, the strain marked at the rims of her eyes. Cassius bears the pallor and the thinning hair of someone touched by radiation. He still moves with a Bellona’s carriage, though the sickness has nicked him at the edges. I motion for them to sit as the Brown returns with two more glasses, fills them from my decanter and sets one before Bria and another before Cassius. He takes his without ceremony and drinks with a hungry, careless relish that betrays his youth.

“Atalantia,” Bria says, voice steady despite the exhaustion. “It has been too long.” Her wine still remains untouched.

Cassius nods to me, his gaze methodical as it takes in the room, the men clustered outside, the lamps guttering, before going back to his wine

“How was...” I begin.

“We were ambushed by the Reaper on the way here,” Cassius interjects gruffly. His voice is rough with bitterness. “He fell on us on our approach west, towards you. He is coming here.”

The words snap into me like a rubber tie. He was not with the army we have been fighting. Of course: a lure. He wanted our eyes fixed on New Sparta. The thought curdles into a tight, hot fear. He was toying with us, with me. I stand so quickly the chair scrapes; the motion jerks my guests. Bria’s eyes flick to me, steady and unafraid.

“Excuse me, I did not catch...” I say, forcing my voice level.

“The Reaper will be here soon,” Bria interposes. Her tone is blunt, practised. “That force that landed was just bait. He has hunting parties and traps on every major route here. Survivors are being driven into nuclear bogs as they flee. He is methodical and merciless.”

Cassius watches me curiously. “What?” I demand. “The Reaper—” “I heard you both,” I say, stopping Bria, the room narrowing to a point. They look at me, eyes steady but tired. I tap my datapad and begin to summon every officer of note among our forces. This is another disaster to be stacked on top of our ruin. Why this sphere, why me, why him? The old fear, the one from the bombardments, rears its head inside my chest. My hands tremble; I steady them by taking a measured sip of port.

“I will have the Brown prepare suitable quarters,” I say abruptly, remembering manners.

“What we need is food and anti-rads,” Cassius replies. “And new armour. We will be fighting soon.” He adds almost mockingly.

His words land like iron, reminding me of what we are about to face. Outside, beyond this encampment, the city breathes under a sleepless sky. The men at the barricades call for more sandbags and more stone. I set my jaw and watch the glow beyond the windows, feeling the cold, precise calculus of what must be done.

“How long till he is here?” I ask almost hesitantly. “Hours if he has not crossed the Oued Medjerda, less if he has.” Bria replies slowly, her eyes still fixed on me.

I spend the rest of the afternoon and into the evening planning. A few hours later, Cassius and Bria join me in council with the remaining officers. We search for weaknesses in our defences, debate strategic positions and catalogue the state of our troops. There is still a trickle of soldiers from the east, but they seem insignificant in the face of an imminent, twilight tango with the Reaper.

I try to reach the Falthe to see if they have crossed into the continent and can race to our defence. Our comms are still impaired by the Rain, so I cannot contact them, but I hope they are on their way. They have to be.

When night finally falls, we disperse to make our final preparations and wait, praying to the high heavens that we will last the night.

***

Sevro

“Listen up, shitheads!” I bark at the gathered fellows, my voice booming through the mess hall of the hulking mobile fortress. We crawl along the floor of the Red Sea, leagues beyond the Gulf of Aden and heading fast for the Suez. I have only just returned from the African continent, committing sabotage and eliminating Golds of legate rank and above with brutal efficiency. Darrow gave me one order: cause as much chaos as you can. I heed his instruction.

My men seized Deepgrave a day before the Iron Rain while I slipped into Grimmus-held Africa. Now we prepare one final surprise for the Society. “There are roughly one hundred thousand of the Society’s worst here,” I tell them, a crooked smile on my face. “Terrorists, rapists, murderers, war criminals. All Gold, Obsidian, or the foulest of the Grays.”

They have rotted here for years. Their files suggest a complete breakdown of the mind in some of them. For three days my teams have combed through every manifest, every interrogator’s note, pairing faces to crimes and testing allegiances. More than two thirds hate the Society more than the Alliance. “Once we reach the Gulf of Suez, we open the holds,” I say. “Unseal the pens. Unleash them on Falthe. No mercy, no orders. Let them burn the camp from the inside while we strike the command nodes. Timing, silence, speed. That is our advantage.”

***

As dusk deepens, the two hundred and fifty-year-old ocean complex rises silently to the surface of the Red Sea. For the first time since its construction its vast shell feels the sun’s last light. Its vents fall still, docking bays flooded with men and gear, and the holds shudder as final checks are run. The complex looks ancient and patient, a sleeping thing waking to do damage.

The Falthe host, split between Arabia and Africa, has settled uneasily for the night. Scipio au Falthe drags his feet, sending men west to aid Atalantia and New Sparta. I set my jaw and give the order.

“Milia, take Beta, you run the holds. Do not open a single lock until I mark the signal. Dax, you’re with Phi and Delta, you take the comms nodes, blackout their sats and loop false feeds. Felix, take the ramps; cover the exits. No mercy, no prisoners tonight. We cut their head off the moment they reach for a radio.” They answer in a single, low chord of readiness.

As darkness gathers, pandemonium erupts in their Arabian camp. The signal falls, the pens open. The guilty pour out like a flood and the camp becomes a ruin of its own making. Seasoned killers strike from within: prisoners turned hunters, trained to ambush and to vanish. They move without shouting, without ceremony, and the camp dies quietly, methodically. Falthe regiments turn on one another in confusion; command collapses into frantic orders that reach no one. Sevro au Barca does not need to brandish a blade to win this night. We light the fuse and stand back. When the smoke clears the eastern Falthe host will be a smashed thing with no commander left to stitch it whole, their formations shredded and their lines running.

The Goblin of Mars finally come to war.

Chapter Text

As the cities of Africa, the retreats of the Americas and ancient settlements of Asia tried to keep the Reaper’s Martian horde at bay, the youngest daughter of the Ash Lord fought for her life at the walls of their ancestral seat, New Sparta. The Reaper’s assault came in a relentless tide, squeezing Atalantia’s forces inward, waiting for them to burst like overripe fruit beneath a crushing hand.

The city shook with the clamour of slaughter. Obsidian berserkers, delirious on God’s Breath, rampaged in sleek black armour traced with veins of burning blue runes. Waves of Grays, lean and vicious, stormed through breaches with rifles spitting fire, their discipline sharpened into savagery. Behind them came the Golds, blazing like storied gods, razors singing, pulseFists breaking bone and armour alike, every stroke fuelled by a fury so absolute it seemed inhuman.

New Sparta burned, its walls buckled, its streets drowned in blood. Grimmus’ banners, once bright on the citadel, sagged in tatters over heaps of stone and corpses. The last cries of her defenders mingled with the thunder of men and the choking roar of fire until silence claimed the city, the silence of conquest. And as New Sparta fell, so too did the world. Continents lay in ruin, cities smouldered, and masses bent to Martian will. Citadel by citadel, city by city, Earth capitulated to the Reaper’s wrath. Its proud legions scattered, its Golds brought low, its defenders driven into the dirt.

Luna and the remnants of the Society look on in horror, finally understanding what this war means. This herald of a new age. It is a beginning not too dissimilar to the Conquering. There is a silent whisper among the lowColours. A hesitant murmur among the midColours, unbeknownst to the titans at war. The Reaper is freedom.

Atalantia

My body aches all over. Deeper still, I feel a searing shame. I have been captured, and with me my home. I sit in a dark cell, my only company the thoughts I cannot banish. Darrow should have killed me. Now I must carry this disgrace, a pawn, a bargaining chip to be moved at will. I try to sit up, but I collapse back into a slump, exhausted.

The door opens with a hiss and the cell is suddenly flooded with light as the wall panels flare to life. I squint, eyes stung by the visual assault, and see a tall man. His build is athletic, his hair somewhat long, drawn back and tied half up, half down. He is young and striking, yet there is an uncanny age to him, a strange otherness in his person. I cannot help but stare. He moves with a deadly grace, the light tread of a dancer that belies his size. Mastery of the Willow Way. He reminds me of Aja when she was young. He also reminds me of my father. I shiver.

“Atalantia,” he drawls as he kneels beside me. His voice is deep, almost sensual, his Martian accent oddly laced with an Agean lilt. A compulsion seizes me to cower, to bow my head and beg forgiveness. I resist, my hands trembling with the effort. My face smooths as I don the Dancing Mask, calm settling over me like a veil. I may be a prisoner, but I will not show fear. I begin a silent recitation of Octavia’s creed, drawing strength from the words. Do not let fear touch you. Fear is the torr—

His hand cups my face and the calm shatters. His touch is disarmingly gentle as he lifts my chin. My heart stumbles into a gallop, terror laced with a flicker of arousal. Then I meet his eyes. I try to pull back, frightened, but his grip is firm. Those eyes. Golden pools of unbridled rage, boring deep into my soul. This is not the gaze of a man, but of an apex predator. A killer. A Conqueror. He has changed since I last saw him at the Gala. The holos do him no justice. I am afraid.

“Where is your father?” he asks.

I swallow, yet hold my tongue. Our eyes lock in a silent duel that feels unending, his will battering mine. I break first, gaze faltering, shame burning hot on my cheeks. Such shame. Memories rush back to my youth, when I was still searching for myself in the long shadows of my sisters, already gathering glory. My father, the Ash Lord, killer of worlds. Octavia, Sovereign of the Society, ruler of mankind in all but name. What does that do to a young girl, forced to forge her name in a smithy of giants?

He releases me and rises, looking down with cool indifference. My shame deepens under that stare. I am an insect. I am nothing. Is that the fear speaking? The torture has not yet begun, yet already my years of conditioning crumble. He turns and leaves without a word. Relief slips from my lips in a sigh only for dread to surge anew as a goblin of a man slithers in. A scream rips the air, high and frantic, before I realise it is my own.

***

Darrow

I make my way from Atalantia’s cell up to one of the citadel rooms I have claimed. The last of the fighting around New Sparta has died down. Order is slowly being restored in the city and across the continent. Communication has returned to normal and we have already begun scrubbing the war zones heavily affected by radiation. Still, it will take time. I have left Sevro to deal with Atalantia. I warned him not to harm her, at least not too much. I still need her to continue this war with the Society. I feel some shame in what I have done to a woman, but that is the Red in me speaking. In the worlds of Gold, only the unborn are innocent.

It took me five days to capture this planet, slower than I did Mars but impressive all the same. My acclaim has grown exponentially, Fitchner’s lowColour propaganda mixing with Virginia’s curated holoexperience. The soldiers of the Alliance celebrate and make merry. Earth has fallen as it did when our iron ancestors came from Luna. They draw parallels and sing songs of conquest. The atmosphere is electric. I finally reach my door and find Ragnar standing guard. I want to tell him to go and rest, to enjoy our hard-earned victory, but he can be obstinate at times, especially on this subject.

I enter my room and let my shoulders slump as I sit on the plush bed. I want to roister, let loose and enjoy, but I cannot. Already I feel the noose tightening even as the plan unfolds spectacularly. The more I prosecute this war, the more afraid I become. Afraid that my fall will only be harder the higher I rise. That my enemies will multiply with this victory, many here on this sphere with me. I anticipate the strain this might cause with Nero and perhaps Romulus. So many balls in the air, so many variables at play; it is taxing for one man alone.

They are already planning a great Triumph for me. Stealth ships ferry the high command from our remaining forces, save those in the Rim, to this place. It is meant to be a great show, filled with spectacle to intimidate Luna and the Society, to show them the crux really. I tried to protest, remembering the last time a Triumph was held, but they insisted that the whole affair would be secure. Shields on my chariots, a controlled programme and tight security. A smaller, intimate banquet after. Bloodydamn.

I massage my temples, tired from thinking and planning and fighting and doing. I just want to be. Be back on Mars, back with Mustang and Pax. At least I will see them soon. Another part of me longs for a different time, a different home; Lykos. I yearn to be with my mother again, back in the deep of the mine, eating Pitviper blood soup on Yuletide or feasting during the Laurel ceremony. At that, I banish those thoughts. I will never be Red again. I am here on Earth, in a war I started with a duel, with a plan to free my people.

***

Octavia

Darrow’s victory, while unprecedented in its execution, was inevitable. Earth would always have fallen; at least I and the Reaper both knew that. Our pas de deux, this delicate exchange, has only passed the adagio, is in the variation and will soon enter its allegro. His little show on Terra has scared many. Already I can feel a shift here in Hyperion. Some regard me askance, as though I have finally lost my iron grip on the spheres. They are not entirely wrong.

I slip into the Mind’s Eye, high in the Ocular Sphere. In its stillness my thoughts lengthen into a web; I sift through transmission logs, decrypted messages and stray chatter, parsing patterns at a speed no ordinary mind could sustain. Small inconsistencies glimmer like flaws in a gem, and I comb them until a single frayed thread appears; a hint, faint but promising, that could unravel a larger scheme.

Aja interrupts my focus as she enters. I open my eyes and regard my oldest fury, suppressing my irritation. “I asked not to be disturbed, Aja.” She nods once and works her datapad until a holo blooms at the side of the room, revealing multiple lowColour districts rife with unrest: Reds and Browns clashing with grey enforcers. Aja swipes and the holo shifts to midColour districts. The scene is the same, only calmer and accompanied by placards reading “End the War.”

Something is amiss. Nothing I have seen in past insurrections ever stirred them like this, not even Rhea. I sense a hidden hand at work, but I cannot trace it. Nero is not Ares, nor could Darrow have found a way to beat the oracles. That is impossible even for him. Fitchner perhaps; his conduct in Agea was suspicious. Was it sympathy for the runt turned conqueror? Loyalty to his son? Sevro and Darrow are very close. Or is it someone else entirely? Uncertainty spreads through the worlds. Everything I thought I knew has been turned on its head. Never did I imagine my fall would come like this, at the hands of a young brute. Young but cunning. Just as I was, once.

“What do you think?” I inquire of my bodyguard and closest confidante. She glances at me, then back to the holos, considering. After a moment she sighs and meets my gaze. “The Alliance is using the lowColours? That they are still milking his speech on the Vanguard, almost a year and a half later? Someone on Luna is using the war as cover? Some other party at play? I do not know, Octavia. I am a warrior made for killing. Such schemes do not interest me.” She shrugs, somewhat unconcerned.

I smile and walk once around the holo, thumbing my earlobe. “Or Darrow au Augustus is not what he claims to be.” I stop and we lock eyes. A savage grin splits Aja’s face, flashing brilliant white teeth.

“Call a sitting of the Senate. It is time our little Reaper learned why Lune rules.”

Chapter Text

Darrow

I stand beneath the Triumph Arch, twelve kilometres from the shattered citadel of the Grimmus. Before me stretches the Via Triumphia, red as spilled blood. The road is carpeted only with roses, their petals ground soft under foot and wheel, a tide of crimson that marks the Gold dead. Floats groan ahead of me, great mounted platforms of wood and metal bearing grotesque effigies of carved creatures, pyrotechnics shrieking into the sky and dancers painted in impossible hues. The crowd howls approval, drinking deep and waving standards as they watch the wild glow of fire and spectacle. But when the prisoners march, led by a haggard Atalantia, Cassius and Bria, voices change. Boos rise in serrated waves, hands throwing roses like stones. And then they see me.

My chariot gleams as it pulls forward. Wrought of beaten gold, chased with lions and laurel, it is pulled by four white stallions draped in crimson cloth. I stand bare-headed, hair unbound, a purple sash across my chest, my armour polished till it reflects the sun. To them, I must seem carved from Olympus itself. The roar begins as a murmur, then swells till it shakes the windows of the high towers. “Reaper! Reaper! Reaper!” Their hysteria is a storm. I lift my slingBlade and the chant becomes thunder.

Sevro, Victra, Apollonius, and Lorn ride behind as my daggershadow, their faces stark against the tide. The Lionguard, Augustan elite, line the avenue, Gold in black and red, sworn to our House and to Nero, my ‘father’. Between us and the floats, the prisoners stumble, pale against the endless red. I watch the jeers wash over them before the cheers return to me, drowning all thought.

We reach the plaza where the Citadel of New Sparta looms, only recently returned to its former splendour thanks to the gifted Orange Master Makers of Earth. Its steps are broad and white as bone. The air smells of roses and iron. I descend from the chariot, each step echoing on the marble, the chant still rolling through the square. Nero waits above, flanked by Romulus and Dido from the Rim, grim and watchful, and opposite them Virginia, with Pax cradled in her arms, small and solemn-eyed.

The crowd stills. The silence is heavier than the roar. Nero raises his hand. “Who comes before us?”

I lift my voice so all can hear. “The Reaper. Son of Mars. Liberator of Earth.”

“By what right do you stand upon these steps?”

“By the right of blood and conquest. By that of an Iron Rain. By victory.”

“Rise then, Darrow au Augustus,” he says, voice sharp as a blade, “rise and take your place.”

I climb the last steps and kneel, bowing my head. His hand rests heavy on my shoulder before he pulls me up then embraces me before all. “My son,” he says, and the words strike with the weight of inheritance and empire.

I turn, bowing my head to Romulus and Dido. Their acknowledgement is curt, but their eyes are alight with respect. Then I face Virginia. She catches my gaze, her lips curving faintly. I kiss her, and the plaza erupts, the roar nearly breaking the stone itself. Pax looks up at me, a small proud thing already practised in looking as though he understands the world, and when I lift him into my arms the cheers reach hysteria, petals raining like blood from the heavens.

The White steps forward, aged and milky-eyed. Wreath in hand, she trembles with age. “Conqueror,” she whispers, voice wavering with the ritual cadence, and sets the laurel upon my brow. The world narrows to green leaves and the smell of crushed herb. Speeches glide like oil, naming the fallen and naming me, weaving the past into the present and heaping praise and acclaim. I stand crowned, my son in my arms, my wife at my side, my house behind me. The obelisk, commissioned for the Rain, rises on gravLifts in the square, a new monument to my victory and the dead. Its crystal surface gleams against the sky. “Per aspera…” she begins.

“…ad astra!” the people thunder, a single voice of Earth and Mars and Rim. The Triumph is complete.

The Golds begin to withdraw to our private feast as below, the plaza becomes a carnival of triumph. I remain a figure of study on those steps, laurel heavy upon my head, while Nero and Virginia trade careful courtesies with allies. The obelisk will hang there until another Triumph takes its place, a suspended monument to the price of victory. For now, I let the chorus of the city wash over me and catalogue the faces I trust, the ones I cannot, and the little boy nestled in my arms, somehow already learning what it means to be born into a name.

***

Inside, a dome rises overhead like a crystal shell, its surface alive with the shifting reflections of starlight and the faint glow of far-off Luna. Within, the space has been transformed into a mythic garden. Marble fountains send thin streams of water into basins veined with gold, their surfaces littered with floating blossoms. Vines heavy with roses coil around tall bronze candelabras, their flames casting a steady glow over the gathered Golds. It is lush, cultivated, beautiful and, notably, devoid of the Pinks who would usually provide entertainment at such feasts. Their absence sharpens the sense that this is no revel.

The tables gleam like mirrors, each slab cast in pure gold and set with crystal chalices that catch and fracture the artificial firelight. Platters of fruit, rare meats, and delicacies from every corner of the worlds lie waiting, more symbolic than inviting, their arrangement precise as if meant for offering to gods. The air is thick with incense that curls from low braziers, mixing with the faint perfume of the flowers to create a heady, almost sacred atmosphere. The gathering feels less like a banquet and more like a ritual staged in honour of something ancient and terrible.

Clusters of power arrange themselves among the decorations. Romulus stands with Dido, their severe figures framed against a mosaic of night sky as they confer with the few moon lords present in the Core. Terran allies hold court by the fountains, their voices low and guarded, the gleam of their armour brighter than their laughter. The Martians, who are the majority, move about in small groups. Allegiances seeming to shift with every conversation. Everywhere, Lionguard watch, silent and implacable, a living reminder that beneath the gilded trappings this is not celebration, but a test of trust in a room where even gods tread carefully.

I hold Pax protectively in my arms. The last Triumph was just short of a disaster. Measures have been taken but I am still on edge. Mustang turns from her conversation with Niobe’s Maori kin and regards me with a smooth face. I know she is worried underneath the mask she now wears. She has become even more practiced in the ways of court. As I made war, she gained knowledge. Her eyes seem even wiser than they usually do. She rubs the arm that holds Pax gently and smiles. “I have missed you, Darrow.” There is a twinkle in her eyes, a love reserved only for me. I take it in, committing it to memory. Since she found out the truth and still decided to come back to me, she captured my heart and soul. “I have missed you too, Mustang.” I reply with a candid smile. We chat only pausing to observe and comment on Pax. Victra and Sevro join us and that opens the door for others to interject and attempt to curry favour or draw information for political machinations. The night finally comes to an end, its restraint preventing any revelry. Mustang and I walk back to my room together.

Inside, I do not wait to shut the door before I lift her into my arms. Our mouths meet in a hungry kiss, her body folding into mine as if the months apart had been years. I breathe her in, the faint trace of herbal oils in her hair, the warmth of her skin, the softness of her palms pressed to my cheeks. I trail kisses from her lips to the hollow of her neck, whispering sweet nothings between breaths before forcing myself to stop. “I have missed you. All of you,” I murmur with a sheepish grin, leaning my forehead against hers. Three days is all we have, and already the thought of its end weighs heavy on me.

She laughs, light as a feather stirring the air, then slips her hand into mine and guides me toward the balcony. The night opens before us, vast and quiet, stars scattered like diamonds across black silk. She leaves me there only long enough to return with a glass of red wine and a heavy crystal tumbler filled with the deep amber of a Yamazaki 55. I raise it in thanks, smiling despite myself. “How have you been?” she asks, and the question unravels something I did not know I had bound so tightly. Words pour out. I tell her of battles fought, fears, hidden even from Sevro, schemes and half-formed plans that stalk my thoughts like shadows. She listens with the patience only she possesses, head tilted, eyes steady, offering questions, insights, and the quiet kind of advice that feels less like correction and more like a compass. She always knows exactly what I need.

“So, strike at Luna, cajole the Votum, and fall upon Venus?” she teases at last, summarising my torrent with a sly smile. “Easy as pie!” Her levity makes me laugh. I rise, moving behind her as she gestures to her back, and begin kneading the knots from her shoulders. A low moan escapes her and I chuckle. “I have missed those hands, Reaper,” she murmurs, voice edged with playfulness. This time I bark a laugh. “Careful, Mustang.” We both giggle until her next words still me.

“How will we do it?” she asks quietly, the mirth thinning. My hands keep their rhythm but silence stretches between us. “How will we achieve her dream?” she whispers again, almost to herself. My mind drifts with hers, tangled in fears I keep buried. How to navigate these depths once Octavia falls, the chaos that might follow the collapse of the Society as we know it, the danger of the worlds unravelling into endless war. The inevitable conflict with Nero and Lorn and most of my allies and banner men. The weight threatens to smother me until her hand finds mine, tender and grounding. I look down to her smile, faint but resolute, and for a moment a spark of hope flickers through the dark. We step back inside together.

***

Octavia

Julia au Bellona calls the Senate to order. As Princeps Senatus she holds charge over the gathering, in a manner of speaking. Her arrival on Luna stirred sympathy; many forgetting that it was her hand that forced us into this war, that made her a widow and kinless. Still, she is a powerful woman and dangerous as a foe. I have been weakened by this campaign and she is, after all, an eagle. Her political manoeuvring secured her position and revealed how far her reach extends beyond the walls of Olympia.

“My Sovereign,” she begins, solemn, “the floor is yours.” She finishes with a slight bow. From my perch on the Morning Chair I scan the assembly, studying faces, cataloguing loyalties and gauging the mood. I rise deliberately, keeping a composed, regal air. “My fellow aureate, the Compact stands at risk, the Society teeters on the precipice of destruction.” I pause to let the weight of the words settle. “Our iron ancestors forged the Pax Solaris to secure the survival and prosperity of mankind. We Gold were given the responsibility to shepherd the Colours in furtherance of that dream. We have failed!”

I pull at the strings of glory, honour and duty, weaving responsibility and tradition with our mandate as Gold. I finally draw the speech to its conclusion. “If we are to protect the worlds and their people, we must act now. Earth has fallen to Martian and Rim usurpers. We must quash this rebellion and uproot the seed of insurrection. Order must be restored.” My voice gains force as it rides the tide of the chamber’s mood. “In times of war the Compact prescribes a Dictator to prosecute the conflict to completion. I call the Senate to ratify this proposal.” Murmurs ripple through the hall, curiosity mingling with dissent. I care little. The vote was decided before I spoke; this farce is only for legitimacy’s sake. The fall of Earth has galvanised the Senate and their fear bends them to my cause. Even though my position is, for the first time, made tenuous, I still command here on Luna.

As Dictator I will hold full wartime powers. Laws will be suspended and my decrees rendered immune to scrutiny.

My turn, Reaper.

Chapter Text

Mustang

On one of the AeroTerraces of the citadel, I prepare to say goodbye to my husband. He holds Pax in his arms, the boy looking up at him with adoration. I smile warmly, taking in the moment. I had always wanted a family of my own, not a perfect one, but better than the one I knew. I wanted a loving husband, someone who thought of family as more than heritage and legacy. I wanted to raise my children as the Kavax raised me. Now I have that and more, yet this war has made it feel meaningless. Still, another part of me has always longed for change, for equality. This war is that change, that equality.

“I will see you soon, little Pax,” Darrow whispers to our son, planting a kiss on his forehead, then both of his cheeks. His eyes brim with love for the boy. The anguish he must feel saddens me. Before he was a conqueror, before he became the Reaper, before he was made Gold, my husband was a lowly Red, consigned to the mines of Mars, to a short life of toil and servitude. In that cruel place he learned to love, to sing and dance, to live free even in captivity. His people valued family and community above all. Remembering that is what saddens me most.

The day he confessed to me in Lykos, I felt as if my world had turned upside down. The man I loved was a Red, a slave. I always considered myself a reformer, a champion of the meek and lowly, but that truth felt too heavy to bear. I still lament that I never went in, never met his mother, though I could not then. My brother’s betrayal, and Roque’s, made me realise that Darrow’s confession changed nothing. He was still the love of my life, still the boy with whom I subjugated Olympus, the Reaper who took back Mars for my father. Before I had agonised over his decision to join the Academy, but what would I have done, had I been born a Red. In the months since, I opened my eyes further to the reality of the Society, and I chose to follow my husband and prosecute his war. Many would call me traitor to my race, a fool, but my ideals no longer match the expectations of Gold.

My father walks up to me, joining me in my observation of Darrow and Pax. “You chose a fine husband, Virginia.” He says it with a trace of distaste. He has never approved of Darrow’s ‘overly grand’ public displays of affection toward Pax, dismissing it as coddling, yet he has never pressed the issue. He often has to stop himself from leaning down to kiss his grandson, after all. “You chose a fine son, Father,” I retort. He turns to me with an amused smile. “He is a fine warrior, a wonderful general, a true Iron Gold. He reminds me of Claudius,” he says quietly.

I almost flinch at the name. My father never spoke of Claudius after that day in the Bleeding Place when Karnus caved in his skull. From then on he became something cold, no longer the man who taught me to ride or took me to the archipelagos of Venus or the forests of Europa. That part of him returned somewhat with Pax’s birth, and to some extent, with Darrow’s victories. He finally has what he wanted: strength and legacy. I feel some sympathy for the man, but only that. I love my father, I have cherished all he has done for me, but increasingly I fear I cannot forgive who he became in the years after Claudius’ and mother’s deaths. I fear I do not share, even remotely, his vision for the worlds. I almost sigh aloud. “He is,” I say wistfully.

Darrow notices our exchange and starts toward us just as Romulus and Dido arrive from the far side of the terrace. It is said the two burned a city for their love, and it shows in how fiercely protective Dido is of her husband here in the Core. “Nero. Virginia,” Romulus greets, then, as Darrow joins us, “Darrow. We are ready to return to the fleets.” He is direct, his single eye betraying nothing, his face calm, almost placid. “Before we do, I have someone I would like you all to meet,” he adds.

A small frigate descends onto the terrace moments later, and a young man steps out. He is tall like his father, though broader from his Venusian blood. He wears a uniform of blue, with a white four-headed dragon embroidered on his chest. His narrow eyes scan everything keenly, as if expecting an ambush. He walks briskly toward us, stopping first to bow to his parents, then to my father, Darrow, and me. His manner is formal, restrained.

“Reaper, as you know, my son Aeneas has just won his year at the Institute.” Romulus begins. If he means to boast, I have misjudged him and the Rim as a whole. “I had hoped he would remain on Io, but my father has sent him here, to the Core.” He says the last like a curse, as if it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Romulus has long been known for his disdain of the Core. He calls us savage and decadent, unworthy successors of our forbearers and their vision. In part, that is why he has stood so firmly behind Darrow. He does not say it, but he admires my husband, likes him even. “I would have him join you as your Lancer.” At that, Dido stiffens. The decision was not made unanimously or lightly. I, too, am surprised.

On Mars it was not rare for the houses to send heirs as lancers of Augustus, even lesser houses from Venus, and the moons of the gas giants. But for the grandson of an ArchGovernor, a Raa, to serve my house in that way brings us all to pause. I glance at my father, who wears a look of curiosity and calculation. Ever the schemer. Darrow looks startled, though he recovers quickly, nodding to the boy. Dido’s eyes flick between us, gauging each reaction. She is dangerous, that one.

Without ceremony, Aeneas kneels before Darrow and my husband lays a hand on his head. “I will forsake my father,” Aeneas declares, drawing a grunt of displeasure from Dido. “I will abandon my name. I will be your sword. Darrow au Augustus, I will make my purpose your glory.” His words are solemn. Darrow bends to kiss his head and murmurs something meant for them alone. Then he straightens proclaiming, “Aeneas, Lancer of House Augustus. Rise. There are duties for you to fill. Rise. There are honours for you to take. Rise for glory, for power, for conquest and dominion over lesser men. Rise, son of Ilium. Rise.” Silence follows, heavy and strange, before settling into solemn acceptance. The world has only grown stranger since my husband became renowned.

Aeneas rises and turns to his parents. He embraces them, then salutes and takes his place at Darrow’s side. He is theirs no longer. I mull over the moment, trying to judge its meaning. Aeneas is Romulus’s heir, heir also to the Rim. Does this bind us closer? Is it ploy or trap, a scheme of Dido’s? She is Venusian, and they are famous for their games. Her displeasure may be a mask. I set the thought aside, to revisit on the voyage home. We discuss briefly what plan to present to the Alliance before the Raa, save Aeneas, depart to their corvette.

My father turns to me, placing a hand over mine. “Continue your work on Mars, daughter. This war will only worsen.” He takes Pax from my arms and whispers grand words to him before, unexpectedly, planting a kiss on his head. At last he looks to Darrow. “I am pleased with what you have done. You have brought honour to our house. You have made our name great. Now give me Luna.” There is a slight tension to his words as he departs to his transport, a politico rushing to join him.

I turn to Darrow and our eyes meet, sadness flickering in his. “I—” we both begin, then chuckle. “You first, wife,” he says, gently brushing his hand against my cheek. “Be safe, husband. Remember me, remember Pax, remember home.” I pause, lowering my voice. “Remember Lykos.” His smile strengthens, as if the words revitalise him. “I will, Mustang.” I draw a small holocube from my pocket and hand it to him. He eyes it suspiciously. “No, it is not a striptease of me,” I chide with a smile. “It may help in the days ahead.” He glances at it once before tucking it into his coat. “I love you,” I say at last. He kisses me, saying nothing more. Then we part and I board the Neriene for Agea.

***

Darrow

I watch Mustang leave, sorrowful. Three days have gone by so quickly that I already miss her and Pax. I turn to my first lancer, Aeneas au Raa, and appraise the boy, trying to glean as much as I can from his bearing. He is as tall as I am, but leaner; I have grown more muscular in the year since this war began. He regards me with deference, eager for instruction. What is Romulus playing at? I was more than surprised by the request and even more so by its manner. He is a man of tradition and ceremony, and this was markedly unceremonious. Is this all in the name of the Alliance, or is Dido’s hand at play? By forcing me to take on a lancer of my own, it may appear to some that I intend to supplant my primus. Politics.

“Tell me about yourself, Aeneas,” I say, motioning us back into the citadel. “Of course, Imperator Augustus. Where should I begin?” he answers quickly. “From as far back as you remember,” I reply, and wait.

***

We complete our walk around the citadel. Though the plaza was renovated for my Triumph, much of it still lies in ruin. Reds, Browns, Oranges and Violets mill about, attending to repairs and shifting rubble. “And that is how I conquered the final two Houses,” Aeneas concludes, eyes bright as if reliving his year at the Institute. “Impressive,” I intone, glancing at a Brown who rests his head on a column, a bloodstained handkerchief clutched in his hand. Unlike Golds and Reds, most Colours lack the same tolerance to radiation. I feel pity for the man

I already knew of Aeneas’ year at the Institute of Ganymede. Mustang regularly sends data packs on the Institutes across Alliance-held spheres, from Mars to Pluto. They detail exceptional talent, useful skills and malleable youth. Using her growing network of spies and Fitchner’s influence, she pulls strings in the background to ensure the best talent reaches our most zealous allies. At the end of the Solar War, I will need loyal men. The old follow me dutifully, but how many would break with the status quo? The young are impressionable; they bend without breaking, change without questioning.

“What of your home?” I ask, turning to face him. “Io?” he says, startled by the question, then continues, “It is a dreary place, I must admit. Cold and-” “Not just Io, the moon,” I interject. “Your home, your family, the people you love.” The prompt gives him further pause; he looks inward, considering. After a few moments he begins again.

“We do not live in the city. Father raised us in an isolated hold in the shadow of a volcano. It is modest, devoid of the luxury expected of an ArchGovernor’s heir. Father forbids us servants until we earn them and the HoloNet until we are twelve.” He pauses, a distant look in his eyes. “I love my family, my parents, my brothers and sisters. Marius and little Sera, Aunt Vela and grandmother. Diomedes is going to the Institute soon,” he adds, attention returning. “He is much like Father.”

“And what about you?” I inquire, curious.

“I am who my family needs me to be,” he answers, the words final and candid. That shifts the boy in my eyes. Like me, he does not live for himself but for a purpose. Family.

Chapter Text

Darrow

The days following my Triumph are consumed with tedious administrative tasks. I oversee the consolidation of power and direct the pacification of Central and South Asia, where the Falthe and their vassals still resist. I grow weary of the bureaucracy: Golds vying for position, Silvers angling for advantage, and Coppers far too eager to please. Routine inspections of my forces remain one of the few moments when I can simply exist. In the afternoons I train Aeneas in the Willow Way. Only the basics, but it gives me a chance to bond with the boy and understand him better. He is skilled with the razor, fast and abrupt in his movements, but his training in Shadowfall was with the hasta and kitari. It takes him time to adjust, yet he proves an excellent study. I speak to Mustang and Pax every other day, a few minutes at most, yet edifying all the same. All in all, my time on Earth is not as bleak as I feared.

“Howlers, report,” I command my closest Gold allies in the grand meeting room of the citadel of New Sparta. The chamber is built in brutal Roman style, its domed ceiling of transparent duroglass flooding the space with sunlight. A great round table dominates the centre, with a shifting holo of Earth suspended above it. Thraxa delivers her account of the Americas, detailing the suppression of the last North American families still defiant. Clown and Pebble report on Europe, while Victra outlines progress across the African continent. I nod after each, offering brief questions and commendations. At last, Sevro speaks on the fighting in Asia. The Falthe have turned to guerrilla tactics, their goal disruption rather than conquest. It is the death rattle of a fading family of the Conquering. I listen but give little thought; Sevro will manage it. Aeneas stands behind me, as still as a statue, listening intently. It is strange to have someone of his stature in my service, yet I accept it without comment.

The meeting shifts to the broader state of the system. The Votum remain unmoved, rebuffing both the Alliance and the Society. Scorpio au Votum, primus of House Votum and ArchGovernor of Mercury, is an assiduous yet tiresome nonagenarian, difficult to impress or persuade. His indecision, however, grants me time to plan and keeps my advantage intact. For now, the Alliance holds more spheres and greater freedom of movement; if the Votum joined Octavia, we would likely be forced to defend against their planetary fleet, so I prefer the stalemate. Venus, by all accounts, hastens towards civil war, though reports are increasingly scarce and vague. Something gnaws at me but I push it aside. Like Mercury, Venus unsettled is to my advantage, for they would otherwise side with the Society.

Luna festers with civil unrest: lowColours rise in Hyperion, midColours stage mass protests. Fitchner’s networks keep Octavia’s fires stoked. In the Rim, meanwhile, the fighting remains fierce. Roque and the Sword Armada press hard against the Shadow and Dust Armadas. Though his attempted Iron Rain on one of the lesser Jovian moons failed and Ilium remains unconquered, he has locked them in place, preventing their advance on the Core. I do not dwell on that theatre, for mine is here, but I ask Aeneas for his thoughts. His analysis is clear and reasoned, drawing approving nods from several of my Howlers. I smile, quietly proud of him.

The meeting draws to a close and I leave with Sevro, Aeneas trailing behind. Ragnar falls into step with him as we exit, performing his bodyguard’s duty. Sevro and I discuss the intelligence gathered from our prisoners. It is scant and reeks of false positives, yet we analyse it all the same. Our Rain had been unexpected, but the Ash Lord is certainly not on Earth. Sevro places faith in Atalantia’s confession, extracted under torture at his hands, with White oversight and Pink observation. I nod in agreement, linking her words with the fragments of intelligence already in our possession. The Cloud and the Morning Knight yield little of substance, but they remain valuable prisoners nonetheless.

Sevro walks beside me, shifting easily between serious analysis and flippant jests until we reach the entrance of the prison that houses our guests. There he departs, bound for Asia to complete his work. I enter with Aeneas and Ragnar, greeted by the Copper warden, Cerbe cu Yancra. He jolts upright and salutes. “Here to see the lady Grim- I mean, the prisoner?” he stammers, colour flooding his face and sweat beading at his brow. I do not correct him, merely continue forward towards the deeper cells. “I will be interrogating the Olympics, Cerbe. Prepare a room and bring me the Morning Knight first,” I instruct. “Yes, dominus, at once!” he replies, hurrying off to bark orders at his Grays.

I take a slow, circuitous route to the interrogation chambers, allowing them time to prepare. Aeneas converses with Ragnar, asking after his home and his years in service. He is stunned to learn Ragnar once served as the Ash Lord’s prized slave knight. He presses further, curious how he came to be my bodyguard and leader of the Venatores, the Gold hunters of Legio IV Alata; my legion. I prepare to interject, but Ragnar answers with a vague yet satisfying reply, careful not to reveal the depth of our bond. At last we reach a stark lobby lined with interrogation rooms, twin entrances at either end. Cerbe, flanked by two Grays, directs me towards the chamber where Cassius awaits. I thank and dismiss him before approaching the door. Aeneas and Ragnar remain at the threshold as I step inside. The door seals behind me with a hiss.

The chamber is bone white, without discernible walls or floor, only an endless void. At its centre, a man sits seemingly suspended by nothing, bound in durosteel manacles at wrist and ankle. His once-curly hair is matted, his handsome face marred by bruises. He appears exhausted, though the traces of radiation poisoning have faded. He watches me approach without a word, eyes brimming with hatred. His mouth quivers, as if struggling to dam a flood of emotion. A stool rises before him and I sit.

“Cassius,” I begin carefully. My voice is firm and my visage smooth, yet beneath it both of us can sense my fear. This is the first time we have spoken since his capture. I have observed him through his cell wall but could never bring myself to step inside. I interrogated Atalantia, Bria, and other generals without hesitation, but not him. Not the Morning Knight.

“I-” I try to continue, but the words falter. He fixes me with a stormy gaze. “How are you?” I ask at last, the eagerness in my tone betraying me. He does not answer. His eyes drift past me towards the entrance, now invisible, through which I came.

“Who is out there watching? Sevro? Or is it the Julii bitch? Apollonius?” His voice sharpens with venom. “You two seem close. Do you call him brother as well?” The last word lands like a blow. I hold my silence, though my eyes soften despite myself. After a long pause, I say, “There is no one watching, Cassius. I only brought my bodyguard and lancer.”

That draws his attention. His brooding lifts for a moment. “Who is he?”

“Aeneas au Raa,” I reply.

“A Raa? My goodman! How high you have risen.” His tone is mocking, but I catch the flicker of reluctant admiration. Some of the rigidity leaves him, though anger still coils beneath.

“So…how have you been?” I try once more.

“Give it up, Darrow!” he explodes. “You know how I have been. You captured me. You put me in this prison. You control everything, this planet, this war! You control when I wake, when I eat, when I sleep, even when I shit!” His voice cracks with rage. By the end he is shaking, his composure shredded.

I let it wash over me, searching for something hidden within. Not information, I realise, but absolution. I have never moved past that night in the mud, nor the sting of his words when I took the primus hand from him at the Institute. Silence stretches between us until he retreats once more into himself, regret dimming his fury.

“I am sorry, Cassius,” I say softly. “For Julian. For the Gala. For Mars. For your family. For all of it.”

“Really, Darrow?” His voice is low, fierce, raw with pain. Tears glimmer in his eyes. “You're sorry?” His words break. “Julian, I can understand. He could not meet the Society’s standard. But my family? You killed children, Darrow. Children! My cousins, nieces and nephews were innocent. They could have been spared, adopted into other families, even imprisoned in our estates isolated in the Belt. But no. You are just like your ‘father’.” He spits the word. “You will not make the same mistake my grandfather and that Cylus fool made.”

He falls silent, tears streaming unchecked down his cheeks. I want to move to him, to hold him, to repeat my apology, but I stay where I am and let him weep.

When at last his sobs subside, I extend a small black cube. For a moment he only stares at my hand. Then his shackled wrists rise and he takes it. Recognition flickers in his eyes as he realises it is a holocube. I am about to warn him of its contents, but he double-taps it before I can.

The room blooms with light. The recording shows a chamber in Eagle’s Rest, the Bellona citadel. Children huddle together, their faces masks of terror. The youngest is scarcely four months old, the eldest a girl of fifteen, nearly of Institute age. Armed Praetorian Grays and Obsidians enter. Behind them strides a Gold clad in rose-gold armour, his winged swan-crested helm gleaming. A flaming heart is emblazoned across his breastplate. In one hand he carries an iridescent razor, in the other a slug gun.

Luba au San. The Love Knight.

Cassius bolts upright, eyes riveted.

“All of them?” Luba asks into his comm, his voice calm, almost detached. He listens, nods once, then the killing begins. The Grays and Obsidians fall upon the children. Luba himself moves with deliberate grace, carving one after another with his razor, firing his slug gun at those who attempt to flee. Sixty young Bellona. All dead.

Cassius retches violently, his breakfast spattering the floor. Then comes the silent grief. His shoulders quake, his chest heaves as he struggles for breath. His head bows, chin resting on his chest, tears dripping steadily onto the white void beneath him. I know his pain. Not all of it, but enough. I watched my wife hanged and my father before her. It is a cruelty beyond words to watch your family die. It robs you of the will to live, of the spark in your eyes, of the simple joy of being.

I rise and place a hand on his shoulder. To my surprise, he leans into the touch, his head resting against the crook of my arm. Hesitantly, I draw him into an embrace. He does not resist. He does not fight. He only weeps.

When he is spent, I step back and allow him to compose himself. We say nothing. The silence grows between us. “I would not have done that to you, Cassius,” I say at last. “I cannot apologise for this war, but I am sorry for the hurt it has caused you.”

He lifts his gaze to mine. For a moment I see the boy who once invited me to revel in Agea, the one I ran across the Valles Marineris with before everything changed. His eyes soften.

“I know, Darrow,” he says.

With that, I leave him to return to his cell.

***

Deep in the Himalayas, the Jackal huddles with his dwindling company. His boneriders, gaunt from ceaseless battles, keep sharp watch on the cloudless night. The camp is perched on a narrow plateau above the Khumbu Valley. Around them, jagged ridges rise like the teeth of some ancient beast, while the wind howls through narrow passes carved near the Nepali border. Snow clings to the stone, glittering under a pale moon, and the air is so thin that every breath feels like a labour.

He waits with bated breath for the gift he was promised. A Hail Mary meant to shift the paradigm, a final gambit that could bring the Reaper to his knees.

Chapter Text

Darrow

A week after my encounter with Cassius, I fly to the Indian subcontinent. Sevro has completed his subjugation of Central Asia and only a small stretch of India and Nepal remains agitated; we are slowly closing in. Intel has revealed that the Jackal and his boneriders have been sighted multiple times, but they have been hard to pin down. I am aboard my TorchShip, the Young Lion, with Cohors Diaboli Rubri and my Venatores led by Ragnar. There are one thousand five hundred men aboard the ship, which was made for five. We race to hunt the Jackal.

Our journey is short and we arrive in Agra to a heavy, humid atmosphere, the air thick with the smell of sweat and soil. The sun bears down on the city like a hammer the oppressive tropical heat unbearable. Soldiers mill about, a few with prisoners in tow. The Taj, once a Falthe citadel, now flies the Lion of Augustus alongside my Wolf and Scythe banner. I disembark and enter the Mughal-inspired building. Its high marble arches and filigreed walls, that whisper of another age, now carry the weight of war.

Inside, one of Sevro’s lieutenants, a Gold from Cimmeria, meets me. He is relatively short but muscular, and well into his forties. He salutes and leads me to a chamber overlooking the Yamuna. There I find the rest of Sevro’s commanders for this campaign. The mood is tense as I sit, Ragnar and Aeneas standing behind me.

“Report,” I say dispassionately.

No one answers at first until I let my gaze linger across the room. Yunia, another of Sevro’s lieutenants, finally speaks. “Sir, we have been pursuing the Jackal and his men. Sevro has been leading the hunt through the Himalayas.” She pauses, measuring her words before continuing. “The Jackal was first sighted in Khumbu two weeks ago, but he has kept moving. Satellites capture little, though we occasionally pick up his trail. Sevro went on a reconnaissance mission about a week ago and has not returned. He said they would go dark, but this has been his longest absence.” She finishes, and the room seems to hold its breath.

“Anything else?” I inquire casually, glancing up from my datapad. Faces ease with relief as though they had been fearing the worst and would be held personally liable. Sevro is Sevro; if he said he would go dark; it must have been for a reason. When no one answers further, I conclude the meeting and withdraw to the chambers prepared for me.

The suite is expansive, its grand reception room vast enough to resemble a ballroom, flowing seamlessly onto a broad balcony. Two doors branch from the chamber: one opening into a generous sleeping quarter, the other into a well-proportioned study. I wait there, eyes fixed on my datapad, until Mustang’s call finally arrives. A request for a tight beam appears and I quickly accept. We perform our usual checks, exchanging codes and security questions before easing into conversation. Little Pax is asleep in her arms, and my heart swells at the sight. Soon we turn to strategy and politics as we always do, speaking of the war and our plans. I tell her of the Jackal sighting and Sevro’s reconnaissance. She tells me of her progress on the Martian moons.

“The first dockyard on Deimos will soon be complete,” she explains, “Agrippina and Quicksilver have been liberal with their spending, and so has Father. On another note, first orbital battle station is complete…”

I nod, already imagining the possibility of dockyards to rival those of Venus or Ganymede. We speak at length before she must leave. “I love you, husband,” she says softly as the holo fades. Her golden eyes flicker with sadness before the image vanishes, the toll of distance weighing on us both. I feel it as sharply as she does. I rest a while before preparing to march. The field calls to me, promising the clarity of battle in place of the ache of separation from my wife and son. In the plaza, I find Ragnar and Aeneas waiting.

“The cohort is suited and ready, sir,” Aeneas reports.

I motion for him to follow into a fitting bay, where I don my armour and address my men. We board a transport and fly east, six hundred kilometres towards the mountains. Our prey is an amalgamation of Golds from Falthe vassals, leading some three thousand men within a fifty-kilometre radius. They are twice our number, but weary and unsupplied. My Winged Legion, forged and tempered over the last year to rival the Praetorians themselves, is ready. My Obsidians and Grays, handpicked from the elite of their races, can hold their own against Golds. And my Golds, hardened killers all, are honed daily under my eye with relentless training and conditioning.

We disembark quickly. The transport activates its camouflage, lying in wait for our return. My force divides into teams and fan out in search of the enemy. I advance with Aeneas and Ragnar, along with five Golds, ten Obsidian Venatores, and thirty Grays. We lope across the terrain in our StarShells, following coordinates that lead us to a company resting by a stony brook. A hundred men: more than half Obsidian, the rest Gold. Not a single Gray among them.

My Grays take point, moving silently into position. From the cover of trees, their MultiRifles crackle, dropping the first Obsidians before the enemy even realises the attack has begun. Chaos spreads through the brookside camp. I surge forward, razor flashing and fall upon them like a blade through silk. I move through their ranks like a dancer, every strike precise, every step measured, cutting down warriors who scarcely see the blade before it parts them. Behind me, my Venatores descend, grim and efficient. They hunt first their own kin, the Obsidians, felling them without hesitation. Then they turn their modified ForcePikes on the Golds, and even razors cannot save them. Last, my Golds fall on them in a storm, the massacre swift and absolute.

That done, we move on to the next coordinates, already my mind clear and tension relieved.

***

An Olympic

I watch Darrow au Augustus cut through the Falthe rabble, finishing them off before they even know what befell them. The reports did not exaggerate; he is a master of the razor. My hand strays to the hilt of mine, eager to test myself against him in battle, yet I resist. I am no Aja au Grimmus. He is elegant in his killing, moving among them as though dancing the Polemides, the Golden dance of war.

The rest of his pack is equally formidable. They finish whatever he leaves behind in his wake, brutally efficient as they move in perfectly synchronised teams. His so-called Obsidian Venatores, armed with ForcePikes and heavy Aegis, bring down Golds with unnerving ease. It is clear they have been trained against razors, deftly evading strikes and moving with a quickness that suggests familiarity with the basic tenets of Kravat. A shiver runs through me as I consider the lengths that boy will go to in order to win this war; even Praetorians, Gold or otherwise, would falter before those slave-knights.

His Grays, meanwhile, drive the enemy straight into his killing path with disciplined volleys from their rifles, themselves far removed from danger. He wields his forces with ruthless precision, securing minimal losses for maximum reward. At last, I begin to understand how he conquered Earth with such apparent ease.

“Such a skilful little weasel, that one,” my companion notes next to me as we watch the Reaper of Mars move on, seeking his next target.

***

Darrow

We complete the hunt, our prey utterly decimated. I gather my men and lead them back to Agra, the task finished. We arrive just as the sun begins to sink. The sky blazes in molten hues of orange and crimson, streaked with purple clouds that hang like banners across the horizon. Our ship descends onto the AeroTerrace bathed in the last gold of daylight, the marble beneath us glowing as though lit from within. I dismiss the cohort with a word and return to my chamber, weary yet content. A hot bath washes away the dust of battle, a hearty meal fills my belly, and for a brief moment the creeping night feels almost gentle.

Reports from New Sparta, dispatches from distant fronts, I read until my eyes blur. Soon exhaustion claims me, and I prepare for rest. Before lying down, I check for Sevro: he has not returned. Sleep comes quickly.

A sound stirs me. The faint shuffle of boots just beyond my door. I reach instinctively for my razor and aegis, slipping into ScarabSkin in a practiced blur. My breath slows, my heartbeat steadying as I steel myself. Silence presses in. No voices, no movement. Too quiet. A jammer perhaps? The thought coils like a snake in my mind. If anyone sought me openly, Ragnar or Aeneas would already stand at my door. This, this is something else.

Part of me urges action, to burst forth and meet whatever waits. Another counsels restraint. The pause stretches, a taut wire on the verge of snapping. Finally, I yield, easing the door open inch by inch. The reception is still. Shadows breathe against the stone, stretching long in the dim glow of the sconces. For a moment, there is nothing, only silence, heavy and suffocating. My fingers tighten on the razor.

Then the air shifts, subtle but indubitable. I focus. My ears catch the slow whisper of wind slipping through narrow vents, the faintest stir against my ScarabSkin. Beneath my boots, the marble seems to sigh with a soft vibration, as though weight has shifted across it just out of sight. My nostrils flare. The tropical night presses in, heavy with the scent of blooming jasmine and stone cooling under the stars. Each detail sharpens in my mind, a mosaic of warning.

A presence lingers, unseen yet undeniable.

At last, a feline voice slithers through the quiet, smooth and venomous.

“Hello, Reaper,” it purrs.

My blood chills.

Chapter Text

Darrow

I fall instinctively into the Summer Hold, one of the first stances I learned of the Willow Way, razor and aegis held close. From the shadows steps Aja au Grimmus, Protean Knight of the Society, daughter of the Ash Lord and Fury of the Sovereign. Her razor shimmers faintly as she emerges, and my stomach knots. Fear creeps in despite myself, Lorn’s warning echoing like a drumbeat in my skull: Never fight a river, and never fight Aja.

I push the fear back down, forcing my mind to sharpen. This will be a fight to the death.

“Ragnar!” I call, urgency cutting through my voice.

Aja only chuckles, twirling the hilt of her razor with an ease that belies its weight. She slides into the Winter Stance, her movements smooth, predatory.

“I have watched you, Reaper,” she says as we begin to circle one another. Her tone is measured, her eyes glittering with amusement. “From afar and up close. At the Gala, on Europa with Lorn, on Mars during your Rain. In my home, in New Sparta, and now here in the foothills of the Himalayas. You have impressed me, Darrow.”

She smiles, flashing white teeth that gleam like a challenge.

I had already sent out a distress signal throughout the Taj, but I suspect the JamField was active before I could act. I am well and truly slagged.

“Are you afraid, boy?” she asks softly.

I fortify myself, summoning every scrap of control, and step forward.

Aja moves first, her razor unravelling into whip form with a whispering hiss, the blade shimmering with the colours of a nebula as it lashes low for my ankle then climbs in the same motion toward my throat. I pivot, aegis flaring ion-blue on my left arm as my pure white blade answers, rigid and bright. Metal meets with a hammering clash that rattles through my bones. The whip skims my cheek, carving a shallow line, and the taste of blood rises on my tongue. Already the whip stiffens into a lance that jabs for my ribs. I parry, the impact jarring up through my shoulder. She flows like water, each strike blending seamlessly into the next, every motion a question I can barely answer. My guard holds, but only just.

She teases with precision, every blow calculated not to kill but to measure, to corner, to mock. There is a faint curl to her lips, as if she is lecturing a child. I yield ground, boots scuffing stone, the Summer Hold shrinking under her storm. Her blows come in patient salvos, always a hair faster than my responses, a cadence that threatens to drown me. Between clangs she speaks, voice soft and precise.

“Fear makes you sharp, Darrow, but sharpness without flow is brittle.”

The words strike like a verdict, hollowing the margin I cling to, and beneath them beats the relentless rhythm of her assault, a tempo that will break me if I try to meet it with strength alone.

I force myself to breathe with her rhythm, to stop answering each blow as it comes and instead feel the current of her assault. My parries grow less frantic, the white arc of my razor finding angles rather than absorbing punishment. I catch the whip before it can coil free, twist it aside, and drive a riposte close enough to make her twist at the waist. It is not grace but stubborn will, and still I feel the strain in every sinew. Yet it is enough to slow her advance.

For the first time her smile sharpens, genuine amusement flickering in her eyes.

“Better,” she says, her razor recoiling into whip-form with an effortless snap. “Perhaps Lorn was too rigid for you. Perhaps I should have been your teacher.”

Our little dance is cut short when the door bursts inward, five figures crashing through in a blur of metal. In the instant it takes my mind to adjust, I catalogue the three strangers who untangle themselves by their armour: the Storm Knight, the Death Knight, and the newly appointed Hearth Knight. They separate from Ragnar and Valdir, my greatest Obsidians, who stand braced in defiance.

Three more Olympics! By the vale, Octavia wants me dead.

Panic rises, fear alchemising into pure horror. Ragnar and Valdir race to my side as the Olympics close ranks around Aja. She looks displeased at the intrusion but conceals it swiftly, razor angled and ready. I feel some temporary relief with my two Obsidian knights here. I lean close, voice pitched low, whispering for Ragnar and Valdir to keep Aja at bay while I face the other three.

Aja notices the shift and yields the centre, slipping aside with calculated grace. With a flick of her hand she signals the Olympics forward, claiming her ground opposite Ragnar and Valdir where the angle suits her best.

My mismatched tango begins at once. The Storm Knight barrels toward me, broad-shouldered and heavyset, his dark grey armour lit with sullen arcs of static as though a storm were caged beneath the plates. His swings are brutish and relentless, each one straining my guard with sheer force.

To his flank moves the Death Knight, shorter and leaner than me. Clad in sleek black, he slides through the fray with precise, surgical thrusts, his razor never wasted, always angling for the soft joint or the open rib.

Then comes the Hearth Knight, shorter than Aja but built solid and stocky, her armour burning with the bright hue of flames. She drives me back with chopping blows, hammering in rhythm with Storm’s heavier strikes, her style fierce and unyielding.

I parry, twist, and yield, my aegis sparking blue with each impact as I cede ground in half-steps, the white of my blade flashing to intercept three at once. Their rhythm builds quickly, Storm pressing high, Hearth carving low, Death sliding between them like a knife through cloth. It is less a duel and more a hunt, their coordination forcing me into constant retreat. Still, I hold, battered and driven, my blade answering by instinct as the air fills with the crackle of armour, the hiss of razors, and the hammering thunder of three killers working in concert.

The Olympics close in, and already my arms are lined with shallow cuts, crimson seeping through rents in my ScarabSkin. None fatal, yet each sting reminds me how close I am to being ended here, in this chamber, forgotten. A renewed surge of panic rises, whispering that it is over, that I will fall as so many before me.

I bite it back, forcing myself to remember Mustang’s eyes, her soft laugh, her beautiful face. And Pax, my little boy, the young lion of Mars. I remember my promise that I must live to see them again. That promise steadies me, enough to draw breath and stand my ground.

Lorn’s words echo from memory, a calm voice beneath the clash of steel: no attack opens when a man allows himself to be pushed backward. And layered atop them, Aja’s taunt returns unbidden, that sharpness without flow is brittle.

I seize both lessons, moulding them into one. My feet circle instead of retreating, my blade begins to anticipate rather than merely parry, and at last I catch the rhythm of the storm. Their razors come quick, yet mine is there, answering, deflecting, redirecting. For the first time, the tide tilts, ever so slightly, in my favour.

It does not last. A feint from the Death Knight draws me wide, and Storm’s bulk barrels in with a hammering blow that knocks the breath from my lungs. The flow shatters, my stance collapses inward, and once more I am scrambling to survive beneath their press.The panic I had mastered comes surging back, and I taste blood in my mouth as I give ground.

Out of the corner of my eye I steal a glance. Valdir and Ragnar are still on their feet, bodies battered, faces hard, their ForcePikes and large aegis clashing with Aja’s nebula-blade in furious arcs. They bleed, yet they endure. Any other Obsidians would already be dead, and most Golds too, but these two carve seconds from the impossible. It should give me hope, yet it only drives home the truth: even titans can be ground down beneath Aja au Grimmus.

The three press me mercilessly, their razors a blur of whip and lance, and I feel the circle shrinking, the air burning from my lungs. Storm hammers at my guard, Death’s black blade needles in from the side, and Hearth’s short, brutal arcs seek to trap me low. My defence buckles.

In that moment, with the weight of defeat bearing down, I choose betrayal over death. I break my word to Romulus au Raa. My body lowers, shoulders angling, and I let my white blade fall into the alien cadence I swore never to reveal. The stance is one I have studied only in secret: Shadowfall, the hidden art of the Rim.

It is not pure. I have no hasta to spear, no kitari at my hip. What I summon is a bastard hybrid, Willow Way threading through the bones of Shadowfall. The shift is abrupt, unnatural to their eyes. My guard drops open where it should be tight, feet shuffling with Rim-born economy instead of Core flourish. The razors of my assailants hesitate.

Their rhythm falters as they struggle to read angles they have never trained to counter. I strike to kill, each movement forcing them back half a step, the whip of Death sliding wide, the hammer of Storm grazing past instead of crushing through.

For the first time in the melee, it is they who must defend, caught between a style they do not know and a flow they cannot predict. Untested though it is, the graft of Willow Way and Shadowfall buys me what I need most; time to live another breath.

The rhythm builds inside me, each step sharper, each cut harder, until fear itself hardens into something fierce. I drive forward, white blade blurring between whip and rigid form, letting the unusual cadence of Shadowfall carry me.

Storm roars and heaves his massive form at me, armour like thunderclouds rolling, but for once he is the slower tide. I slip his guard with a low feint and rise viciously, my razor shearing up through his helm. His head parts cleanly from his shoulders in a spray of blood, his body staggering before crumpling like felled stone.

Death and Hearth falter, stunned, and with their hesitation comes retreat. Ragnar and Valdir, bloodied but unbowed, break from Aja’s storm and fall back to my flank, their presence a wall of iron at my side.

The circle stills. Opponents and allies alike draw breath and measure what remains. My chest heaves, my blade drips red, and in the sudden quiet, Aja steps forward a pace, her nebula-lit razor alive in her hand. Her gaze lingers, not on Storm’s corpse but on the lines of my stance, on the strange graft of movements still taut in my muscles.

“That style,” she says at last, voice carrying cool through the chamber. “It is foreign. Your execution is raw, but I have never seen it’s like. Tell me, Reaper, is it Shadowfall you have stolen?”

At that, the clash reignites with brutal immediacy, three against three in a storm of steel and will. My white razor hisses and cracks against Death’s sleek black blade, each strike answered in kind as sparks shower the air.

Beside me Ragnar’s ForcePike thrusts and sweeps, keeping Aja’s razor at bay in wide arcs, while Valdir bellows with each hammering blow, his sheer strength driving Hearth backward. The circle becomes a furnace of sound; metal on metal, whips snapping, armour splitting until all rhythm collapses into raw survival.

Every exchange feels like a crescendo, as if the very walls cannot contain the violence we conjure. Valdir falters first. A lance of black razor punches across his chest, and though his armour slows the cut, the force sends him crashing to the ground. His breath rasps once before his eyes roll back. He does not rise.

Rage flares in me, but there is no time to mourn. He lies unconscious, out of the fight, and the circle tightens cruelly without him. Ragnar roars with renewed fury, his mastery made manifest. He twists his ForcePike with deceptive grace, the haft baiting Aja’s guard before its tip bites into her side, through her armour, drawing a spray of blood.

She barely flinches, but Ragnar is already in motion. With a sudden shift of weight, his gait alters, and he wheels the weapon in a wide arc that takes Death off his feet and then a savage thrust that drives clean through Hearth’s helm. The bright armour splits with a hideous crack, her body collapsing even as the ForcePike pulls free. Pride surges hot in my chest. I want to howl, to shout with triumph for him, but the moment shatters in a heartbeat.

Aja moves like a phantom, her razor a nebula streak, and Ragnar’s head parts from his shoulders. His body remains upright for a heartbeat longer, then topples with a crash that echoes in the pit of my soul.

My lungs seize. Breath comes ragged and shallow until it feels as though the air itself has abandoned me. I stare at Ragnar’s fallen form, my pulse a hammer in my skull, and the pit of grief twists sickeningly in my gut. Anguish claws up my throat as if to choke me, and the room around me narrows to a blur of colour and sound. I feel hollow, as if my ribs are prised apart and something vital spills from me. Shock leaves my limbs leaden, my thoughts flailing between despair and rage. The world has lost its order, and all I can taste is the bitterness of hopelessness.

At last I cry out, hopeless. Ragnar’s name tears itself from my throat, but he is not there. No. NO! This cannot be happening. It just cannot. Warm, saline tears streak down my cheeks, turning red as they mix with the blood already clinging to my face. Ragnar, my brother, one of the few who knew my truth, is dead.

I feel numb.

From the edge of my vision I see Death stir, trying to rise, yet I am adrift in a daze. The exhaustion and bruising flood back, my will to hold them off fraying, then failing altogether. I hear Aja’s footsteps approaching, unhurried despite the gash in her side. Her razor drags along the floor with a low metallic scrape, and her throaty laugh echoes through the now silent chamber.

“I told you, Reaper,” she drawls, voice almost playful, “Sharpness without flo—”

A surge of anger bursts through me. I lunge at her neck in a last, feeble attempt, but she flicks my blade aside as though swatting an insect and drives her shimmering razor deep into my thigh. I howl, feeling every fibre of the polyene tear and burn within me, a molten line of agony that seems to set bone and muscle alight.

The razor still lodged in my flesh, she grips my face in her armoured hand as I once gripped her sister’s. The nail of her index finger lengthens, a slender needle of a blade sliding out with surgical precision. She drives it through my cheek into my mouth and straight into my jaw. White-hot pain detonates through my skull, a blinding, excruciating pulse that obliterates thought and sight. I taste iron and copper as my nerves wilt; every heartbeat is a hammer blow against my teeth.

When she withdraws it, my body collapses, limp yet unwillingly conscious. Through a blur of blood and tears I watch her disable the JamField. The Death Knight, now standing, drags me to the balcony. On GravBoots he floats up into the cold night air, my body secured to his with a bridle strap, and into the waiting stealth ship.

In my wordless despair, I struggle to grasp how everything could have gone so wrong, and no answer comes.

Chapter Text

Octavia au Lune, Dictator of the Society of Man, addresses the system from the Oculus Sphere in Hyperion. Her ageless face is smooth and unblemished. She wears the Dancing Mask now, composure a second skin. Dressed in Gold, the symbol of the Society, a golden pyramid with three parallel bars attached to the pyramid’s three faces, a circle surrounding all, emblazoned on her gown.

“...hear me speak, listen now to your Sovereign. Darrow au Augustus, the Reaper of Mars, is captured. Heed me now, usurpers of Mars, listen to me, sons and daughters of the Rim, your war is finished. Your general is captured and your armies spread thin. Surrender now, honour the Compact of the Society once more.”

On Mars, the people march in the streets, SlingBlades in hand, waving standards of the wolf and scythe and the lion of Augustus. They shout “Reaper! Reaper!” and cover the streets with blood-red Haemanthus petals. They make long pilgrimages to Agea, forgetting their work and abandoning their responsibilities. Pinks and Browns, Greens and Yellows, even Gray enforcers and scores of HighReds. Colour is forgotten and quickly replaced by planetary pride; a son of Mars has been captured.

Earth, too, beats with the drums of rebellion. The Colours, those who have long experienced the oppression of the Grimmus and Falthe, rise. They rally to feed the Martians, they gather to repair ships and fashion weapons that will be aimed straight into the heart of Luna. In the Rim, there is a renewed vigour. The Poet is hard pressed as the normally cautious Rim recklessly prosecute their war, inspired by the Reaper. On Io, the children sing songs of protest, men and women burn effigies of Octavia au Lune.

Around the system, on most spheres, there is outcry. Those who pray to gods petition in earnest for his rescue. Those who only believe in steel don their armour and employ their long forgotten weapons. The Reaper of Mars has stood up to the tyranny of Luna, the savagery of Hyperion, the decadence of the Palatine. He is salvation from the stagnant rule of House Lune, a Conqueror reborn, a true Iron Gold.

***

Lysander

I watch my grandmother finish her address and the mask she wears slips off as the HoloCam is switched off. The Greens, under tight supervision, are ushered out of her office. I sit in a corner of the room, observing everything; I am only ten but grandmother insists. My godfather, the Ash Lord, speaks softly to her as Moira, his daughter and one of my grandmother’s Furies, lambasts her Politicos on one issue or another. The room is a hive of activity, an array of holos active and processing information by the tonne, from all the Spheres. The Reaper has been captured by the Protean Knight. The Cloud and Morning Knight, as well as the Ash Lord’s youngest daughter, have been rescued from New Sparta.

On Venus, the Saud were massacred in their sleep. The prestigious house, descended from a royal family of old Earth and famed infantry purveyors, has been decimated and their names struck off the roll of Golden families. Only two remain: The Joy Knight, Marcus au Saud, and his sister, the crafty Dido au Raa. The Joy Knight is imprisoned deep in the bedrock of Endymion’s Selene prison; Dido decries the injustice to all who listen. The Carthii, now the only real power on Venus, work their dockyards day and night in preparation to join the Solar War.

“How long till they reach the rendezvous point, Magnus?” my grandmother asks the Ash Lord.
“Soon, Octavia,” he answers, a tinge of irritation slipping through.

Of all the people I have met, only he could speak to grandmother that way. She smiles at him in apology, but it looks more like a grimace. Kalindora au San, my favourite among the protection detail that constantly guards me, listens keenly to the conversation. Her father, the Love Knight, as well as the Truth and new Wind Knight, were on Venus to assist the Carthii in their little coup.

On the other side of the room, behind the bustle, another woman sits observing everything and everyone. Her face is beautiful, only marred by her Peerless scar; her golden hair falls in thick waves to her waist. She wears only the blue of her family standard, as has been her custom since coming to Luna, accented by white and gold. Julia au Bellona, Princeps Senatus of the Senate, sips her wine. For a woman who lost everything save her son, she is brutal and efficient in her games here on Luna. It is said that when she was young she pursued her cousin Tiberius with such tenacity that dozens of his admirers fell in the Bleeding Place to her razor for perceived slights.

“What is your plan for Terra?” Praetor Antonius au Severus asks the Ash Lord. He stands with Vitoria au Fabii, mother of the Poet and wartime liaison of the Senate to the Dictator. While my grandmother has full wartime powers, the Senate must still be kept in the loop on any decision. That is only a formality in truth; Octavia au Lune has run roughshod over the Senate even before she was voted Dictator.

“If they do not capitulate, it may have to be another Rhea,” the Ash Lord answers smoothly without turning to the two. His voice is even as he says it, as if it will be just another task to complete. Praetor Antonius only nods thoughtfully, weighing the merits of such an action. He is a cold man, ruthless in more ways than one. Vitoria, on the other hand, looks mortified. She does not say much, but I see some doubt creep onto her face. Have I chosen the right side?

The bombardment of Earth would do two things in addition to annihilating more than half of the three and a half billion lives there. First, it would exterminate the most seasoned Martian warriors who are also the most ardent supporters of the Reaper. It would cripple Mars, and in all likelihood push the Rim to abandon their war in the Core. If they did so, Mars would fall in a week, Scorpio au Votum would likely give up this farce and Mercury would fall in line. With Helium-3 back in Society hands, the dockyards of Venus ready for use and the minerals of Mercury freely flowing, the Rim would not be able to withstand the invasion that would follow.

The second would be a psychological shockwave so great House Lune may stand unchallenged for a thousand years. We would cultivate a reputation for brutality that would cow the boldest of enemies. It might even curb the Gold appetite for war. It would be a rescinding of the mercy we once showed Earth, nearly a millennium gone. I sit with this analysis, thinking it through, changing the variables as grandmother has taught me.

“Lysander,” grandmother calls out without turning from her study of the holos. “What would happen if we were to go ahead with a full-scale orbital bombardment of Earth?” she asks. The language she uses already lessens the weight of such an action. It ceases to be another Rhea and becomes just another strike in the course of this Solar War, like all the wars before it.

I quickly stand up, recounting my analysis to the gathered Golds who all listen. The Ash Lord smiles proudly, Praetor Severus nods approvingly, Moira looks on with respect while Vitoria looks around, puzzled, as though she was the only one not told of this great plan. The woman can be a wise simpleton at times. Only Julia does not react.

“Good, but you are not finished!” Her voice cracks like a whip, causing Vitoria to flinch, startled. I do not react, only pausing to complete the analysis.
“The alternative would be system wide rebellion on all the Spheres. Any house not tethered to Luna by alliance or ransom would rebel in protest. We would lose not just Mars and the Rim but Mercury as well. Venus will be racked by insurrection as surely as Luna will.”
“Lysander,” she adds almost in warning. “The chances of the latter are significantly lower, there is already fatigue from the ongoing war. The houses of the Senate would only denounce the action. We would still fight the Rim, anyway, and Mercury would not dare to rebel without the ensuing chaos. We already face lowColour insurrection and it will only get worse, as we have seen, with the Reaper’s capture; it cannot be a decisive factor in how to move forward.”

Finally, she turns, a small smile on her lips. “Vitoria?” she inquires of the woman, a veiled dare for her to say otherwise. She remains silent.

The discussion continues, further debates on the plan and other courses of action. At last, the topic of Darrow comes up and, for the first time, Julia au Bellona speaks.
“I want his head!”

***

Mustang

I pace the meeting room of the citadel in Agea, waiting for any news about my husband. He was reported missing from his quarters in the Taj a few hours after we spoke. Ragnar’s headless body, bloody pools and an unconscious Valdir were the only signs that anyone had been there. I fight to stay afloat, to stay strong for Pax, for the Alliance, for the Sons, but it is hard.

Niobe speaks to Kavax and Daxo via holo somewhere to my left, coordinating with my father’s forces closer to Luna and Earth. Agrippina au Julii circles a map of Earth, discussing the news with the widows of House Arcos. Quicksilver occupies a corner of the room, reserved and unobtrusive in the company of his betters. A beautiful Pink, who he publicly fraternises with more than propriety would allow, is at his side. These are the new powers on Mars.

“It shall be well, Virginia,” Niobe says as she turns from the fading holo.

I only nod, shoving worry into the recesses of my mind. Instead, I let my mind work, sorting through contingencies, cataloguing our resources and using information from the Sons as well as the Alliance to formulate a plan. I may not be able to save my husband, the father of my son, but I may be able to keep the Alliance from fracturing.
“Have the Greens prepare to broadcast, Niobe,” I say with cold efficiency. “Regulus, I need my message on every gorydamn HC in this system.”

***

“Denizens of the Alliance, my husband, your Imperator and the greatest son of Mars has been captured by the tyrant Octavia au Lune. Just as she did at the decennial Summit of the Society, she has abandoned the Compact and named herself Dictator. She continues to sully this system, our home, with her insolence.

…daughters of Mars, I beseech you, sons of Ilium, I urge you; resist this despot. Fight for your future, for your freedom. Like our iron ancestors fell against the decadence of Old Earth, prosecute this war to its end. End the blight that is Luna, finish off the scourge that is House Lune. In this time of uncertainty, hold steadfast to our righteous cause. Stand firm and fight! Fight for your children, fight for your mothers and fathers, fight for honour!”

Chapter Text

Darrow

“Atalantia! Stop that!” A familiar voice cuts through the haze. I am sore, bruised, beaten and bloody. My body is still half-numb, but I feel the hard kick to my shin. A feeble moan slips from me, blood and spittle dripping down my chin. I do not know where I am, only that I may not live much longer.

After the Death Knight hauled me onto their stealth ship, they bound me in durosteel manacles and locked me in a makeshift cell, guarded by Praetorians. Still paralyzed, I was stunned to find Sevro inside. Gagged and restrained, his golden eyes burned frantic until he recognized me. I could not move or speak, only watch.

Anxiety gnawed at me in the hours that followed. What was happening on Terra? Was New Sparta still ours? Were my forces intact? Had the Ash Lord outmanoeuvred me? Every question hollowed me further. Whenever I tried to force my mind elsewhere, it fell back to Ragnar, and the tears came unbidden. Sevro only studied me, eyes full of restless questions.

Atalantia appeared next, haggard but free. Rage surged. I wanted to hurl myself at her, tear out her throat with my bare hands. But I could not move. And in truth, my anger was not for her but her sister, Aja. Still, I would have taken any Grimmus I could reach. Atalantia mocked me with a laughter too manic to be sane. As sensation began to return to my body, Aja entered the cell. Then everything went black.

***

“We need him alive, girl.” Aja’s voice snaps me awake. Sensation floods back. I am in a bright, endless chamber similar to the one I spoke to Cassius in. Aja, Atalantia, and two Whites surround me. Aja wears the armour of the Protean Knight. Atalantia, in black fatigues adorned with the Grimmus skull, looks feral and unhinged despite being clean and restored. The Whites stand behind them, ritual gowns stark against their instruments of torture. I must have been under for days.

“Hello, Reaper,” Aja says, her smile cruel. “How was your little nap?”

I fight the instinct to thrash, forcing my body still, schooling my face to calm. A wry smile edges across my lips, defiance smouldering in my eyes.

“I will break you, Augustus,” Atalantia snarls in outrage. “I will strip that smile from your lips. You’ll beg for mercy, for death, and I will not grant it. You’ll howl, dog! You will weep till no tears remain. Once your coup collapses and your Martian rabble scatters, I’ll make you watch as I peel the skin off, first your wife , then your little mutt. I’ll hang your generals from the red hills of Mars. You will know me, Reaper. You will know the wrath of a Grimmus scorned.”

She whirls about and storms out, the door sealing shut before I glimpse what lies beyond. Aja watches her go, then steps close until I smell the cold tang of her armour. “I am far more gentle,” she whispers, voice almost caressing. “Tell me, Darrow, who are you?”

The words chill me. I keep my face blank, but when she departs, my mind reels. Do they know? Is this my end? The Alliance, Virginia, Pax, all of it, would collapse if I am unmasked. What of Nero, when he learns his son was a lowly slave who dared rise? Panic threatens to consume me.

The Whites begin their work. A FleshPeeler glints before my bare skin, grotesque vials and contraptions await. But fear is gone. Since my Triumph, I have trained for this: conditioning against torture, against drugs, against pain. With access to better aureate genetic material, Mickey Carved me anew. He perfected an already flawless creation with traits from long-lost gens, refining his masterpiece. My DNA still bore the markers of Andromedus, but he had made me more. Enough to rival the families of the Conquering.

***

Cassius

My rescue from New Sparta was swift. Olympics, flanked by Praetorians, spirited us away without a fight. My arrival on Luna was anything but. What remained of my family’s clients filled the AeroTerrace of our estate. At the front stood my mother, poised and beautiful as ever. Her face betrayed nothing, but when she embraced me, I felt her tension ease. I was home.

After the fanfare, the guests departed for Hyperion, leaving only my mother and me. We ate in silence, our words sparse. Our bond has strained since the annihilation of our house. I do not say it, but resentment simmers, for I blame her as much as myself. She pushed our feud too far, daring to tangle with Nero. In hindsight, we loosed a storm neither of us foresaw. Father was right: better I had died at the Gala than lived through what followed.

A question gnaws: does she know Octavia ordered our slaughter? I do not ask. My mother is no fool. Could such a truth elude her? Still, I bury the thought. Inevitably, my mind drifts to Darrow.

“What is it, Cassius?” she asks, calm as ever, her fork steady.
“Nothing, Mother,” I lie, too quickly. “Just remembering Earth.”

She considers pressing, but lets it die. After dinner we part for our chambers. In mine, a bath awaits, along with two Roses, the finest of Pink stock. They undress me, bathe me, knead my tense muscles. At first I flinch, but then yield to their touch. Even so, my mind is far from them. It drifts back to Darrow.

Since the Institute, I despised him. After the civil war, I hated him utterly. But the fear in his eyes when he saw me in that cell, the hesitation, the boyish openness, I cannot shake it. It reminded me of House Mars, when I called him brother. That look haunts me still, unravelling six years of hatred thread by thread.

***

Octavia

I sit with Adrius au Augustus at my country retreat, Silene Manor. Generations of Lunes have fled Hyperion’s pressures here, to the forests of Noctis and the shores of Lake Silene. Once our House was vast, but centuries ago an insurrection from within thinned our line. My progenitors discovered that infighting would be our downfall. Since then, we number few, surviving by cunning and balance, playing the Houses of the Senate to ensure a Lune always sits on the Morning Chair. Now, for the first time since Silenius fell upon Earth, our rule trembles.

The Jackal sits opposite me, gaunt from exile, eyes hollow, unScarred still. A boy, but dangerous. Darrow’s rise catapulted them all, friend and foe alike, onto the grand stage: Cassius, the youngest Olympic; Virginia, the youngest ArchGovernor; the Poet, the youngest Imperator. And the Jackal, his place earned by blood and proximity.

We sit in silence until Winchester, my Brown servant, departs, leaving us our wine. Adrius crosses his legs, watching me like a viper.

“What do you intend to do with Darrow?” he asks at last.

“Your brother,” I say deliberately, seeking to provoke. He does not flinch. “Will be tortured until he gives me what I want.”

“And what is it you want, Dictator?”

“The truth.”

He arches a brow, sly smile curling. “Truth? That is subjective. I’d have thought you wanted names, plans, contingencies. But truth, truth is dangerous.”

I wave away the game, not in the mood to play. “What do you know of the family Andromedus?”

His smile sharpens. “A minor Martian house, once clients to the Aquillus, if memory serves. Linus and Lexus, both Shamed, fled to the Belt before their son was born when their debts caught up to them. Became hayseeds, ran a mining venture that collapsed,” he pauses, taking another sip of his wine. “Quicksilver bought their mines and claims. Their ship crashed before they could return. That is all I know.”

“You are correct, Adrius,” I begin. “But there is more. The Board of Quality Control keeps records of every birth in the system. While that function is devolved to the planets, I still keep a ledger of my own. I like to know where to invest my energies,” I say, reaching for a folder. “I have a Caius au Andromedus. Son of Linus and Lexus. Parents disgraced, education unknown, height unknown, age—”

“Unknown,” Adrius finishes with me, smile widening.

“So then, Jackal,” I lean closer, voice low. “Who is Darrow au Andromedus?”

Chapter Text

Darrow

The torture has been endless. Time blurs and distorts in my mind. Has it been a day? Five? I no longer know. I feel nothing now. My nerves are frayed, my body pushed beyond its limits, yet I am still alive. My first Carving was brutal. My heart stopped twice and they had to revive me. This feels like child’s play in comparison.

I am confined in a cell designed to disorient and exhaust. Balls of light flash at irregular intervals across the walls, floor and ceiling. Every time my heart slows, a dose of epinephrine surges through my veins, followed by violent tremors beneath my feet. It is worse than the Whites. All I want is sleep.

My thoughts drift to Sevro. Unlike me, he is of no use to Octavia, dead or alive. They will probably hand him to Atalantia. Will she kill him? Tears spring unbidden at the thought. I cannot lose another of my friends, my brother. I have mourned Ragnar day and night. I had hoped to free his people from the Ice, to watch him reunite with his sister Sefi, to see him embrace his mother, the Snowsparrow. That will never happen now. I wanted him to watch Pax grow, to take him to Lykos once more. But Ragnar is dead.

The door hisses open and Praetorian Obsidians march in. They seize me roughly, indifferent to the open wounds covering my body. A Gray at the entrance pulls a hood over my head, the same kind used in the Passage. I cannot tell where I am going, only that I am moving. We halt abruptly and I am shoved into a chair. Pain shoots through me and I groan.

“Take off the hood,” a smooth, familiar voice commands. I know that voice. I heard it in the mines of Lykos urging me on as one of the first pioneers of Mars. I heard it when I first came to the surface, to Agea. It spoke of Gold virtue at the Gala and directed my duel to the Bleeding Place. It is Octavia au Lune.

The hood is removed and the scene before me is dreadful. Octavia stands at the centre. Behind her, Magnus au Grimmus, the Ash Lord, watches me with arms folded like I am a curiosity at the Gibbous Zoo. Aja stands with Praetor Severus to her left and next to him is Julia au Bellona. I quickly look past her to the Truth and Love Knight guarding the door further back.

“Brother,” someone calls from behind me. A sudden chill runs down my spine at the sound. It is like a snake sliding unseen through tall grass around my feet. The Jackal.

I try to turn my head but the restraints force it forward. I settle back, refusing to show fear. Footsteps approach then a bony hand caresses my neck. I shudder involuntarily at the touch, alien and wrong. Finally, he moves around in front of me and I see his face. He has changed, thin and spindly as he was at the Institute. Yet his eyes still gleam with the same perfidious hunger. They study me, eager to glean every secret. I look away.

He seizes my face, fingers biting into my jaw, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Have you not missed me?” he taunts. I summon what strength remains and spit in his face. It is petty of me, but I loathe him. He is a liar, a backstabber, a traitor to his own blood. He wipes the spittle away with a casual flick of his hand, then strikes me so hard my ears ring.

“Enough,” Octavia commands. The Jackal steps back but his gaze still burns with fury.

“I will not waste time, Darrow,” she says. “Who are you?” Her voice carries through the room, heavy and deliberate. I have dreaded this question since the day I looked upon my new Gold body in that apartment in Yorkton. It is an insidious kind of fear, one that worms its way into the subconscious and steers every choice. The kind that never truly fades. Now I face that distant fear and I dread that I will break beneath it.

“Are you Caius?” she presses. “Or did you steal his identity?”

I do not reply only staring at her, defiant and unyielding.

“Aja,” Octavia says, gesturing. The Protean Knight taps her datapad and a holo flickers into being above us. Sevro, or what is left of him, hangs suspended by hooks through his hands, like game in a butcher’s shop. He is crusted with dried blood, his head bowed under the weight of defeat.

No. Goblin. Not like this.

Anguish swells inside me. Must I choose between my best friend and all the Bloodydamn worlds? Should I abandon my cause, my people, my family for him, for the boy who was always loyal even when he had no reason to be?

Suddenly he jolts awake as an electric shock, triggered by Aja, tears through him. He looks terrified and utterly alone. His eyes dart about like a hunted animal searching for its predators. My heart cracks at the sight.

“I will ask once more,” Octavia says. “Who are you?”

I set my jaw, fury rising that they would dare use him this way.

“Reaper…” Aja warns, her hand hovering over the datapad.

I remain silent.

She taps it again and the chains suspending Sevro tighten. The hooks drive deeper into his flesh. He screams, the sound raw and unearthly. I grimace, grinding my teeth, powerless to stop it. I can almost hear his flesh stretch as it tears. My stomach lurches and I vomit, bringing up only bile; they have been feeding me intravenously.

The chains cease moving and for a moment Sevro finds a flicker of relief. All eyes turn back to me, six pairs watching with cold expectation. “I will only ask once more, Darrow,” Octavia says. “You can save your friend. You can even save your men.”

“Men?” I croak weakly, startled by the assertion.

“Yes, your men, Darrow. You can save all ten million of your little Alliance back on Terra.”

My eyebrows lift in equal parts curiosity and mockery. Has the woman lost her mind? The Ash Lord and the Sceptre Armada are trapped here unless she intends to cede Luna to Nero. She smiles knowingly, reading my thoughts.

“Ah, yes, he still does not know. Aja?”

The holo shifts from Sevro to a composite of satellite images showing Earth, Luna and Venus in its revolution around the Sun. Unprecedented horror rises within me as I watch. I try to speak but choke on my words. I begin to thrash, to reach out from my seat, but I cannot. I turn to scream and nothing comes.

“Now you understand, Reaper,” Aja coos, watching my frantic struggle.

“When you moved on Earth in earnest ten months ago, Venus was near the far side of its orbit, positioned well away from the Sun in Earth’s sky,” Magnus says at last, adopting a lecturing tone. “At that time, standard observations encountered few complications, as the planet’s elongation from the Sun allowed clear visibility of the region.”

My futile attempts at escape begin to subside as he steps closer, his eyes still fixed on the holo.

“Now, Venus has reached inferior conjunction, passing directly between Earth and the Sun.”

The words fall like a hammer on glass, shattering any hope I had left. At present the Sun’s intense electromagnetic radiation floods our instruments. The extreme glare, combined with solar wind interference, creates a significant observational blind spot for ground-based telescopes and distorts those in orbit.

It is what we call the solar elongation effect, when objects close to the Sun’s apparent position become invisible against its overwhelming brightness. Our readings during this period were disrupted, concealing the approach of the ships that now awaken a primal fear within me.

“Yes, Darrow, I let you have Earth. I could have fought, defended it more, but you are like a tidal wave. I must first let you wash over me before I can master my board and ride,” he says with a chuckle.

A moonBreaker and seven dreadnoughts spearhead a small fleet on rapid approach toward Earth. This is no ordinary fleet; it is built for killing. They must have been travelling for nearly three weeks, their presence hidden within the observational blind spot. Even now, as they peel away from conjunction and emerge from the glare, their approach will not be reliably detected. Luna lies in their path, and unless my generals are vigilant, they will be dead before they understand what is upon them.

“Those ships carry scores of thirty-megaton nuclear weapons. Planet killers,” Magnus remarks with casual indifference, as if three and a half billion lives are of no consequence.

I feel hollow, as though I have drifted into a dream. This cannot be real.

“Those are far more than the Society-sanctioned five-megaton weapons we use for ship-to-ship combat,” I whisper, my voice strained and sickly. “It will be another Rhea.” The words fall with grim finality. This is it, the end. Lorn, Victra, Apollonius, my legions, my men. Aeneas.

My breathing quickens and I fight to keep from hyperventilating. A hand rests on my shoulder and I recoil; it is the Jackal.

“Tell us the truth,” he says, smiling at Octavia. “As the Nazarene once said: ‘Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”

The chamber erupts in laughter. They laugh at me, at my helplessness, at my fear. To them, those lives below mean nothing. Only Julia remains silent. She watches me with venom in her golden eyes. I meet her gaze, wondering: is this your sweet revenge?

***

Cassius

Mother returns with news that chills me to the bone. This is no longer war; it is annihilation. I sit in my suite within the Citadel, fresh from a duel. My armour of office looms upon its metal rack like a sentinel. Is this the price of preserving the Compact? I pace the chamber, my mind clouded by the choice before me. “Slag this,” I mutter, snatching up my datapad and keying in a complex code.

“Cassius, this is a surprise.”

Chapter Text

Mustang

I receive a tight-beam request through one of my contacts on Luna. It is old, one I have not used for two years. The face that appears on the holo, however, is a shock. Cassius au Bellona, Morning Knight, addresses me from Hyperion. The act alone is reckless, bordering on suicidal. The code I once gave him now bounces through a labyrinth of signal scramblers, rerouting itself along a dozen different relay nodes, each one randomly generated, before re-emerging. It is a system of constant, shifting pings, masking the origin point so thoroughly that not even the Society’s best sniffers could trace it back.

“Cassius, this is a surprise,” I say, voice steady. I am seated in my office in the Citadel of Agea, surrounded by polished basalt walls etched with soft aureate sigils of state. Cassius has changed since I last saw him. His golden eyes are sharper now, cool and quick, taking in every detail as though he were cataloguing a battlefield. His face, once boyishly handsome, has hardened, all clean angles and restrained fury. The curls of his golden hair, cropped shorter than before, cling to his brow like a laurel crown. At twenty-three, he has the beauty of a sculpted god but the wary posture of a man who has seen too much. Earth has not been kind to him, my husband’s work no less.

“Virginia,” he begins, his gaze softening despite himself. “How… how are you?” He stumbles over the words, colour rising in his cheeks.

I afford him a small, kind smile, remembering we are still children playing at gods. “I have been well, Cassius. And you?”

He smiles again, and for a heartbeat he is the boy of seventeen I chased into the lake during our first weeks at the Institute, before everything stopped being a game.

“I have seen better days, if I am being honest,” he says with a half-smile.

I laugh, genuinely, not out of habit, and am interrupted by the sound of Pax clapping in delight. He has just completed the puzzle I gave him. My son has inherited his father’s quick hands, his ability to think three steps ahead and my taste for puzzles. He may be a genius. Cassius notices him and seems to recall why he contacted me.

“It is urgent, Virginia,” he continues, his expression tightening. “Octavia means to turn Earth into another Rhea. I do not understand, but she thinks Darrow is impersonating a… Caius au Andromedus?” he asks, uncertain. “Anyway, she has a small Venusian fleet, but it carries thirty-megaton nuclear warheads. Enough to level continents at once.”

My mind reels at his words. Has Octavia lost her mind? This goes beyond war. The worlds cannot recover from this. Only sixty million died when the Ash Lord destroyed Rhea. Earth holds three and a half billion souls. Ten million of them are my husband’s troops.

I force myself to stillness, my mind already formulating a plan.

“What will you do?” Cassius asks, watching me think. He knows I am already strategizing.

“I am not sure, Cassius,” I say evenly, hoping he understands I cannot tell him more.

We speak a while longer, mostly him explaining what he believes should be done, hinting at the state of the Palatine. The holo flickers and fades.

I rise from my desk and move to Pax’s cot. He has already dismantled the puzzle and started again. Though he has only began to talk and his walk is more a totter, his mind works far above most aureate children his age. I pick him up, kissing his cheek softly. My mind whirls. Less than a week remains until the first bombs fall, if Octavia is truly mad enough to follow through.

And what of Darrow? Have they uncovered his secret? What will that mean for the Alliance, for Mars? Will my father return, seize the ArchGovernorship, and execute Pax and me as traitor and slave-child? I had clung to hope of seeing my husband again, but that hope is fading. Still, I can save his men on Earth, bring them back to Mars, and pray they stand behind me when the combined might of the Society and the Rim comes for us, if Darrow is unmasked.

The decisions before me cloud my mind and strain my judgement.

A quick knock at the door breaks my reverie. I glance at my datapad; through the hidden surveillance feed I see Quicksilver and his Pink, Matteo, waiting outside. I buzz the door open, setting Pax down and preparing to meet them.

The dark man saunters in, dressed in a silver suit cut in the flowing Agean style. Matteo is a riot of colour beside him, draped in silks and feathers that would not be out of place in Lunese high society.

“Welcome, Regulus, Matteo,” I say, motioning for them to sit.

“Virginia, I wish to speak about the war, and about your husband.”

I feel my smile tighten. Silvers are notorious for their opportunism, a trait bred into them to ensure mastery over trade and currency. The mention of my husband chills me. Instinctively, I reach for my datapad, fearing his secret has already spread across the HoloNet. Nothing appears. Both Quicksilver and Matteo watch me with puzzled expressions.

“I am sorry, I just remembered something,” I say quickly, forcing the conversation back to the war.

“I can save Darrow,” Quicksilver continues, his voice dropping into a conspirator’s tone. What he tells me works my mind until its gears creak. There is a glimmer of hope for the Reaper of Mars.

***

An hour later, I sit with Niobe, Agrippina, and the Arcos women. I recount the news of the fleet and we begin to plan our response. I have already informed my father and Romulus, yet we face another mission. Quicksilver confessed that he was part of the Sons, a revelation so astonishing I still wonder if I dreamt it. His network stretches across the Core, a web of highColour assets, and most importantly, contacts on Luna.

Together we devised a plan, drawing on our resources from Earth, Mars, and the fleets in orbit. A strike team on Earth has already moved into position, awaiting a Whisper-Class corvette, built in the Venusian dockyards and perfected on Deimos, the battle moon. It departed Phobos almost four weeks back, intended to be used by Ares during the Siege of Luna.

The Servator Martis possesses advanced cloaking technology, developed by Quicksilver in secret. A Society identification tag embedded in its systems will grant it narrow but vital safe passage into Hyperion.

I assign Agrippina and the Arcos women to coordinate the Terran retreat, while Niobe works with Kavax and Daxo to marshal the orbital fleets. Quicksilver attempts to reach Fitchner, but he is missing in action.

We labour into the night, planning, calculating, searching for every advantage. Yet as the final pieces fall into place, a sick certainty grips me. We may not be able to save everyone.

***

Victra

The news from my mother chills me. I knew war was brutal, deadly, but not like this. I assemble our command, some appearing only as flickering figures through the Holo. We had planned to entrench ourselves on Earth and strike at Luna from here. Now the speed and precision needed for this retreat will require a miracle.

As I break the news, I am startled to see a fire spark in their eyes. They are the sons and daughters of Mars. They do not cower before adversity. Even in retreat, we still savour the taste of victory. Many of us know the logistical hurdles we face mean not all will make it out.

“Gaius, Praetor Rath, gather the fleets. Apollonius, Thraxa, manage the ground forces,” I order crisply, relaying the plan. We move at once, arranging the withdrawal of ten million troops, weapons and materiel. It will be bedlam.

***

Darrow

I grind my teeth in frustration as the opioids flood my system again. They torture me, breaking the body with unimaginable pain, then offer relief while they question me. I resist them, but my fatigue deepens. Soon, I might break. The constant hammering at my defences has left me raw.

“Why did you adopt the symbol of a slingBlade?” The question, paired with the chemical balm, feels like a cool breeze in summer.

“I told you. I stole the weapon from a House Ceres brat on the second day of the Institute,” I reply wearily.

A jolt of pain cuts through me, followed by a wave of agony. The cycle continues, questions thrown at me in no order. Whites flanked by Pinks and Violets administer the interrogations, directed by Golds hidden beyond my view. When was I born? Where? How did I learn? Childhood memories. It is relentless, but I answer flawlessly, relying on the backstory the Sons crafted for me. I have no true memories of that time, but the conditioning was so thorough it feels real even to me.

The session ends. They take me down from the torture block and restrain me again. Just before the hood drops over my head, I hear a distorted Gold voice speak to the others.

“Perhaps it is time to try Pandemonium.”

Chapter Text

Octavia

It has been three days of continuous torture, and still Darrow has not broken. Even the brutalisation of his closest lieutenant, Sevro, has yielded almost nothing. He is a hard man, harder than I had anticipated. The Venusian killing fleet is now a single day from Luna and three from Earth. Soon he will speak. Soon all his secrets will be mine.

Yet I still linger on Ares. The lowColour insurrection has bled into the Core, sparing only Mars and Earth after Darrow’s conquest. The boy cannot beat the oracles, so it cannot be Nero. Could it be the boy himself? This young warlord has already carved his name among the greats. Even the Ash Lord was past forty when he burned Rhea.

Or is he something else entirely? What, I do not yet know. We have conducted a thorough assessment of his person. He bears all the markers of Andromedus. Just as the tests before the Institute revealed, he is a fine aureate specimen, so very close to our iron ancestors. It is a pity he did not join me on the night of the Gala. What a force he would have been at my side. Yet I fear his ambition. He is as hungry for conquest as Silenius and his fellows.

His unique traits are unsettlingly reminiscent of long-lost gens. Most families of the Conquering bred particular qualities into their bloodlines, each specialised to its own interest. The Grimmus prized speed and brute strength, the Augustus intellect and cunning, while the Bellona perfected beauty and agility. These traits manifest differently in each generation, their expression dependent on the individual.

Unfortunately, the data from Lexus and Linus remains sealed on Mars, far beyond my reach. Still, his unnatural resistance to poison recalls the long-dead Meritites of the Rim, and his heightened stamina and durability echo the gens Manlia of Venus. It is not odd, but it is strange. Could he be a long-lost scion of some House, raised in secret to avenge his fallen kin? I can name many who despise my House, and even my closest allies would strike me down if the chance arose. Could that be his origin? It would not be uncommon. Breeding for a purpose is tradition among the great lines. Already little Ajax shows the makings of an apex Gold, a killer for the ages, and he is only twelve.

I turn my mind from that and back to the task before me. I last used the Pandemonium Chair four years ago, on Lysander. It was not an entirely selfish act. The boy is intelligent, everything I had wanted Anastasia to be and more, but he was still his mother’s son. Had he known the truth, had he known of his mother’s proclivities, he would not have survived as Sovereign nor would our House. It was a decision I had to make. Now I intend to use the Chair on the Reaper’s vile goblin. I am not yet ready to give up what dwells in Darrow’s mind; he has been so thoroughly conditioned that the Chair may not work as intended. His lieutenant, however, is no better than a rabid dog. He needs only a firm hand and a short leash.

***

I stand at the threshold of the Crescent Vault with my small coterie. Aja, still in her armour, supervises my Green techs, my Yellow scientist, the Orange Master Makers and my Violet Carvers. The Chair was built with meticulous care, drawing on the expertise of those four Colours. I will need them to make it work. Sevro is marched in by two Praetorians, Gold, as we enter the Vault.

“This will not hurt, Dominus,” the mousy Yellow murmurs to Sevro with habitual deference. He is gagged but his eyes roll frantic and hellish as the Yellow takes his vitals and administers a local anaesthetic. The Orange and Violets move in perfect concert to fasten him to the Chair. It is an angled block of marble, hollowed and shaped to a human form. It hangs suspended by an AntiGrav contraption, a single thick cable running from beneath it to a distant control station where the Greens are already busy.

Aja approaches after dismissing the Praetorians. I trust the Golds of that legion, but this is a secret I intend to keep to only a select few. “I do not like this thing, Octavia,” she says, voice low, watching the others work. In all the years I have known her, since the day she was born in New Sparta, she has never questioned my decisions apart from the choice to use the Chair on Lysander. I almost lost her then; it took her father and her sister Moira to bring her back into the fold. Even now she looks restless as she watches the machine being prepared.

“I must do this, Aja,” I reply without turning to face her.

The others finish their work and step aside, leaving the Greens to complete the final calibrations. A low whir fills the chamber then one of them rushes toward me. “The Chair is ready, Dictator,” he announces with a bow.

“Begin then. Take me back to his childhood first.”

My command is relayed, and Sevro howls through the gag as the device begins to batter his mind. From the HoloDisplay, jagged spikes of neural activity flare as the Greens sift for an entry point. It is a delicate process, one that demands patience. Starved for time as I am, I am tempted to force my way through, but that risks destroying everything hidden in his head. So I wait.

Two hours pass before we make progress. Sedatives had to be administered to curb his feral temperament, and now he sits slack in the Chair. The Greens adjust their controls and at last images surface. Fitchner appears, speaking via Holo to some unknown man. The scene dissolves and shifts to a Brown servant who must have cared for Sevro as a boy. Then comes something stranger, a Red woman, unmistakably so, berating Fitchner with wild fury. He only stands there, wearied but not angered. That image flickers away, replaced by another Red woman, her gaze soft and loving as she looks down at the child. Her words are unintelligible, as the device renders the memory exactly as he experienced it, but they carry a weight that reaches beyond any nursemaid’s role.

The visions cascade, wild and incoherent, like a young Violet’s psychedelic ritual. Then, something worth pausing for. A bright day in Agea. Fitchner hovers on GravBoots, carrying Sevro through the city. He enters a Sun Industries building, the lift taking them to the top floor and into a vast reception. A familiar Pink greets them and ushers them into an office, Quicksilver’s. I signal the Greens to slow the feed. Quicksilver and Fitchner argue quietly, voices heated. The Pink lifts Sevro, carrying him to the balcony, the holo drifting with him until the city spreads beneath. Then the image snaps away.

“Quicksilver?” Aja murmurs, eyes narrowing as she calculates. Regulus ag Sun, the great industrialist who hides his schemes behind the mask of banality. Most Golds never look closely at lesser men, but I know better. He weaves the threads of commerce and espionage with a deft hand. I note the connection, eager to revisit it. “Continue, Narone,” I order the Green sharply, unwilling to lose momentum.

Hours slip by, fragments without meaning. I grow weary. The images bend and warp, emotions distorting the flow. Then something grips my eye. Fitchner again, with the first Red servant beside him, holding a peculiar object.

“Stop! Freeze it there!”

The holo halts. I step closer, Aja shadowing me, and magnify the frame. A mask. Not just any mask, the mask of Ares.

“Ah,” Aja breathes, her interest sharp at last. “So it was Fitchner all along. That little weasel has been the thorn at our side this entire time.”

The revelation does not shock me; I had my suspicions. But now it aligns. The agitation of the lowColours, always in lockstep with Darrow’s need for chaos, on Venus, Mercury, Luna. Of course.

Reinvigorated, I plunge deeper into the boy’s fractured past, searching for every scrap of proof. His head lolls forward, neck unable to hold its weight. Spittle dribbles from the corner of his mouth, trailing down his chin. His eyes swim unfocused, lost in the haze of the neural assault.

They think they have fooled the worlds, but I am coming for you, Reaper. I am coming for the truth.

***

The man keeps his head bowed as he moves through the crowded avenues, shoulders hunched beneath the worn folds of his cloak. Light spills from garish façades and buzzing HoloAds, their glow painting his face in fleeting colours he quickly turns away from. His steps are brisk, yet he never breaks into a full stride, adjusting his pace to match the ebb and flow of pedestrians so as not to stand out.

He glances often over his shoulder, his dull eyes flicking to the reflection of alleys and arcades in the polished walls of shops and transport stations. A patrol drifts lazily above the promenade, but he pretends not to see it, slipping into the shadow of an awning until it passes. A group of revellers spill into the street ahead, their laughter harsh against the hum of the city, and he skirts them with averted gaze, vanishing back into the press of bodies.

Every movement betrays urgency, yet he forces stillness upon his face, masking the tightness in his jaw with an air of studied indifference. His hand rests in the pocket of his jacket, where the weight of a Jammer steadies him, and he hopes it lives up to the description his associate had given. The rendezvous lies ahead, somewhere beyond the chaos of market cries and neon light, and he presses on, willing himself to remain unseen.

Chapter Text

Cassius

“Dominus, please, that cell has restricted access. You do not appear to be cleared.” The Copper warden stammers, his tone trembling with panic as he tries to halt me without overstepping. I let my chin tilt imperiously, answering in the haughtiest voice I can summon. “I am the Morning Knight, Copper.” I do not deign to meet his eyes, though I sense the hesitation in him, the instant surrender. He falls in step behind me with his Praetorian guards, silent shadows flanking my path. At the wing door, I turn my head just enough to catch his nervous start before he rushes to open it for me.

The corridor stretches ahead, lit by sterile white strips. I walk slowly, deliberately, my gaze scanning each cell in turn. Then I see it: the one that matters. Its panel pulses with a steady red light, the sound of the warning beep hollow in the silence. I stop before it, straighten, and bark the command. “Leave us.” The guards exchange brief glances, but they obey, marching back down the hall, the echo of their boots fading. Alone, I step into the cell, my breath tightening.

“Cassius.” The voice is raw, frayed like torn cloth, and it quivers with exhaustion. My eyes fall to him at once. Darrow lies slumped against the wall, his body marred by scars, some haphazardly repaired with ResFlesh, others left jagged and angry. His face is hard, his cheekbones stark against a set jaw, yet his eyes remain burning, defiant even in ruin. His wrists are raw from restraints, his posture that of a man beaten, but not broken.

“Darrow, what have they done to you?” My words slip out, softer and more concerned than I intend. His cracked lips curl into a ghost of a smile, and his reply comes in a rasp edged with bitter humour. “Let’s see, Cassius. They tortured Sevro, threatened to kill him, tortured me, then promised to bombard my troops and burn Earth. I think, all things considered, they’ve done very little.” He finishes with a wry grin, a twisted defiance in his battered frame.

I roll my eyes, reminded all too keenly of his sharp tongue. “I liked you better when you were apologising,” I retort, attempting to sound dismissive. He actually laughs, a sound hoarse but alive. “Slag off, Bellona,” he croaks, forcing his voice into something almost playful. Even now, he will not yield that last scrap of spirit.

I do not linger long. Already I know this visit will reach Octavia’s ears, and the longer I stay the greater the risk. “Thank you, Darrow,” I say as I step back from him, letting the words fall between us. He stares down at his unshackled hands, confusion still flickering across his battered face, as though he cannot fathom why I would aid him. I shake my head and move toward the door. “Hurry. Your friend didn’t buy us much time.”

We slink back through the corridors, steps careful, every shadow a possible threat. When we reach the lobby, we find the warden waiting with six Praetorians arrayed like a wall of steel.

“Dominus!” he blurts, voice breaking, shock plastered across his features. “You…you can’t do that! Stop! Stop now, in the name of the Dictator!” His panic sparks the reaction. Four Praetorians surge forward, weapons raised. Twin shots crack the air, dropping the first two before they can strike. The other two, Obsidians, turn, but a second volley from behind fells them before they can act.

The Copper whirls, face purple with outrage, on the verge of apoplexy. “Traitors,” he begins, but one of the Grays drives a fist into his temple, and the warden crumples to the floor. Darrow looks at me, brows furrowed, suspicion in his eyes, how could I possibly have bribed Praetorians? I arch a brow. “Thank Virginia,” I murmur.

The two Grays remove their helms. To my surprise, their faces mirror one another, siblings, perhaps. “A friend sent us, Dominus,” the older one says, voice touched by a Terran accent. I blink; I had assumed they were Martian legionnaires. “Holiday ti Nakamura, sir. This is my brother, Trigg.” They motion for us to follow. Darrow lingers, his suspicion plain, his steps dragging. He edges closer to me, whispering when they draw ahead. “I don’t trust them, Cassius.”

Holiday glances back, slowing. “I know you might not trust us,” she says, lowering her voice. She leans in and whispers something meant for Darrow alone. I watch him carefully, the suspicion carved deep in his face softens, his eyes widening slightly before hardening again, this time not with paranoia but with purpose. His posture straightens, the wariness replaced by a grim, anchored confidence, as though a fractured part of him has been fused back together.

Holiday straightens. “We need to get you some armour, Sir,” she says louder, and we move toward an armoury.

***

Ten minutes later, Darrow wears a Praetorian PulseArmour, stim-packs burning through his system in doses that might kill an Obsidian. We descend deeper into the prison, searching for Sevro. When I suggest abandoning him, Darrow nearly strangles me on the spot. I protest, but the Grays’ menacing silence and their looming presence crushes any argument.

We find Sevro in a narrow, dim cell. He is a ghost of the mad goblin I remember, his wiry frame slumped, his wildness hollowed out, eyes sunken and empty. His body is scarred, yes, but it is his expression, or lack of it, that betrays the true damage. He looks like a young man peeled apart and left unfinished, as though some vital spark has been cut away by cruel hands.

Darrow bursts inside, dropping to his knees and gathering Sevro as though cradling something fragile. He presses a kiss to his forehead, whispering words I cannot catch. For a moment, it is a reunion charged with raw tenderness. But then Sevro blinks up at him with eyes devoid of recognition, a void where mischief and madness once danced. Darrow flinches, horror apparent, before cupping his friend’s face again. He asks him simple questions, desperate, and Sevro stammers replies, each one thinner than the last.

Trigg fills the doorway, cuffs and hood in hand. We know time is running out. Sevro is quickly shackled, and we march him from the cell. We slip toward the exit, hearts hammering. My little prison break has not yet been discovered, but the looped feeds will not hold forever, and the dead Praetorians will be found. I stride at the front, Darrow and the Nakamuras behind me, playing their roles as guards.

The exit is less crowded than I feared. Nine Praetorians stand watch, one Gold, three Obsidians, five Grays. As we pass, their helms tilt, weapons idle. They salute. The Gold’s gaze lingers on Darrow, sharp and searching. Her eyes narrow, observing the way he carries himself. For a moment, I think she will speak, will demand his name, but at last she looks away, though the suspicion does not leave her face.

Relief floods me as we spill into the plaza and rush straight into the waiting transport. Once inside, I snap an order to the Blue, giving him the coordinates Virginia entrusted to me. The air is thick with silence as we rise above Hyperion. Every shadow on the rooftops feels like a blade drawn. My foot taps against the floor, restless, while my eyes dart to the windows again and again, half-expecting Praetorian lances to streak toward us.

We skim over the Via Appenia, the Palatine Hill gleaming to the east as we arc toward the city proper. Our transport merges into the flow of other craft, drifting in a mid-air current towards the Evenstar District, a precinct reserved for the highColours. The descent is slower than I would like, but at last the vessel settles onto the landing pad. A long, ragged breath escapes me; one step closer. We disembark quickly and the craft lifts away, bound for the GravLoop that links Hyperion to Endymion. I linger, watching it vanish into the haze, before turning back to the others. “Now we wait.”

***

Darrow

I stand at the edge of the AeroTerrace, eyes fixed on Sevro’s hooded form. Shock still grips me. Freedom feels fragile, like a trick woven by some cruel hand. Cassius of all people opened my cell, and part of me still believes this is Octavia’s game. The Nakamuras seem loyal enough, yet suspicion gnaws at my mind. Holiday whispered words only Fitchner would have known, words that steadied me, yet the dread born of my torment lingers. If Octavia has unearthed the Sons, if all this is theatre, then I am already lost. I force the thought aside. I must reach Earth. I must find my men. Somehow, before the Venusian fleet arrives, there must be a way to save them.

The tide of doubt shatters when a cloaked figure descends on GravBoots. My chest tightens at the sight. Fitchner. My old proctor, the ragged heart of the Sons of Ares. His arms open wide as his rough voice calls out, “Boyo!”

I stumble forward and crush him in an embrace so fierce he wheezes. He laughs, cuffing my cheek. “I know you’ve missed me, shithead, but spare an old man, won’t you?” Still grinning, he seizes my face in his calloused hands. “This has cost us a great deal.” His tone hardens briefly before he pulls me into another hug.

Then he turns and pulls the hood from Sevro. I feel the blood drain from my face. “He…something’s not right, Fitchner.” My voice breaks. Fitchner studies his son, unreadable, then gathers him into his arms. Sevro leans stiffly, his eyes dull and unfocused, without a glimmer of recognition. My heart seizes. What have they done to you, Goblin?

The moment is bitter, but time will not allow grief. Fitchner gives a terse nod, and we move from the terrace through the open door. Inside we find three Silvers and two Golds, resplendent in exaggerated silks. They hold themselves with the poise of high society. The Golds are unscarred and fragile, more akin to Pixies than warriors, their refinement echoing that of the Silvers.

“Fitchner, finally!” one of the Golds begins with an exasperated sigh. “We were beginning to worry. The ground transport is ready. We’ve secured as clear a route as possible to the docks.” Fitchner nods, moving on to confer with one of the Silvers.

“Augustus in the flesh,” the other Gold remarks coolly, eyes running over me in a measured assessment. “And the Morning Knight,” he adds. He is tall, just a shade shorter than me, slender and willowy. He reminds me of Pliny, but there is a beauty about him, ethereal, almost like a Pink. His golden hair is thick and wavy, falling across his brow so that he peers from beneath its curtain. There is a deliberate seductiveness to his stance, to his tone.

“Vespasian au Ladros,” he says by way of introduction. “You met my cousin at the Institute.” Cassius pales instantly, remembering that he was the one to kill Titus. I, however, study the man closely. He is the first Gold I have met, beyond Fitchner, who is part of the Sons. Did he offer his family name to Fitchner for Titus? He catches my gaze, winks, and smiles kindly. “I never liked the Pixie anyway!” he quips, the irony undercutting the tension.

Cassius looks between Vespasian and me, his expression flickering with unease. I see the calculation in his eyes, the unspoken question of what has passed between us. He does not know the full picture, not secret that binds all that stand in this room. To him, Vespasian’s warmth must seem strange, misplaced even. Why would Titus’s kin greet me so kindly. Titus was very unlikeable but he is right to be confused by Vespasian. I say nothing to alleviate his bewilderment.

Fitchner ends his discussion and turns back to us. “We need to move. Now.” We descend in a private lift and slip into a cargo transport stamped with the Sun Industries seal. The name piques my interest, though I file it away for later.

We hover through the city, avoiding the major arteries and the known checkpoints. Before long, a commotion overhead signals that my escape has been discovered. Gray transports thunder above us, headed toward the prison. My pulse pounds against my ribs, each beat mirroring the tension radiating from Cassius and Fitchner. At any moment this could collapse, ending with our heads on the block. Our lives dangle by a thread. Fitchner notices my unease and flashes a crooked smile. It steadies me, though only slightly. The cargo hold feels oppressively tight with six bodies crammed together, the air heavy with silence and dread.

***

We near the Atlas Interplanetary Docks and still my heart hammers on. So close, yet not safe. A thousand things could go wrong. The transport glides steadily toward the cargo departures. The docks are vast, a sprawling hub that processes nearly a billion souls and ten times that in cargo. We veer from the main HoverLane and approach the towering hangars of Sun Industries. The craft settles near the back, where a Copper administrator waits.

“Dominii,” he greets us with a low bow. “The rest of your party awaits inside. Your vessel will be ready shortly.” He bows again, gesturing for us to follow. He leads us into a spacious lounge tucked deep within the building. As I step inside, I freeze. Shock surges through me. Daxo. Lorn. Aeneas. Clown. Pebble. All of them waiting, clad in PulseArmour.

Clown and Pebble rush forward first, nearly knocking me off balance with their embrace before tumbling into Sevro. Their voices blur together with anxious questions about him, but I barely register the words. Lorn steps forward and folds me into his arms, his weathered face breaking into a smile both paternal and fierce.

“It’s good to see you, my boy,” he murmurs, his sincerity cutting through the storm of doubt inside me.

For the first time in what feels like an age, I smile without restraint. Relief, fragile but real, settles over me. Daxo extends a hand, as formal as ever, though the grin stretching across his face looks almost unnatural on him. For a brief and precious moment, surrounded by these friends, I feel safe.

“How?” The word leaves me in disbelief, not directed at anyone in particular.

“Your wife,” Lorn answers, pausing as if to savour it, “is a genius.” Pride swells in me at the thought of Mustang.

Beyond my friends, more familiar faces appear, figures from the Alliance. Hector au Norvo of Triton. Lores au Trachus, Milia’s brother. Ariadne au Bretta, a client of the Thorne. The sight of them strikes me with emotions I cannot hide. These men and women risked everything, journeying into the enemy’s very heart to pull me from their grip.

Past the Golds, I see my Winged Legion. Obsidian Venatores stand tall, Valdir now bearing the insignia of commander. My Grays eye the Praetorians at my flank with thinly veiled hostility, their indoctrination laid bare. I had envisioned Legio IV Alata to stand in opposition to Legio XIII Dracones, and my soldiers seem to have taken that vision into their bones. The Golds bristle at Cassius’s presence, Hector most of all. The Rim still hates him. They blame him as much as Antonia and Aja for Thesalia’s death. Only Aeneas appears unmoved, calm as ever, regarding the Morning Knight with measured scrutiny.

“We’ll slip out past the Sceptre,” I hear Fitchner saying to Daxo and a Blue, “and use Luna for a gravity assist straight back to Mars. That gives us an advantage.”

“What about Earth? Octavia is going to level the planet. We need to get-” I cut in, the words spilling out before I can stop them.

“Don’t worry, boyo. The Julii are on it. Trust they’re moving to schedule.” Fitchner’s voice is steady, but his eyes tell me he knows the task is greater than he admits.

The room begins to stir with sudden purpose. Armour is checked, weapons primed, faces set with grim resolve. Yet in the midst of it there is laughter, hands clapping backs, murmured reassurances that sound almost like hope. For the first time since leaving my cell, I feel relief spreading through the company like a fragile flame taking hold.

We leave the lounge together and step into the adjoining cavernous hangar. It stretches upward, echoing with the murmur of engines and the clatter of machinery. At its heart waits a Whisper-Class corvette, sleek and black, Venusian in design. Even at rest it radiates menace and speed, a predator crouched in silence, ready to carry us away.

Then, the moment shatters. An alarm tears through the air, shrill and merciless. The door we had passed through bursts open, the Copper warden stumbling inside, words of warning spilling from his mouth before a razor, shimmering like a nebula, spears through the back of his head and erupts from his lips. He collapses in a twitching heap. A trickle of fear runs through me, cold and sharp. Then it builds, swelling into a torrent, a flood threatening to consume my entire being.

I know that razor.

Chapter Text

Darrow

A host of Praetorians file through, trampling over the Copper’s corpse as though it were refuse. The Grays advance first, MultiRifles and PlasmaPistols raised, weapons whining as they prime for fire. Around me, the hum of Aegis can be heard, a sharp chorus of protection braced against the oncoming barrage. Behind the Grays thunder the Obsidians, moving in their habitual packs of three, rushing to form a tightening cordon.

Then the Golds come next, whirring past on GravBoots to land before us in a gleaming wall of menace. Five Olympic Knights come in last, led by Aja. She enters, calm as a blade, withdrawing her razor from the Copper’s cranial remains. With a grotesque smile, she surveys my would-be rescuers. Her eyes widen in mocking surprise at Lorn, then sharpen to slits when they fall upon Cassius.

“Bellona, Mother will be very disappointed,” she chides, wagging a finger in theatrical scorn, though her voice carries an edge of wrath. “You are a foolish, foolish boy.” She lifts a datapad, and points to his armour. A tracker. Cassius only unfurls his razor and drops into a Kravat stance, his silence the clearest answer. Aja raises her voice to the chamber, sharp as a whip: “Surrender, all of you, and some of you may live.”

At once, my Grays snap into formation, unleashing a fusillade that the Praetorians match a heartbeat later. The air crackles with fire. Clown and Pebble seize Sevro, dragging him past me at speed towards the waiting corvette. Before I can protest, Aeneas and Valdir hook my arms, their GravBoots igniting, lifting us after them as the gangway extends.

The firefight thickens as my Grays continue to pour disciplined volleys into the oncoming Praetorians. Shields flare as some fall, and still they reload with mechanical precision, each burst tearing holes in the advancing line. Outnumbered though they are, my soldiers move with the efficiency of a single mind, carving order from the chaos. The line holds steady, never breaking formation.

Then my Obsidians strike like wolves, GravBoots lofting them high before they slam down into packs of Gold Praetorians with bone-shaking impact. Their ForcePikes crash against razors, crackling on impact, driving through PulseArmour with brutal efficiency. Skadi vaults high, her weapon splitting a Gold from collar to hip, while Wulfgar bellows a war-cry as he drives his spear through two knights at once, wrenching free in a spray of sparks. They hunt as one, encircling, cutting, overwhelming. The Praetorians are many, but the Venatores fight with the terrible rhythm of predators long bred for war.

It is a grim calculus: we are outnumbered three to one, yet the chamber runs red with Praetorian blood. Still, for every knight my warriors cut down, another steps forward from the seemingly endless ranks as the pressure mounts. My warriors barely hold on, their ferocity and discipline the only dam to the tide. And through it all, Aja stands watching. Her head tilts in quiet appraisal, her razor idly shifting in her grip, her smile curdling as though she knows the slaughter before her is but a prologue to what must come.

Then a voice slices through the din. 

“Aja!”

The chamber freezes. For a heartbeat the clamour of war is hushed, the atmosphere thickening with anticipation. Lorn au Arcos, Rage Knight of the Society, stands tall, razor bared in open challenge. The crowd parts in instinctive fear, no one willing to be caught between these two titans. Hector au Norvo stumbles back, disentangling from the Truth Knight, barely missing the sweep of Lorn’s opening stance. All eyes turn to the pair, the fighting at the periphery stalling momentarily as the duel claims the room’s centre.

“I have waited for this day, teacher,” Aja answers, voice chillingly casual as she flicks blood from her razor with a sharp twist of her wrist. There is a strange weight to her tone, an intimacy turned venomous. The clash between the Praetorians and Winged Legion continues at the edges, but the Golds slow, drawn to the spectacle; the promise of a duel that will be etched into legend.

They circle, razors low, each testing the other. Aja strikes first, her blade flashing in quick arcs. Lorn meets her with deceptive ease, his violet razor angling with precision, not retreating but shuffling side to side as the Willow Way demands. Every stroke seems lazy until one sees the sure geometry of his defence, his movements compact and unyielding.

Lorn begins to answer in kind, his blows increasingly measured and deliberate. Aja adjusts, her tempo shifting to match his, and the duel gains a rhythm; two predators weaving into the same beat. Sparks fly as razors scrape against PulseArmour, the impacts ringing sharp in the chamber. Then blood is drawn: Aja’s blade slips past Lorn’s guard, punching through the armour, drawing a hiss of pain. He repays in the next instant, his violet razor piercing her side, leaving her breath ragged.

They drive faster. Razors blur, tangling and snapping back into whips before solidifying into blades again. Aja presses with raw ferocity, Lorn with sharpened patience, until the air itself seems charged by their duel. Their armour buckles under the strain: Lorn takes a slash across the thigh, Aja a puncture at the collarbone that splatters red across her breastplate. Neither falters.

The chamber stills around them. The Hearth Knight has ceased her duel with Lores au Trachus, her helm retracted in awe. Cassius stands slack-jawed, razor dangling forgotten at his side. Golds around the hangar lean forward, entranced by the spectacle, silent as if bound by the weight of it. Even as Grays and Obsidians clash at the periphery, they fight in muffled futility, knowing the rules of engagement are different for them. This is no brawl; it is a contest of gods.

Back within the circle, the gathering storm peaks. Their razors move so quickly it is dizzying to watch, each strike countered by another in an unbroken chain. The blades flash, recoil into whips, lash the air, then harden again, cracking against PulseArmour with concussive force. Blood spatters anew. Lorn’s razor plunges past Aja’s hip, staggering her, but she retaliates with a downward slice that cuts through to his thigh, leaving his leg trembling under him.

They slow, circling again, breaths sharp and ragged. Lorn’s eyes gleam, youth returned to him, his manner no longer that of a weary master but a warrior of twenty-five. “Still quick,” Aja admits between gasps, blood trickling down her chin. Lorn inclines his head, voice measured. “And you endure well. But work on following through.” Aja only shrugs, a cruel smile forming, and they assume fresh stances. Her eyes blaze with a focus I have never seen, while Lorn radiates the serenity of a man born for this art.

He looks back, favouring me with a small smile. I stand metres away from him, a mass of bodies between us. “A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots,” he quotes loudly, but I know it is meant for me. Even now, he still imparts lessons, guiding me. Yet there is a finality to it, a last goodbye. Before I can say a word, their clash resumes, each strike meeting another, neither yielding, both ferocious. The air quakes with their fury, razors crashing until one exchange lingers a breath too long.

Lorn looks as though he is about to spring a trap of his own. He feints low and her guard drops for an instant. He steps into the opening, violet blade driving towards Aja’s throat. Then, before the motion completes, Aja’s body tightens, her form contorting unnaturally. Lorn realises at the last second but it is already too late. Her nebula blade slides forward, a lance where a whip had been, and plunges past his lowered guard, spearing through his chest and punching out his back in a spray of gore.

His gasp is sharp, torn from deep inside him. The violet blade in his hand falters momentarily, as his knees buckle. Blood fans from his chest in a crimson torrent, hot and steaming, soaking his armour and painting the floor. Pain tears across his features as his mouth opens in a soundless roar. Yet even as he falls, he twists with a last burst of desperate will, driving his razor up through her abdomen. The blade sinks deep, ripping past PulseArmour with a crunch of bone and a rush of dark blood. Aja crumples to her knees, gravely wounded, clutching her stomach as she tries to rise once more. Bloodied and shaking, she motions weakly to her fellow Olympic Knights who immediately lope to her side.

“Lorn!” My voice is shrill and panicked. This cannot be happening, I tell myself. I only realise I am screaming when Valdir stands before me, speaking words I cannot hear. My heart breaks again and I wonder if I can take any more. First Ragnar, then whatever was done to Sevro, and now this. I quiver with rage but underneath it sits a colder fear. Watching Lorn spill out his precious life-blood sickens me, and I feel my mental faculties begin to falter.

“Darrow!” a voice snaps me out of the daze. “Darrow, we need to go. Now!” It is Cassius, razor in hand, pushing me up the ramp. Behind him the Golds cover the retreat, even as Fitchner hauls Lorn’s body recklessly towards the corvette. Valdir shouts past me in Nagal, “For Tyr Morga, brothers and sisters.” I see my Venatores turn from their retreat and race into the equally retreating Praetorians and Olympic Knights. They will die in that charge but they mean to exact vengeance on Aja on my behalf.

Once inside, the overbearing weight of loss crashes down on me and I fall to my knees. Emotion chokes me even as my comrades assess their wounds and tend to those in critical condition. I hear Fitchner speak but it sounds like I am underwater. Is this the bill? If so, have we finally reached the end of all this?

The corvette blasts out of the hangar, ignoring protocol. We lurch violently, ears popping with the sudden shift in pressure. Alarms shriek, each one clamouring for attention, each heralding a different threat. I rise unsteadily and move deeper into the craft. Cassius follows in silence, his presence heavy, his eyes fixed on me with quiet worry.

“Fitchner, how do we make it off this moon?” Aeneas asks, deferential but tense, appearing at my side.

Fitchner doesn’t answer immediately. His face is carved in concentration as he studies the HoloDisplay, golden dots pulsing with the advance of our pursuers. Even through the haze of pain and confusion, I feel the weight of futility pressing in. Was all of this for nothing?

“Come on…” Fitchner mutters under his breath, waiting. Hoping.

We burst through Luna’s atmosphere. RipWings launch from the Citadel like arrows loosed from a bow, engines blazing as they cut a furious line after us. The Sceptre Armada lies on the far side of the moon, but here the surface bristles with military outposts, each one watching, each one ready to strike.

On the Holo, hostile signals now swarm like hornets. Fitchner’s shoulders sag under the inevitability of it. Then, without warning, salvation arrives. Railgun fire lances from below, shredding our pursuers in streaks of incandescent ruin. For a moment, the stars themselves seem to flare with violence.

He exhales a long, ragged breath and turns toward me. “You’re safe, boyo,” he says, almost tenderly. “We’re all safe.”

Chapter Text

Darrow

We fly through the void of space, Luna dwindling behind us. The cloaking mechanism hums to life, shielding us from the hunters who will surely come. Relief seeps into my bones like a balm, yet grief still claws at my heart. The past ten days have been nothing but loss upon loss, and the weight of it feels oppressive. My fears have risen to the surface in ways I had not expected. Exhaustion grips me, not only in flesh but in spirit, leaving me raw and hollowed.

Beside me, Cassius sits taut with unease. Even after our bloody retreat, the man retains his dashing looks. He catches my eye and offers a boyish grin that somehow warms me despite the darkness.

“There goes my career in service to the Sovereign,” he quips, and against my will I laugh.

“I am sorry, Darrow,” he says, voice sobering. “About Lorn. I know he was like a father to you.”

It feels strange, hearing him speak so kindly after all this time. “And Sevro as well,” he adds, glancing towards Fitchner, who crouches at his son’s side. I want to go to them, but my body will not obey. Fear coils within me. If I have truly lost Sevro, I am not ready to face it.

Octavia is infamous for the grotesque inventions that fester in her mind. Could she have devised some weapon, like the Oracles, but one that burrows into thought itself? Without the aid of Violets or Yellows, I can only speculate.

“Victra au Julii was overseeing the retreat,” Aeneas says at last, breaking the silence from behind me. I nod, grateful for his attempt to draw me away from the ruin of my thoughts.

“How many will make it out?” I ask.

He hesitates, weighing my strength against the truth.

“Aeneas?” My voice sharpens, and he answers quickly.

“Barely half.”

The words strike home. Five million of my men condemned. Unlike our struggle for Earth, Octavia now has nothing left to lose. There may be outrage, but desperation makes her reckless. At present she clings only to Luna and Venus, Mercury remaining neutral. If she truly surrenders Earth, our armies, Nero, Romulus’ and mine together, will be far easier to supply as we lay siege to Luna. Even if my men survive bombardment, the fallout will surely kill the remnants or make it impossible to effectively scrub without wasting already scarce resources.

The Carthii will not budge; they owe her for Venus. Any reprisal from the Alliance is a risk she will likely embrace. This is a war none dared imagine, a true system-wide conflict even the Moon Lords could not provoke. If Rhea was the warning, then Earth will be the sacrifice. The contempt for Terra has never faded from the Conquering, and so it has since been considered a backwater.

It will take us twelve days to reach Mars and I wonder if I will still be sane by then.

***

Victra

"Faster, you sorry slags!" I bellow at the men struggling to load a large cache of weapons onto a transport. The retreat has been smoother than I expected, tight discipline holding even in the face of death. I toil with them under the hot sun, glancing up now and then as though I might make out the approaching fleet. It is a hard task, leading men through an extinction event.

"Victra," Gaius says as he approaches. "Orion xe Aquarii wishes to speak to you." His voice is strained. In Darrow's absence, his Blue pilot commands his personal fleet. It is odd, but many in Darrow's force, even Golds, treat her as if she were his mouthpiece. In that, I admire the woman. "Dial her in," I say.

"Domina, my fleet is packed and ready," she states in such a perfunctory manner, her deference forced. Darrow should really work on the woman's manners. I begin the order: "Prime. Clear atmosphere, then burn for..." Before I finish she cuts in, "Yes, Domina." I grimace, biting back a brash retort and cut the line. The first of our forces will finally depart Earth. Orion remained in orbit during the Rain and captured many Society ships; its vessels now swarm with Darrow's personal legions.

The remaining men, the rest of the Martian and Rim legions, scramble across the globe to gather at rendezvous points. They had already begun to entrench themselves here; Darrow apportioned most of Earth to the Martians and claimed little for himself beyond New Sparta and the northern reaches of the continent, where the bulk of his men remained.

"My fair lady," a rambunctious voice roars behind me. The Minotaur of Mars is the last person I want to see. He has always been a nuisance, from our nightly soirées in Agea with Karnus to our time at the Institute. "What is it, Apollonius?" I ask dryly, without turning.

"It has come to my attention that the Valii-Rath have not yet been assigned a rendezvous point," he announces loftily. "My father tires of waiting in orbit and I tire of his whining." He despises his father, who is of the gens Rath. His family is not of the Conquering in the way his mother's house, the Valii, are.

I whirl about, confused by his words. "I sent out the order more than three hours ago. Your men should be aboard those ships by now," I say, my tone carrying more command than question.

He offers only a sardonic smile.

"My dear Julii," he begins, voice syrupy. "If that had been so, I would already have left this gorydamn waste of a planet and be bound for Mars," he finishes, venom at the edges of his words. My eyes burn with fury at his tone, but I know it is the exhaustion of managing this retreat that has left me unrestrained.

I turn, noticing the Celinius, the Daan and the Janus waiting idly, two hundred kilometres from their designated rendezvous point. I halt Apollonius' haughty tirade with a raised finger and a narrowing of my eyes. "Gaius, darling," I say to the man, who goes red. I am never this familiar.

"Who is managing communications?" I ask, turning to face him and Apollonius.

"Pompey au Septimius, the Raa legate," Gaius replies.

"Why?" I demand. He seems taken aback but recovers and answers smoothly. "Praetor Atilius was late returning from New Zealand. The Tawhiri reported he departed, but we lost his trail as he flew over the Indian Ocean."

"Why did no one think to tell me?" I shout.

"Communications have been dicey since we stopped scrubbing. We thought it might be that." My eyes narrow and he takes a step back, glancing to Apollonius for support. The Minotaur only looks thoughtful, then asks, "Do you know this Pompey?"

"No," Gaius hesitates. "But he came recommended as an excellent field co..."

"Goryhell!"

I break into a run, activating my GravBoots midstride. I shoot into the air and fly two kilometres east to the communication tower. I angle down to the courtyard and hear Apollonius land behind me. I sprint for the building, ignoring the startled Greens and Browns who mill about. I ascend, covering floors in one bound toward the main comms room.

I burst through the steel door, razor already in hand. The room is quiet. A crew of Greens busies itself at the consoles while two Rim Golds stand talking, guarded by five Obsidians. They turn as one, serenity painted on their faces. I take a steadying breath and begin. "Are you Pompey?" I ask the larger Gold who appears to be in charge.

"Yes," he replies, unbothered by the intrusion. He is tall and lean, with the large eyes so common in the Rim and grey-gold hair tied in a topknot. I note that he wears only a razor, not a Hasta and Kitari. His companion is shorter but has the same eyes and hairstyle. She could be his sister. The Obsidians are all tall, but one stands out; his build reminds me of Ragnar.

"How is the coordination going?" I continue, trying to disguise my interrogation as a routine check.

"Smoothly so far, but there are still some communication issues with Asia and the south," he replies. I nod, making a show of listening. "The Valii-Rath and some of the Martian houses have not yet been assigned rendezvous points. I sent someone here three hours ago, my goodman."

Pompey glances around, then turns to me. "No one has been here, Victra."

"That is strange," I say slowly, but something in the way he speaks my name sets alarm bells ringing in my head. So familiar. I begin to stroll through the room, observing the Greens at their consoles. Apollonius remains at the door and is soon joined by Gaius. Pompey and his companion watch me but do not move. I drift deeper into the room, pausing now and then to study the HoloDisplays.

I stop beside a Fulgur Bellator, a Green of the hardier sort. His presence here is not unusual, but in these circumstances I am surprised he is sequestered in this room rather than out in the field. He is overseeing the extraction of some of our polar forces.

"Your name?" I ask sharply.

"Fallax si Lator, Domina," he answers evenly, his eyes refusing to meet mine in deference. I linger for a heartbeat, then nod and move on. He looks back down and the collar of his jacket slips just enough for me to glimpse a tattoo: the face of a sexless child ringed with hair of serpents Shit.

I turn and head for the door, careful not to break into a run. My eyes widen in warning to Apollonius, but he is already deep in conversation with Gaius. I do not want to alert whoever those Golds are, yet my heart thunders in my chest.

"Is anything the matter?" Pompey’s companion asks, my back is still turned. I try to school my face and turn to meet them. Before I can answer, I see the shift in their demeanour. They know I know.

One of the Obsidians charges as Pompey unfurls an onyx razor in a single, fluid motion. I feint a retreat, then spin and, with a practiced hand, stab the Obsidian straight in his chest. The Greens in the room shriek and scatter, many abandoning their consoles in blind terror. Fallax levels a PlasmaPistol at me; I drop and roll, appearing two metres away as Apollonius roars and vaults into the room.

I surge forward and hurl my razor through the Green, snatching it from the corpse as I run for the centre of the chamber. The two Golds split: the shorter breaks left with the tall Obsidian while Pompey charges right, straight for Apollonius. The remaining three Obsidians rush to block Gaius at the door.

I slide low beneath a flailing limb and launch myself upward with everything I have, slicing the smaller Gold in two at the waist. The large Obsidian halts, rotating with an impossible grace for his size. He angles his bulk and comes at me, PulseHammer raised, the weapon humming like a trapped beast.

He swings with the fury of a thunder god, strike warping the air before it crashes down. I dart to the side, feeling the shockwave as it slams into the floor, splintering stone. I move in tight arcs around him, smaller and faster, cutting where his form leaves him open, retreating before the hammer lands. Sparks leap as my blade glides off metal.

I pivot, leap and drive my razor into his shoulder, then use my GravBoots to vault acrobatically above him. For a heartbeat, I am weightless, until his massive hand catches my leg mid-flight. The world spins as he slams me into the ground, the impact rattling my bones. The hammer rises again, a dark sun ready to fall, but I flick my GravBoots to full thrust and slide horizontally across the stone just as it hits. The impact scorches the floor where my head was a moment before.

Across the chamber, Pompey and Apollonius duel in a storm of razors; black and gold. Their blades dance like lightning, cutting, parrying and striking with impossible speed. Pompey’s control is uncanny, every motion a study in discipline, while Apollonius fights with manic grace, a grin splitting his face as blood streaks down his jaw.

The clash of their razors is deafening, each spark a small star between them. Slowly, inexorably, it becomes clear that Pompey’s technique is beyond even Apollonius’ brilliance. When he smiles and twists his blade in that elegant, effortless motion, Apollonius’ guard breaks, the edge of Pompey’s weapon whispering past his throat.

Gaius stands firm at the door, his razor flashing against three Obsidians. His movements are smooth and deliberate, flowing from one strike to the next like water over stone. He cuts the first cleanly across the neck, ducks beneath the swing of another, and drives his blade into the second’s chest.

The last Obsidian barrels into him, hammering his side with a force that cracks bone. Gaius stumbles, manages a desperate parry, then the massive swing of his foe’s PulseAxe catches him full in the chest. He falls, his razor slipping from his hand, his breath leaving him in a single, broken gasp.

“Gaius!” I lament in the midst of my terrible duel.

Pompey remains calm as chaos swirls around him. He calls out, his voice steady and commanding. The Obsidian facing me abandons the fight and charges towards Apollonius, who retreats quickly, his face twisted in pain. The largest Obsidian, Pompey, and the remaining uninjured one retreat through the exit over Gaius’ motionless form.

The last Obsidian, bloodied and half-collapsed, begins to convulse. Foam bubbles from his mouth as he bites down hard. A moment later, his body goes still, the bitter scent of molar poison thick in the air.

“Gorgons,” I finally manage, surveying the room.

Chapter Text

Darrow

Night grips the system. The Servator Martis hums in space, the silence between stars heavier than the steel around me. Mustang’s image shimmers on the holo, distant in Agea, her face pale in the blue light. Nero and Romulus sit together aboard the Invictus, their surroundings dark and austere. Fitchner sits across from me, unseen, listening without a word.

“We can try to negotiate,” Mustang says, her voice even but uncertain. Nero shakes his head slowly. “I will not beg that woman for peace. You forget who she is, Virginia. When she was a girl, she threw her diamonds from a skycar because her father denied her a trinket. She has not changed.” Romulus’s gaze slides to me. “What do you think, Darrow?”

The air feels thick. I let the silence stretch before I answer. “Octavia will not negotiate. She will decimate Earth to prove she can.”

Nero’s lips twitch into a knowing smirk. Romulus looks away, thoughtful. Mustang watches me, her expression unreadable.

“Then it is time,” she says quietly.

A signal flashes on the console. Octavia’s seal. The air in the room hardens as her image fills the holo, Magnus beside her, regal and cold.

“Nero. Romulus. Virginia,” she greets, her tone weary, practiced. “And Darrow. How fare you, Reaper?”

I meet her eyes but say nothing.

She smiles faintly. “You wish to talk terms? Then listen well. You will end this rebellion, surrender your fleets, return to your worlds, and deliver Darrow to me.”

“We cannot give-,” Romulus begins to speak, but Nero cuts him off. “You will not have him. You have stayed too long in Luna, comfortable on the Morning Chair. Step down. Go to your estates. Your time is done, Octavia.”

Her gaze tightens. “So this is your answer.”

“This war lies at your feet,” Nero replies. “We were meant to rise beyond our forebears, to colonise new stars and foreign worlds. You have turned that dream, our dream, into a cage.”

For a heartbeat, there is something almost human in her eyes. Then it’s gone. A long look passes between them, like two razor masters at the opening of a duel.

“My regards to Quicksilver, Darrow,” she says, her tone shifting. “And to our mutual friend. Tell him I suspected long ago on Mars. And Virginia… congratulations.”

The holo fades, the room suddenly cold. Mustang looks uneasy. What could Octavia mean by congratulations? I am too stunned by her revelation to dwell on it. Quicksilver? Mutual friend? I glance at Fitchner. He says nothing. Nero and Romulus speak on the feed, but their words are far away.

“She knows about you,” I whisper when their image cuts out. I let the rest think she meant Cassius, but she knows. Octavia knows Fitchner is Ares. Fitchner's gaze drops to the floor. He does not deny it. I think of Sevro, is this why he is a shell of a person? Did she tear that truth from him, along with everything he was?

“Do not worry, boyo,” he says finally, resting a hand on my shoulder. “We will weather this storm. We will make it right.”

Outside, the stars burn like distant fires. The day of ruin draws closer.

***

Victra

The Gorgons’ infiltration keeps me raw with worry. I cannot stop thinking about the retreat. How deep does their sabotage run? Are we already doomed? Questions without answers offer no comfort. Only half the Martian host is in orbit or ready to depart. The Rim houses move with cold efficiency; almost all have gone, close behind Orion. Apollonius stays, though his father has left, hunting Pompey. Pride will be his ruin.

“…an insect of the Rim, such poor blood and standing, he cannot be that skilled, Vic. He cannot,” Apollonius raves as the Daan ships finally lift. I emit a noncommittal sound and return to my survey, but he presses on.

“Do you think it is Fear?” I cut in, turning to him. His eyebrows knit.

“Fear?” he repeats. “Atlas au Raa? Was he not banished to the Kuiper Belt by Octavia? That alone is punishment enough for the worst of the Shamed. He is a son of Ilium; I doubt even he would submit to such insult.”

He has a point. Octavia stripped Atlas of his office, ordered his niece slain and tried to kill his father. Still, my mother’s gossip nags at me.

Atlas came to Luna as a boy of nine and folded into Octavia’s circle with unnatural ease. She raised him into a man, built him a library; a copy of the one in Alexandria, and he hid among books, surfacing only at her summons. Quiet, keen, dangerous. A pupil of the Sovereign and a practised hand at psychological warfare. Could he have been the man in disguise? The way Pompey spoke my name was too familiar, too casual, too much like the youth who once showed me Luna’s wonders as a child.

“You may be right,” Apollonius says, remembering. “I met him when I was eight and he was sixteen, just before he went to the Institute. He loved Octavia then, and he hated the Rim.”

He traces the hilt of his razor as if the motion steadies him. “Even if it is Fear, I will best him. Darrow and his dead Obsidian are not the only Olympic killers.”

“It has been an hour,” I say. “If our scouts cannot find him by now, he is gone. His men, though, may still lurk.”

***

Night draws near, and with it our deadline. In less than twenty-four hours, this sphere will be ash. I retire to my chambers in the citadel, hoping for rest before the final push. The wind drifts through the open balcony as I sit in silence, watching the rolling hills fade into the North African coast. All this beauty, this ingenuity built over centuries, soon to vanish. All for the whims of so-called great men.

Gold was meant to be better. The Peerless were meant to embody our highest virtues. Yet we have come to revel in war. To savour vice and forgo virtue. We have forgotten our purpose and made violence our native tongue. The tenets of the Compact are little more than words, replaced by the art of killing. I sigh, helpless.

“Well, at least Darrow fights for something better,” I say to the empty room, rising to make my ablution.

“Does he? Does your Reaper truly fight for something better? Or is he another young warlord, drunk on glory, enslaved to his myth, just as our iron ancestors were?”

A voice soughs from the balcony. I reach for my razor, unfurling it into a whip instinctively.

“I knew it was you,” I say to the man standing there. He wears Pompey’s face, but I recognise the posture; the measured stillness, the weight of command. “You were always a quick study, Victra,” he says. “Such a pity I could not have had you as my apprentice. I always admired your calm, your restraint. So unlike Antonia or your mother. So intelligent.”

I scoff at the backhanded compliment. His offer would have been a prison. I would never have risen, never been a lancer, just another servant to an Olympic’s ego. “Do not insult me, Atlas.”

“It is not an insult, Victra. Like you, I see the Society as it truly is. I am honest, even among liars and cheats. Everything I do is for the good of our kind, for our future—for Gold.”

“Then why side with her? She has crowned herself Dictator, discarded civilisation, and turned murderer. That is no leader worth following.”

“Octavia is flawed, yes, but so are the Houses. It is not she who must be remade, it is Gold.”

“So you will let her destroy Earth? Kill the best of us? There are ten thousand Peerless Scarred here, and countless other Golds. Is this how she shepherds the Colours? Is this her vision for the worlds?”

He grows thoughtful. “Earth must serve as the lesson Rhea failed to teach. Our decadence can only be cured through brutality. Perhaps I shall kill Octavia myself once this is done. But if we let this war continue, if Darrow takes one more step closer to the Morning Chair, he will birth a dynasty worse than Lune’s. The Augustus line is cruel, their minds as sharp as razors. Darrow is no different.” His voice deepens, fervent.

“He is Nero’s true son in spirit; ambitious, cunning, patient. I have watched him, Victra: watched how he broke the Institute, how he led the Lion’s Rain, how he bends the masses to his will. In the end, every sin will be forgiven because he will stand as a god among men. His word will become law, not the Compact.”

“You do not know him,” I answer softly. “He believes in something else. It is Octavia who has forgotten she is not divine.”

He sees my mind is set. With a sigh, his helm flows over his face, the visage of the Fear Knight, a child crowned with serpents.

“Then I ask your forgiveness.” His voice is now distorted and alien.

“Wait!” I shout, reaching for him, but his GravBoots hum and he vanishes into the night. I stand, motionless, trying to understand his apology, then return to my routine. An hour later, a frantic Praetor hammers on my door.

“Multiple EMPs across Terra, ma’am. Origins unknown. Grounded ships will be out for at least twelve hours, likely longer.”

I brush past him, sprinting for the command room.

“Ma’am, we should withdraw before the situation worsens. The Julii fleet is already in orbit!” he cries after me, panic rising. I ignore him and run.

Inside, chaos reigns. Officers shout over one another, factions reforming along old lines. Planetary unity crumbles; grudges resurface. Some former Bellona clients, our erstwhile allies, now turn on their peers.

“Order! I will have order!” I shout. The noise dies down, though the air hums with tension.

“Return to your ledgers, Julii,” sneers a squat, soft-faced legate. “Let real soldiers handle this.”

My razor flashes. His head hits the floor and silence follows.

“I am Victra au Julii, highest commander on this sphere. You will give me your attention and your obedience. Most of our ships are grounded, our escape dwindling by the hour. But we will not surrender! Fear expects us to cower, to die quietly. We will not! This is when we show the worlds why we are the sons and daughters of Mars. Let them see why we bear this.” I touch the scar across my face. “Let them witness the worth of the Peerless Scarred.”

No one speaks, but I see resolve harden across their faces. They nod as one, ready to meet whatever comes.

Chapter Text

Annihilo: I annihilate, flagship of the Grimmus, destroyer of Rhea.

The four-kilometre dreadnought, Annihilo, drifts through the void of space. Ahead, the small Venusian fleet hangs in formation, an immense moonBreaker dominating its heart. The Dictator found it poetic that Annihilo should once again lead the bombardment of a world; Earth this time, as it did Rhea, sixty years ago.

From a viewport, Lucius au Cern watches as Earth draws near. It was his home once, before the Institute. He is Shamed now, his life forever stained. As with all who survived the Institute in the Western Hemisphere, a place was found for them within the Grimmus fold. Not even the Shamed are left to waste.

He remembers the day his brother Seneca was born, a beast of a boy. It was a bright day in New Sparta. Their father, a client of House Grimmus, had just received a bounty from the Ash Lord. He will become Peerless one day, their father declared. If we win this war, Lucius thinks to himself. He wonders what remains of his family; Poppy and Gallio, his cousin Junius. It has been years since he saw them. They built careers in prestigious service: centurions, decurions, legates. They forgot him when he was cast out.

“Will you miss your home, dominus?” a Gray asks, standing beside him. The man is old, his face lined and wrinkled. He has served as a legionnaire for decades. Lucius wonders if he has a family. Grays are raised in the Agoge, their lives pledged to the Society. Does he have anyone waiting for him?

“There is nothing for me there,” Lucius answers. Yet, even as he says it, the words sting. When he was younger, he believed in the Society, in the dream of Silenius. Now he is uncertain. He wonders if this is what the Conquerors envisioned.

“All personnel to their stations. I repeat, all personnel to their stations.” The voice echoes through the comms. Lucius turns from the viewport, nods to the Gray, and walks toward his post. Today, as the Ash Lord reminds the worlds of his might, Lucius will see that the ship’s stores are properly distributed.

***

Darrow

Through the Holo, I watch the first of Octavia’s nuclear warheads fall. The image is grainy, relayed from a battered orbital satellite, but it is enough. Gedi, the city where I made landfall in my Iron Rain, blooms into a pale mushroom cloud. Then nothing. A smear of light, and the feed breaks into static. I had men there. Men who trusted me to bring them home.

Asia bears the brunt of her madness. Most of my remaining soldiers were gathered there, entrenched, fighting to secure my hold on the planet. They will not have made it out. I feel hollow watching it unfold, so many lives lost to pride and vengeance disguised as order.

Cassius is beside me, silent at first, horror written across his face. He was an Olympic Knight, kept pristine and insulated from the filth of real war. He has never fallen in an Iron Rain, never watched a city vanish from orbit. When he finally speaks, his voice cracks. “All those men, Darrow. There are civilians down there. Children.” His breath shakes. “It is not right. It gorydamn isn’t.”

Aeneas, too, is quiet as he watches but his expression is unreadable. Does he wonder if this is the life of a Peerless Scarred? I turn back to the Holo. My heart is already numb to the pain.

This war has taken too much from me. I fear I have nothing left to feel.

***

Virginia

It is horrible. The waste, the wanton disregard for life. Octavia has always been callous, prodigal with lives, but this exceeds anything I expected. I watch as cities are levelled, continents erupting in flame. Everything will be ash, exactly as she intended. I cannot turn away from the carnage even as I hold Pax in my arms. He is large now, walking on his own, yet I need him close. I need the weight of him to remember what I still fight for.

Agrippina stares at the holo with the same face she wears to every atrocity. Servilla rests her hands gently on Alexander and Hadrian’s shoulders; the younger Arcos heirs have already been sent to bed. Calypso and Juno, the other two widows, press their palms to their mouths and sob quietly. They have family there, kin who fought for my husband.

This changes everything. The worlds will never be the same again. It is no longer a contest for Luna or for the Morning Chair. This has become a duel to the death. It is annihilation. It will end only when the Alliance or the Society lies utterly broken, unable to rise from its ashes.

***

Julia

I sit with Octavia and her advisors. Aja hovers at the back of the room, watchful and silent. She has grown even more vigilant since Darrow’s escape. I was surprised by Cassius, though I should have seen it coming. He returned from Earth changed, lighter somehow. I was too relieved by his ease to ask what had caused it. That Reaper is a cancer, yet he might have saved my only boy.

Magnus speaks without end from his dreadnought, his voice rich with false grandeur as he declares that this is the beginning of a new age, that the Alliance will crumble beneath this victory. The man is as mad as his mistress. Generations of Grimmus ruled from their citadel in New Sparta. That was his refuge, as Eagle’s Rest once was mine. I miss my home. I thought I would grow old and die there, watching the mists over Cimmeria. Now that dream is a fading ghost. This war, my war; I now know it to be mine, has consumed it.

My mind drifts to my youth, to the days I raced through endless plains with Tiberius, our Sunbloods fresh from Mercury. I linger on the time spent hunting with my father in the forests, the many summers I swam in Loch Esmeralda near our estate. I remember cresting the summit of the Olympus Mons for the first time, a girl of fifteen, breathless with wonder. Did I ever think this would be where I would end up? Tired and alone, my family long gone, my only son in bed with the enemy. All those nights studying at my grandmother’s side, learning the quiet manipulations of our kind, the art of survival among predators. It all feels hollow now. I feel hollow.

“What do you think, Julia? Does it warm the heart?” Octavia asks, her smile thin and cynical.

I return it, feigning interest as the image before us flares bright. The spot where the pyramids once stood vanishes in a wash of light. I wonder if this is my revenge at last, or if I have simply played my part in a game begun long before my birth. Perhaps it started when Nero plotted to behead his Sovereign at his daughter’s urging. Perhaps it began even earlier, with my uncle and his endless feud with the Augustus. They were ruthless, both he and the Cylus, yet perhaps they were not ruthless enough. If only they had killed Nero, perhaps I would still be home.

All I can do is wonder as I watch.

***

Victra

“Domina, Taj command…is…. down…Th…city…has… level...led…. No surv...ivors...likely.”

The Blue’s voice comes in halting bursts, mechanical in tone. Their kind can relay information faster than any human tongue, an effecient and underutilised medium. I pace the subterranean chamber buried beneath the Grimmus citadel. The air is stale, heavy with the weight of dust and fear.

Like every great House, they built bunkers for a day such as this.  After the EMPs, I had Greens from across the continent work without pause, cracking open bunkers long sealed beneath rock and steel. I filled this one with all the men and materiel I could before sealing the hatch. I can only hope the others were as fortunate.

The walls tremble again, silt drifting from the ceiling like fine ash. Only thirty minutes have passed since event horizon, yet it feels like days. Apollonius sits apart, his cackle of Peerless gathered close around him like carrion birds. He had insisted on leaving with the few functional ships, but yielded to me in the end. Now I wonder if that will cost us our lives.

Atlas’ words still echo in my mind. Do I live up to my Colour? Am I truly what Gold claims to be, the pinnacle of humankind? I thought I knew the answer. Now I am not so sure.

Apollonius rises from his brooding, his steps sharp against the stone. “Do you feel accomplished, Victra, down here in the gutter of a ruined sphere, stripped of your fleet?” His voice is thick with scorn.

I arch an eyebrow and answer with a recitation:

“The time in which I must please those that are dead
is longer than I must please those of this world;
for there I shall lie forever.
As for you, if you think it right to dishonour what the gods honour,
that is your choice.”

“Do not quote me Antigone,” he says in a harsh whisper, his anger low and trembling. “We will die here, away from Mars, from home, because of the Ash Lord’s penchant for killing worlds inhabited by Octavia's enemies!” His breath steadies as the rage fades. “This all feels like a mistake. Even if we survive, what can we do? We could not raise a cohort, much less a legion.”

“We will do what we can,” I say quietly. “And we will wait for Darrow. He will come back. I know he will.”

My voice sounds certain, but my heart is not. I do not even know if he made it out of Luna alive, if my mad Goblin lives. Still, I hold to hope. It is all that keeps the walls from closing in.

——— ✦ END OF PART I ✦ ———

Chapter Text

Chapter 26: Home at last

Darrow

Ten days after the bombardment of Terra, I see the white and green of Mars from orbit. How I have missed my home. Warmth stirs in my chest as I think of my wife and my son. It has been too long. As we approach the planet, I notice Deimos.

The battle moon is no longer as I remember. Fifteen kilometres of steel now extend from its surface, forming a vast crescent that rings part of the moon like a crown. The new dockyards glitter against the darkness, a spine of industry and precision. Only in their infancy, spindles and girders spiral outward, each segment lit by a web of fluorescent lights that trace the framework of the crescent. Vast assembly bays open like metallic petals, housing the beginnings of frigates, carriers, and transports. Automated cranes glide along mag-tracks, welding the hulls of warships in silence, while streams of cargo shuttles weave between the arms of the structure like veins of light.

The crescent itself hums with life; refineries, habitation modules, and control towers linked by transparent transit tubes that give a view of Mars and its pale twin, Phobos, in the distance. The whole construction feels both martial and elegant, a union of geometry and power. It is a marvel. I stare at it, astonished by the progress achieved in such a short time. As we draw nearer, I see that Phobos too has changed. The once jagged city moon now bears floating battle stations, the first of many, forming a vast dome around it. New barracks and training arenas line the stations, ready to receive fresh recruits.

Behind us, a sleek dreadnought six kilometres long, glides through the void, flanked by the Dejah Thoris. It is larger and newer than the Pax but incomplete, part of its hull red as blood. On its other side, an Arcos dreadnought hovers in formation, and behind the three, twenty TorchShips of the Martian Defence Fleet follow in disciplined silence. My honour guard. As we enter the planet’s atmosphere, fifty corvettes and twice as many ThunderWings rise to meet our vessel. They move in perfect rhythm, forming an elegant pattern around us. For the first time in ages, I feel safe.

“Servator Martis, this is Agea Command. Welcome home, soldiers,” comes the voice through the comms. My heart swells a little more at the sound, a strange compulsion taking hold of me. I turn from the viewport and instruct my Blue pilot. He stiffens at the order. The other craft hold position while we descend alone. Halfway through, he banks the ship, angling parallel to the surface, and begins a ring around Mars. I recall an old custom once known as the Iron Circle. Silenius, the vain bastard, would circle a planet or moon alone upon arrival, a show of his supremacy, regardless of the tensions below. The Houses turned it into an opportunity for assassination, and the ritual died off. Yet here I am.

We surge forward, slicing across the Thermic Sea, then the Amazonian Basin. We sweep over the shield volcanoes of Cimmeria and the vineyards of Thessalonica. In the far distance, the polar ice caps gleam, Ragnar’s home. At last, we complete the circuit and descend towards Agea, at the heart of the Valles Marineris. Its walls rise two hundred metres high, glistening under the sun as a segment of the planetary shield withdraws to admit us. The city is alive and radiant, towers of glass and steel rising into the sky. We glide over the Field of Mars, where the obelisk honouring my Rain stands, and towards the centre where the corvette lands.

I walk to the opening hatch, dressed in my PulseArmour. Lorn’s razor, the violet Salix, coils around my left arm. In my right hand, I grip my bone white razor, curved like a slingBlade. Even before I step onto the gangway, I hear them. Thousands of voices roar my name. LowColours and High alike, shouting, waving my standard. Many wear red; others hold crimson scarves or headbands. Fathers lift their children high, and mothers point me out with trembling hands.

“Reaper! Reaper! Reaper!”

I let the sounds wash over me, a chorus of strength. For the first time, I savour their shouts of joy. I relish the red rose petals and Haemanthus blossoms that are thrown aloft. Ahead, polished marble steps rise before me. They are lined with men and women of the Lionguard and the few Venatores I sent back with Mustang. Their red armour glints with gold, creating a pattern of regal fire.

At the summit stands my wife, radiant as the sun, her hair a cascade of golden waves that ripple in the breeze. She wears a flowing golden robe embroidered with vermilion. Her hands rest above her stomach, round with child. I falter mid-step, stunned by the sight. So that was what Octavia meant. Beside her stands a little boy. Pax, solemn and still, has grown. The small infant I left is now a toddler, standing on his own. His toothy smile is dimpled, and the faintest curve touches my lips.

Behind them wait Agrippina and the Arcos widows, the other men and women who remained on Mars. To one side hovers Quicksilver, and beside him; my second shock, Mateo, his arm entwined with Quicksilver’s. I ascend the steps, my friends following close behind.

***

Virginia

The sun blazes high above, casting a golden sheen across the city. Thousands gather along the final stretch of the Via Triumphia where it opens onto the Field of Mars. The plaza is packed, a living sea of colour divided only by thin partitions between High, Mid, and LowColours. Yet in their voices there is no distinction. They shout as one, hooting and crying, waving my husband’s banner of the wolf and the slingBlade.

The sleek corvette, Servator Martis, descends before me. As its hatch opens and the gangway extends, the roar of the crowd swells until it feels as though the air itself might shatter. Darrow is home. My heart beats like a drum, my fingers twisting the Pegasus-crested ring he gave me before leaving for the Academy. When he steps onto the shining marble, my breath catches.

He stands like a figure carved from myth, every inch forged by war and triumph. The light strikes his long golden hair, tied loosely so that a few strands fall against his brow. His eyes, bright and sharp as molten metal, seem to hold the weight of worlds. Though he has only just turned twenty-four, there is something timeless about him, a quiet gravity that commands every gaze. The sun glints against his PulseArmour, and for a moment he looks more god than man, the very embodiment of Mars returned to his people.

He raises his slingBlade high, and the chant erupts in perfect rhythm, rolling through the plaza like thunder.
“Reaper! Reaper! Reaper!”

My hands rest on my belly unconsciously, and I see Darrow stumble as his eyes fall on it. I almost laugh but settle for a smile. I had kept the secret from him, hoping to ease his mind while he fought for Earth. Knowing another child was on the way would only have weighed on him. Behind him, the strike team I sent to Luna files out. Clown and Pebble walk beside a rather dishevelled Sevro, who glances around as though uncertain where he is. Daxo and Aeneas follow, flanking a GravSled that bears a covered body. Lorn.

A pang of sorrow cuts through the joy of the moment. Lorn was like a father to Darrow after he entered the world of Gold, and I know it must wound him to see the old warrior laid to rest. Fitchner comes next, flanked by Hector au Norvo, Ariadne, and Lores. More of the team follow before my gaze returns to Darrow. Cassius wisely remained

He finally reaches the top, and I have to stop myself from going to him. Pax cannot. He stumbles forward on unsteady feet, arms outstretched. I watch as the mask of command slips from Darrow’s face. He scoops Pax up, and the crowd erupts, voices surging into an even louder frenzy. When he sets our son down, he kneels before me.

“I have returned, ArchGovernor,” he says, voice carrying through the plaza. Then he rises and draws me into his arms, resting a hand upon my stomach. The child within kicks, and I laugh softly at the sensation.

“Lo, husband,” I say, feeling for a moment like the girl who once broke the Institute alongside him. “Lo, wife,” he murmurs, his voice a whisper of warmth.

He turns to the others, greeting each in turn, lingering with the Arcos widows. Hadrian and Alexander cling to him as he kneels to offer comforting and quiet words. After the year he spent travelling to Elysium to train with Lorn, the boys had grown to love him deeply.

The cheers outside fade but never truly end as we make our way into the citadel. Inside, the corridors gleam with the red and gold of the Lionguard, flanked by a few of Darrow’s Winged Legion. Our procession is long, now more a mob. New arrivals chat with my advisors and guests the conversation light and joyous. We stop before golden filigreed doors engraved with the roaring lion of House Augustus. Two soldiers stand guard, their armour polished to a mirror sheen. They bow, then salute Darrow before swinging the doors open.

The grand reception room glows with soft, amber light. Long tables are laid with platters of fruit, roasted meats, and delicate confections arranged like art. Decanters of wine glimmer beside crystal cups. The air is warm with the scent of spice and honey. A small ensemble of Violet musicians plays near the balcony, their instruments weaving gentle melodies that settle like a sigh over the gathering.

There are few Pinks present, and none in the provocative garb that once marked such occasions. Those who serve move quietly through the room in loose, modest garments, balancing trays with quiet grace. The mood is subdued, reverent even, as if the city itself holds its breath in welcome.

The evening begins with a brief speech from Darrow. His words are measured, full of gratitude. He meets each gaze with warmth, and his smile, though genuine, carries the weight of a man who has seen too much. When he finishes, applause ripples softly through the room. He sits, and I place my hand on his. He turns to me and offers a small, tired smile, but I can feel the strain beneath it. He does not wish to linger among courtiers and ceremony.

The night passes quickly, and when the guests drift away, we withdraw to my chambers.

***

The door closes softly behind us, sealing out the echoes of celebration. Darrow turns, the mask he has worn for hours falling away. His smile shifts, no longer formal or guarded but raw and real. Before I can speak, he sweeps me into his arms and kisses me. It is deep and unhurried, filled with longing and the ache of absence.

I breathe him in, the scent filling me completely. It seeps into my lungs, raw and familiar, the essence of him that I have craved for so long. For a moment, I close my eyes and let it consume me, as if by breathing him in I can keep him from ever leaving again. My hands rise to his face, tracing the familiar lines, guiding his eyes to mine.

In those golden eyes, I see everything he has carried across the void: love and sorrow, fury and desire, and pain that runs so deep it glows. “Talk to me,” I whisper.

He exhales, a sound caught between relief and weariness, and takes my hand. Together we move to the balcony, our favourite place overlooking the lights of Agea. “Let us begin with how much I have missed you,” he says softly, and the words reach into my chest.

An hour passes, the sunset bleeding into the indigo of night. We sit close, the wind stirring the sheer curtains. I had offered him whisky, but he refused in quiet solidarity. Instead, I listen as he speaks of Earth and the time after I left him, my fingers entwined with his. His voice grows heavy when he reaches Ragnar, and the grief that follows feels almost alive between us.

When he speaks of his fight with Aja and the other Olympians, his voice breaks. The tears come without shame, falling freely, then the sobs that rack his frame. I pull him into me, holding him tight as the storm breaks. His body trembles, the sound of his pain a knife to my heart. He clutches my hand as though it anchors him to the world, and I rub his back, whispering whatever small comforts I can find. It is a catharsis of sorts, the first release he has allowed himself in a while; long delayed and long needed.

When he begins again, there is steel in his tone. Speaking of Luna hardens him. He shares only fragments, but I can sense the fury simmering beneath his restraint. I know Octavia too well, the cold, twisted brilliance of her mind and the cruelty it conjures behind her veneer of calm; the Dancing Mask. I curse her quietly when he mentions Sevro.

“A device that could draw out and alter memory?” I prod, my thoughts racing to make sense of it. Yet nothing comes. As her apprentice, Octavia never trusted me with her deepest secrets. I only know of her Crescent Vault but not exactly what it guards. Rumour, though, claims it holds some odd curiosities of her making, relics and wonders that predate the Conquering and come from the lost age of old Earth. If she could create the Oracles, then such a device is within her reach.

“I do not know. I need Mickey, and perhaps Percival, the Master Maker, and a few Yellows,” he says quietly. “Whatever she did, that is not Sevro. That is not my brother. He has changed, Mustang. I did not want to believe it, but he has. And I am afraid.”

We fall into a comfortable silence, each of us lost in thought. He takes my feet in his hands, his thumbs tracing slow circles, and I release a soft sigh of contentment. For a moment, the world outside fades away. I reach for my datapad and enter a summons for Mickey, Percival, and the Yellows. Then I set it aside.

When we rise and return to the room, the weight of war and memory slips from us both, and Darrow shows me, without words, just how much he has missed me.

Chapter Text

Darrow

I wake in a warm bed with my wife beside me. Sunlight spills through the curtains in golden streams that bathe the room. It feels strange, not rising to the sound of alarms or a line of officers waiting for orders. For once, there is peace.

The door opens with a soft creak and Pax totters in, half walking, half wobbling. I call his name and he giggles so hard he stumbles. I catch him before he falls and his laughter fills the room. For a moment, everything is as it should be. Why can’t the world stay this way forever?

I spend the morning with my family, trying to make up for the long months I’ve been away from Agea. Mustang tells me she has a surprise, leading me out to the landing bay where the Nemean Claw waits, sleek and silver, the Augustus Thunder class corvette gleams in the morning light. Pax ambles ahead, arms outstretched, pretending to fly.

‘Where are we going, Mustang? I know I said yes, but I’m not sure I can handle any more surprises,’ I say, smiling despite myself. It’s true, even the smallest shock still sends a tremor through me.

‘I think you might like this one,’ she replies with a knowing smile. 

I scoop up Pax, settle him into his seat, and take the controls. The ship hums to life and soon we rise into the clear blue sky.

The flight is calm, and the scenery grows more beautiful as we leave the city behind. Below us, the landscape unfolds; the endless flower farms north of Agea, a sea of purple and pink streaked with red. The beauty of it pulls something loose inside me.

‘I wish it could be like this all the time,’ I murmur. After a pause, I add, ‘I never told you this, but that night at the Gala, I was going to blow everyone up. Harmony told me Dancer and Ares were dead.’

‘What changed your mind?’ Mustang asks. She doesn’t look at me, her gaze fixed on the horizon, but I can hear the question soft beneath her voice.

For a while, I can’t answer. The sunlight spills across her skin, gilding her face. She looks unreal, like something the worlds don’t deserve.

‘You,’ I say at last, my voice low.

She laughs quietly and reaches for my hand.

‘And because I realised it wouldn’t change anything,’ I continue. ‘New Golds would rise. The Sons would be hunted into extinction. So instead, I sparked a civil war with the Bellona. I didn’t think it would go this far. I didn’t think I’d drive the worlds to this.’

She squeezes my hand, her eyes soft. ‘Seeing you with Cassius gave me pause, you know. I can finally admit that now.’

‘I’m sorr-’

‘I won’t have any of that, wife,’ I cut in gently.

We share a smile. For a heartbeat, peace settles again, fragile but real. Land fades into the endless shimmer of the Thermic Sea, then gives way to the rolling green plains of Cimmeria. Mustang faces forward, her expression deliberately unreadable.

‘Are you going to tell me where we’re going?’ I ask.

‘That would ruin the surprise, my dear Reaper,’ she says, and her smile widens.

We angle west, and soon Phoenicia rises into view. The Master Makers built the city in homage to ancient Mesopotamia, all perfect squares and hanging gardens, the rooftops inlaid with bands of lapis lazuli and gold. It is an architectural marvel, and a gift from Nero after the birth of Pax.

‘Are we here to fulfil our administrative duties? Honestly, Mustang, your idea of fun is questionable,’ I say. She still does not answer, only gives a quiet chuckle.

We land within the citadel where a Copper administrator hurries to greet us.

‘ArchGovernor, Imperator Augustus,’ he begins, bowing deeply. ‘And young master Pax. Welcome, Dominii.’

He leads us to a smaller shuttle that Mustang had arranged. We board and drift to the edge of the city, past the shields and out towards a country estate. When we land and step outside, I notice the silence first. There are no Brown workers tending the grounds, no HighReds in sight. The entire compound feels deserted, unsettlingly so.

I stop, turning to Mustang. She keeps walking, glancing back only to beckon with a curl of her finger. I sigh and follow, unease prickling at the back of my neck.

At the entrance, the door opens and I freeze. A young Red girl rushes towards us. Her nose is broad and flat, her long crimson hair woven into intricate braids that remind me of Lykos.

‘Rhonna?’ I ask, stunned.

‘Hello, uncle,’ she replies, her voice thick with a miner’s accent.

I laugh in disbelief. The twins, Iro and Reagan, come running behind her, only to stop short when they see me. To them, I must look gigantic, some myth come to life. All three are about the same age, born within months of one another.

I kneel, and Rhonna is the first to step forward, grinning as she extends her hand in greeting. Her fingers are small against mine, but her grip is full of spirit. I begin to ask about her, yet she is already speaking, pouring out a breathless tale of their journey from the mines, the Lionguard escort, and their new life on this estate. She stops more than once to thank Mustang, gazing at her with the awe one might give a goddess.

Her story ends abruptly when two figures appear in the doorway. Kieran and Dio step out to meet us. My brother looks older now, nearer thirty-five than twenty-seven, though he is only three years older. He greets me with a broad smile and a firm handshake. I return it gently, wary of my own strength.

Then I see Dio, and my breath catches. She smiles softly and offers her hand. The resemblance to Eo is uncanny, and for a heartbeat my thoughts drift somewhere else entirely.

‘Welcome, Darrow,’ she says at last.

Behind her, my mother emerges from the house. She looks stronger than when I last saw her, just before my Triumph nearly two years ago. The same steely composure remains, though her eyes are kinder now. She gestures for me to stoop so she can embrace me. Her frame feels fragile in my arms, her bones delicate beneath my hands.

Pax squeals with joy when he sees her, running forward with outstretched arms. She gathers him up and laughs, brighter and freer than I have heard in years.

‘My little lion, how are you?’ she asks, pinching his nose.

Pax giggles and rests his head on her shoulder. Watching them, I feel something shift inside me, a quiet warmth that makes me question this war more deeply than ever before.

As we step inside, I am surprised to find Leanna seated by the hearth, cradling a young child in her arms. A man I do not recognise stands close by, hovering protectively. When he sees me, he stiffens and seems to shrink into himself.

‘Darrow,’ Leanna says at last, her voice tinged with disbelief. Of all my family, only my mother has seen me in person since my Carving. I wonder what they think now, seeing what I have become. The man before them is a stranger wearing a new face, and the acclaim on the HoloNet does little to bridge that divide.

‘This is my husband, Cormac,’ Leanna says.

I turn to him, hand already extended. He bows instead, eyes lowered.

‘It is an honour to meet you, Dominus,’ he says cautiously.

‘None of that foolish talk,’ my mother scolds, but Cormac only glances up and offers a tight smile that looks more like pain than courtesy.

Leanna rises and places the child carefully in my arms. I hold her as if she were spun glass. Her eyes open, deep Red and shining. She gurgles softly at the sight of me.

‘Her name is Maeve,’ Rhonna says from my side.

‘Hello, Maeve,’ I murmur, and the child smiles, toothless and bright.

Soon we are gathered around a table set for a meal. Pitviper blood soup steams beside fresh flaxbread, with bowls of stewed eggs and a scattering of green salads. The smell alone carries me back to the mines, to the taste of home long buried beneath iron and ash.

We eat and talk, laughter filling the room. My family trade stories of my childhood, painting memories I half remember. Mustang adds her own, small tales from the Institute and the years that followed, each one devoured with eager curiosity. For a while, the war feels distant, as though it belongs to another life entirely.

When the meal ends, we move to the open pavilion that overlooks golden fields of wheat and barley swaying in the breeze. Kieran pours two glencairns of whiskey and hands one to me. The others drift about, clearing plates and tidying the table.

‘How does it feel to be a Gold?’ he asks, settling beside me.

I stare out at the horizon for a long while before answering.

‘Much the same as it did when I was a Red,’ I say quietly. ‘Only now I am taller and stronger, with a dreadnought and fleets as my tools instead of a ClawDrill.’

He laughs and takes a slow sip from his glass.

‘Though I miss it sometimes,’ I continue, ‘the mines, the work, the people, the simplicity of it all.’ I pause, my gaze fixed on the far fields. ‘The world above is cruel, even to Gold. The Pixies have their pleasures and no care for anything beyond them, but the Peerless must fight, kill, and scheme for every scrap of worth. Even in old age, they still dance to the tune of war and pride.’

Kieran studies me, worry softening his features.

‘Do not trouble yourself,’ I say, forcing a faint smile. ‘I have a long life yet. I only lost a friend recently. He was like a father to me. He was more than a hundred years old, but he died to save my life.’

The conversation drifts, unhurried. I ask Kieran about his family, about Dio. He smiles as he tells me he now has seven children; five with Kora, his first wife, and two with Dio. There is pride in his voice, quiet but deep. They live here in the country, venturing into Phoenicia only on occasion. He seems content, as Reds often do, yet I sense a hollowness beneath it all, the kind born of isolation and distance from the wider worlds.

I tell him of the war and the fragile state of the worlds. He listens keenly, interrupting now and then to ask for details or clarification. I am surprised by how much he understands. He speaks of tactics and formation as though he has studied them, his mind sharp enough to grasp the intricacies of strategy. How I wish I could take him up among the fleets and show him the stars for himself.

Mustang appears at the far end of the pavilion, moving with quiet grace, her hands resting upon her swollen belly. My mother walks beside her, speaking in low tones, and Mustang listens with the same attentiveness she once gave the Sovereign. The sight draws a smile from me. My mother has always been a force unto herself.

‘An Augustus for a wife? How did a ruster like you manage that?’ Kieran asks, following my gaze.

‘Slag off, Kieran,’ I say, laughing.

As Mustang and my mother step onto the pavilion, my wife gives me a small smile, and my mother falls silent as if their conversation were a secret.

‘Time already?’ I ask, dreading the moment of departure.

‘She is your ArchGovernor, boy,’ Kieran says with a grin, ‘and that means she has work to do. Unlike you, for the time being at least.’

He bursts into laughter, and Mustang joins him. I look to my mother for support, but she only shakes her head.

‘Do not look at me like that, boy. I am your mother,’ she says with mock severity, though her eyes are warm.

We say our goodbyes at the shuttle. Pax whines softly from his perch in my mother’s arms.

‘I will see you again, little one,’ she whispers to him, brushing a strand of hair from his face.

I take my time with the rest of my family, speaking to each in turn, offering a few words, a touch on the shoulder, a shared memory. The children, eleven of them now, loud and laughing, crowd around me. I lift each one high into the air before catching them again, their shrieks of delight filling the courtyard.

Mustang exchanges words with Leanna and Dio. They laugh together before sharing a final embrace. It feels strange, seeing them so close, as though they have known each other for years. I realise how much I have missed.

At last, we board the shuttle. The hatch closes, the engines hum, and the estate falls away beneath us. We return to Phoenicia, and then to Agea, leaving the laughter of home behind in the golden fields.

Chapter Text

Darrow

The weeks after the visit pass in training with Cassius. We have settled into a steady rhythm, sparring most mornings and sharing a quiet drink in the evenings. We speak often, some talks hard but needed, and in them I find a strange peace. The rest of the time is spent with Mustang and Pax and when we are apart, my thoughts return to the war. Each move we make now must be measured and calculated. With the bombardment of Earth, Octavia has changed the course of this conflict entirely. The Venusian fleet has been absorbed into the Sceptre Armada, yet their intentions remain unclear. I fear that if we delay much longer, we will be driven back to Mars and hemmed in by the Ash Lord.

The survivors from Earth are still a fortnight away. They are little more than half the men I took there, six million souls in all. The number alone weighs on me. Too many friends remain missing. Victra, Apollonius, and others who stayed behind to see the retreat through. I hold to the hope that they live, though the images from Terra tell another story. Craters mar the places where cities once stood. Pillars of glass rise for kilometres where plains and forests once stretched green and bright. The sun is dimmed in many parts of the planet, shrouded by the drifting ash. The once beautiful sphere has become a barren wasteland. Almost a billion dead, and the toll grows heavier with each passing hour. Octavia has shown no interest in sending relief, and we are already stretched thin.

Mustang has dispatched long-range capsules filled with essential supplies: food, anti-radiation medicine, and whatever else we can spare. It is not much, but it may help. She has been preparing Mars for the next stage of the conflict. Sun Industries probes sweep through the asteroid belt in search of materials for ships and munitions. She has pressed Asgard for more Stained and pushed the Agoge to train additional Grays. In secret, Reds from the mines are being spirited away to remote training facilities under the direction of Dancer and the Sons, and so are Browns. Pinks, organised by Theodora, are being trained in espionage, while Blues and Greens are diverted to support the Sons’ efforts. It is a delicate web of coordination, ensuring that both operations run in tandem without revealing too much to either side.

“You are getting marginally better, Darrow,” Cassius taunts as we leave the training arena. He looks as radiant as ever since returning to Mars. Something has changed in him. He is lighter now, more at ease. He still drinks himself to sleep when I leave him each night, but the anger and bitterness that once shadowed him have begun to fade. I smile and gesture for him to walk beside me.

“What do you think I should do about this war?” I ask, keeping my eyes fixed ahead.

He is quiet for a time, considering his answer. “I do not know, Darrow. This is no longer war, and you know it. Octavia has gone rogue, and no one dares challenge her. Not the Senate, not the Core. You cannot face her now, even if you unite your fleets with Nero and Romulus.”

I listen closely, his words echoing my own thoughts.

“I have a plan,” I say at last, “but I am not sure of it.”

When I explain it, he listens in silence, then gives a small, knowing smile. “So you do have a brain after all.”

***

Two weeks later, the first of the fleets arrive. My ships, scorched and battered, file into Martian airspace. The skies above Agea are filled with their contrails, silver scars against the pale blue. As the soldiers descend to the surface, the cities erupt in celebration. Music rises, banners unfurl, and crowds gather in the plazas of various citadels to welcome them home. Yet beneath the cheers, I see only exhaustion. The eyes of my officers are hollow. They have seen the death of a world, and the guilt of those they left behind lingers in every bowed head.

At the great plaza, I stand where Mustang once stood, presenting honours, medals, and commendations. It is a strange reversal. I clasp their hands, call them heroes, but the word feels heavy in my mouth. What is a hero to a world left in ruins?

I do not let them brood for long. Rest is brief. Within a week, the initial tide of returning soldiers has slowed to a trickle, and Mars begins to absorb her sons and daughters again. The soldiers of the Rim, too, find a place with us. Then the drills begin. Under Orion’s relentless command, the Blues train from dawn to dusk, refining their flight manoeuvres and reacquiring the precision they lost in the chaos of Earth. The Grays and Obsidians spar almost daily, rebuilding their cohesion and discipline. The Golds, proud but weary, are taught anew in both combat and command, learning to lead small, semi-independent strike units. If we are to survive the next campaign, our methods must change.

Each morning the clang of steel and the roar of engines echo across the training fields. In the afternoons, the sounds shift to low voices in strategy rooms, to the hum of holographic maps and whispered debate. Days blur into weeks, then a month since our homecoming. I walk the grounds often, speaking with the soldiers, gauging their spirit. They are hardened now, tempered by loss, but ready.

Far between the orbits of Earth and Mars, Nero and Romulus maintain their vigil, silent sentinels watching the stillness of the Sceptre Armada. Octavia does not move and the waiting gnaws at all of us.

Then, at last, news comes from Earth; a faint signal but unmistakable. Victra lives. So does Apollonius, and with them nine hundred thousand of my men. The report spreads like fire through the barracks and the cities of Mars. Bells ring in Agea. Cheers rise from the training grounds. For the first time since the bombardment, laughter returns to the voices of my soldiers. Hope is a dangerous thing, but in that moment, I let it take me. The air of mourning that has shrouded us lifts. The armies of Mars breathe again. We have not been beaten yet. And for the first time in a long while, I am ready to answer the call of battle.

***

I gather my closest advisors: Mustang, Fitchner, Orion, Quicksilver, Servilla and Cassius. I trust these six. Even though Orion, Servilla and Cassius do not know my full truth, their loyalty has been steadfast and unwavering. We meet in the small chamber adjoining Mustang’s office. There is no ceremony, no retinue of aides or guards, only the quiet of the room and the weight of what we are about to discuss.

“I have been thinking about the war,” I begin. “Octavia has not yet moved, but it is only a matter of time.” I let the sentence settle. Fitchner leans forward, his expression sharp. “What do you suggest we do?” He asks, eyes fixed on me. I meet Cassius’ glance, then turn to the small assembly gathered around the table. Their faces are set, waiting, eyes expectant.

“I propose we strike at the Sword Armada and take the war to Ilium.”

The reaction is immediate. Voices break out, one after another. Fitchner and Orion speak at once, arguing against the idea. One cites logistics, the other the sheer madness of the idea. Quicksilver’s tone is cautious, Mustang’s calm but sceptical. Only Cassius and Servilla remain silent, studying me. I let the voices rise and fall, allowing each of them to be heard, listening as each argument builds and burns itself out.

When the last dissenting voice falls silent, I rise slightly in my seat. The room is small enough that each word lands. “We cannot face Octavia directly,” I say. “Even if we join our forces with Nero and Romulus. The Sceptre Armada strengthens each day with reinforcements from Venus. The destruction of Earth has unsettled Octavia's command and even though her Praetors must be reeling from the scale of it, she will have time to settle them then attack. Let's use this lull.”

I pause, meeting each gaze in turn. “Our forces have returned and found their footing again. The soldiers have recovered from that obscene horror. The report from Terra has lit a fire in the survivors that will not last forever. If we act now, if we defeat Roque and the Sword Armada, we can unite Mars and the Rim behind one cause and take this war to Luna’s doorstep. Then, and only then, will we have a chance to stand against Octavia

Silence stretches. The air feels close, the tension drawn taut. I can almost see each of them weighing the cost.

Servilla speaks first. “He is right. This may be our only path forward.” Nods follow around the table. Doubt fades into grim resolve. The choice is made. We will face the Poet.

***

Two years ago, Nero sat where I sit now and declared war on the Society. The same table stretches before me, its polished surface reflecting the pale light of the HoloMap above. Around it, Praetors, Imperators and the primi of the Martian Houses, each in full regalia, take their seats. The room gleams with power and ceremony, but beneath it runs a quiet undercurrent of unease. I wait until the last officer has taken a seat. The murmurs fade and silence settles, heavy and expectant. Every gaze turns towards me. Searching. When I finally speak, my voice is steady and low as it carries across the chamber like a drawn blade.

"Prepare your men. Gather your command. Assemble your fleets. Mars goes to war once more."

I rise and turn away, Aeneas falling in step beside me as I leave. Behind us, the echo of my words lingers in the war-room, long after the doors have closed.

Chapter Text

Mustang

The drums of battle echo across Mars. Few know what truly stirs in the high councils or where Darrow will lead them, but that ignorance does not trouble them. They believe in him. They believe in their Reaper.

Preparations for the voyage to Jupiter are well underway. Every survivor of Earth has now rallied beneath my husband’s banner. No longer are they Martian or Rim, no longer House fleets or personal legions; they are one armada under Imperator Augustus.

Deimos, the battle moon, hums with activity. The ships from Earth have been cycled through the new dockyards, repaired, refitted, and rearmed. Fresh hulls join the armada, small replacements for what was lost, yet every ton of steel and scrap of materiel feels like a victory.

I let Darrow see to his soldiers. I busy myself with the endless logistics. While I share in the renewed fire among our ranks, unease gnaws at me. I have only just gotten my husband back, and already he prepares to leave again for another battle, another risk. I know it is necessary. I know I cannot stop him. Will not. But knowing changes nothing. I am still a wife and a mother, even when I must also be an ArchGovernor and Peerless.

From the high balcony of my office, I look out over Agea. The city sprawls in motion, alive with industry. Transports thunder between the production and martial districts. Even the Low and MidColours have joined the war effort in a unity I have never before seen. A knock on the door draws me back inside. I turn from the city’s fevered pulse and return to my desk.

“Enter.”

Theodora steps in, flanked by Holiday. The former Praetorian now wears the black-and-red of the Winged Legion, her posture still rigid with military precision. They both bow; Holiday’s deep and deliberate, Theodora’s perfunctory. She takes a seat without waiting, but Holiday stands at attention until I motion for her to sit. Theodora rolls her eyes, and I cannot help but smile. She has long grown used to my informality; Holiday has not. To her, I am still a Gold.

“Sit, Holiday,” I say.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

I turn to Theodora. “What brings you both here? This is…an unusual pairing.”

Theodora exhales softly, glancing sideways at Holiday. “Our friend here,” she begins, “knows the inner workings of Luna and the Sovereign’s court better than most. She was a Dragoon, after all.”

There’s a trace of distaste in her tone. Once, as a Rose in service to the Core elite, Theodora crossed paths with the Grimmus, particularly Atalantia and the Ash Lord. Her hatred for that house runs deep; it is one of the few things that can crack her uncharacteristic calm.

I study her, waiting for the point.

“Well,” she continues, “she’s insisted on volunteering certain information. Though I can’t say what or why.” Her nose wrinkles with suspicion.

“Have you told her about the plan?” I ask evenly.

Theodora’s eyes widen, affronted. “I would never do such a thing!”

I ignore her protests and turn to Holiday. I study the woman before me. She is not beautiful, even for a Gray, with a broad nose and a stout build. Yet her eyes hold something disarming, a quiet sincerity that compels belief. She seems open and honest, almost eager to be of service.

“Tell me, Holiday, how can you help?”

She straightens, her face sharpening with focus. “I did not know who to bring this to. I would have gone to the Imperator, but he is too occupied, and the Rage Knight is nowhere to be found.”

She means Fitchner. Since discovering Sevro’s strange malady, he has thrown himself completely into the work of the Sons of Ares. I think he is far more broken by his son’s state than he will ever care to admit. It is a painful thing, to watch your child become a shadow of who they once were.

“Ma’am,” Holiday continues, “have you heard of the Pandemonium Chair?”

The name alone draws my full attention. I listen as she explains, each word feeding the growing unease and curiosity in me. When she finishes, silence hangs heavy between us as I process what I’ve heard. A device capable of extracting and altering memory? The very thought sends a chill through me. Such a thing could reshape the worlds.

Holiday breaks the silence. “Here is all I managed to take from her Greens,” she says, producing two HoloCubes and setting them on my desk. “I hope it will be of use, ma’am.”

With that, I excuse the woman, who leaves with just as much ceremony as she entered with. Theodora snorts derisively as the door closes.

“She is an interesting woman, that one,” she says. I can see the impatience flickering in her eyes, the urge to examine the HoloCubes herself. There will be time for that, but my mind is already racing through Holiday’s information, trying to see how it might be used, or how it might destroy us.

I rise and walk back toward the balcony, lost in thought. Theodora watches me from her seat.

“Send word to Mickey and Percival,” I say. “Then gather our best Yellows and Greens for-”

The words die in my throat as a sharp pain grips my body. I gasp, a sound caught between surprise and agony. Theodora is on her feet at once, rushing to my side.

“Virginia, what is it?” she demands, catching me as my knees buckle and easing me to the ground. She strains at the effort of doing so.

I clutch at her arm, breath coming fast. “Get a Yellow. Now. And find my gorydamn husband. The baby is coming.”

***

Darrow

I spar with Cassius as we do most mornings. The practice is ritual now, something to steady the hands and sharpen the breath before the day devours us. Time has been scarce with preparations for the coming campaign, yet I make space for this. It is one of the few moments of calm I still allow myself.

We rest beneath the shade of a Mediterranean orange tree, its leaves whispering in the light wind. Cassius plucks a fruit from a low branch and tears into it, the juice running down his chin. He eats with a soldier’s greed, and for a heartbeat he is only a man enjoying the sun. I watch him and think of Earth, and how long it will take before such trees grow there again.

“I was thinking I could become a legate,” he says between bites, the joke grounding us both. “You know my mother was one. It would suit me.” He smiles, his mouth still sticky with juice. I laugh. He would indeed make a fine legate; he has the fire and the levity, even after everything. Only purpose can steady him in the way only a spear can steady a hand.

We sit in comfortable silence, the training ground still around us, until the sound of hurried footsteps breaks the morning. A Brown, winded and frantic, stumbles into the sand, a Lionguard at her shoulder. The Gray is composed but quick.

“Dominus,” the Brown pants, clutching at her apron. “The ArchGovernor requests your presence in her chambers.”

“What is it?” I demand. The Brown hesitates looking to the Gray, then back at me, trying to frame the words.

“Go on,” I press, rising. Cassius is up before me, the concern in his eyes mirroring my own. “You heard your Imperator,” Cassius urges.

The Gray finally speaks. “She is in labour, Dominii.”

For a moment, my mind empties. I was not there for Pax’s birth; war with Ash Lord kept me in the dark between planets. Now that the moment has come again, I find myself uncertain, even afraid. Cassius reads my expression and bursts into laughter, breaking the tension. With a clap on both my shoulders he gives me a shove forward.

We run.

Through the citadel grounds we charge, raising chaos in our wake. Browns hauling crates dive aside at our pace. Red cleaners step back, startled. We scatter a column of Venatores headed for the barracks, who turn back confused. My boots drum the flagstones until my lungs burn and the corridors blur.

Servilla and Juno meet us halfway, their faces set. We stride together to the chamber door. From inside comes the sound of Mustang’s labour: deep, raw and ragged.

I freeze at the threshold. The sound too terrible.

“Go on, Imperator,” Servilla says, sharp and gentle both, her eyes glinting with amusement. I look down at my trembling hands, Cassius sighing, half amused.  He gives me another shove as Juno opens the door, and before I can protest, I am inside.

The room is stripped of formality. Cloth is pushed back, instruments lay waiting. Mustang stands braced against the bed, her knuckles white. Sweat beads on her forehead. A Yellow kneels at her side, monitoring her with calm detachment but making no move to intervene. Among Golds, birth is sacred. It is not just an act but a trial of strength for both mother and child.

“Mustang,” I whisper hesitantly, the name small in the roar around it.

She groans in reply, the sound guttural and fierce. I instinctively retreat a step. She snaps my name like a whip, voice taut with pain. “Where do you think you are going, Darrow au Augustus?” she snarls through clenched teeth. The words pull me into focus. I step forward and take her hand.  Her grip is iron, crushing my fingers until they throb. Her breathing shortens into quick, controlled bursts. The Yellow watches silently.

The contractions come in waves, heavy and unrelenting. I count them like a soldier does: one, two, press; one, two, press. The Yellow murmurs timing and technique, telling Mustang when to push, when to breathe down. I watch the way her muscles work, how her body strains with effort. The air is warm. There is the smell of sweat and the metallic tang of blood and the wet, living scent of amniotic fluid.

At one point the membranes rupture with a small, obscene sound, and fluid drips onto the floor. It is a small, clinical moment in the middle of something vast. The Yellow mops, speaking in calm tones, and Mustang breathes through it.

Her voice breaks and becomes gruff. I cannot look away as the crown of the baby appears, then recedes, then crowns again. The sensation that must rack her pelvis must be excruciating; she meets it with a lion’s courage that makes my throat raw.

With a final howl, the baby slides free. The room fills with a single sharp wail, small and fierce. I reach forward instinctively and take the infant, slick and warm, in my hands. She is tiny, her skin pale. For a breath I hold her against my chest and the world contracts to the small, miraculous weight between my palms.

“It is a girl,” the Yellow says, voice softer now. Mustang laughs, a thin, astonished sound, and then cries.

She takes the knife from the Yellow, her hands still unsteady from labour, and cuts the cord. The Yellow clamps and ties then Mustang collapses onto the bed, exhausted but unbroken. She holds out her hands, and I place our daughter into them. She pulls the child in and holds her close, cradling her as if the world depends on that hold.

When she speaks, her voice trembles with the hush of a prayer and the authority of a commander. Every word is sharpened by love and by the hard knowledge of what has passed and what might come. Everyone moves away, well out of earshot.

“Daughter,” she says, looking at me then back to the child, “you are of the gens Augustii. When the Conquerors came upon old Earth, your ancestors took the heads of kings and emperors. Before the green of this land we now walk upon, our ancestors claimed its red waste. Where others relied on strength and brute force, we sharpened our minds to a razor’s edge. Where many yield to weakness, we endure.

“You also carry the blood of the mines in your veins. You are descended from the pioneers who made the dream of the worlds possible. In you is the resilience of those who carved life from the bedrock of this sphere. You carry the dream of those who came before us. You are the hope of generations yet to come. You are a child of wonder, the reason we stand and fight.

She looks up at me, eyes shining “Be brave, little one, for the worlds will fear change. Be strong, my girl, for life is harsh. You are a lion. Be a lion.”

“She is ours,” Mustang says. “Hic Sunt Leones.” I echo.

Here be lions.

Her head rests against my chest, and for a moment I feel both the fragility of the infant and the weight of the words. Mustang presses the child to her breast and the baby latches at once, urgent and imperious. The sound of that first suckle is small and profound.

Around us the room exhales. Cassius stands broom-stiff, a grin breaking across his face as if the sun has stuck through cloud. Servilla’s eyes are wet and steady. For a few heartbeats nothing else exists but the sound of our daughter’s breathing and Mustang’s evening out of breath.

Later, when the placenta is delivered and the Yellow checks both mother and child, the moment dulls into ordinary care: bandages, warm wraps, a cup of water. The ritual ceases, yet the air in the room is different. The work we do, the wars we wage, the losses we carry, all fold around this small figure and for all their weight, are held in abeyance for a while.

“What shall we name her?” I ask.

Mustang tilts her head and catches my eye. She smiles, fierce and weary.

“Fortuna,” she says, “For she is a gift when all else is uncertain.”

Chapter Text

Darrow

I stand in custom PulseArmour, blood red with black accents, the sigil of wolves emblazoned upon my chest. Before me stretch the legions of my armada, ordered and immense. Each one is represented by a thousand men; their standards stirring faintly in the wind, beneath the pale light of dawn. They stand in the Field of Mars, in front of the citadel where the stone still bears the scars of conquest. Above, the sky hums with engines. Ships hover in slow formation, and at their heart, my new dreadnought, Fortuna, drifts in silent command.

Named for my daughter, the five-kilometre vessel is the largest in the armada. One of a kind, it is the first capital ship forged in the dockyards of Deimos. Though its frame was built from the remnants of an old Augustus ship, most of it is new; employing cutting edge Sun Industries technology and the ingenuity of the Martian hands. Its hull gleams with the promise of war.

Beside me stand my wife and our children, resplendent in the red and gold of our house. Behind them, the primi of the great Houses and the elite of Mars wait in formal ranks. Lorn’s razor coils tight around my left forearm, a silent oath of the past while in my right hand rests my own, shaped into the curve of a slingBlade. Along the via, the crowds surge like a living tide. Their shouts rise and fall in waves, greater even than on the day of my return. This display has stirred something long buried: Mars, once weary and bowed, stands proud again.

I turn from the masses and face my wife. My winged helm retracts and Mustang meets my gaze with that unflinching calm that has always undone me. There is a light radiating from her I cannot name, the soft ethereal afterglow of birth. Pax stands beside her, solemn, little Fortuna resting in Servilla’s arms. I go down on a knee and speak with the full measure of formality so all may hear.

“ArchGovernor, I stand before you with the might of this armada, asking your blessing.”

A White approaches, draped in the pale robes of ceremony, flanked by two Chances. One bears a laurel wreath, the other a golden knife set with rubies. I take the blade and make a cut beneath my eye, feeling a sting then the warmth of blood. I let it drip carelessly to the ground, dark against the marble.

Mustang steps forward. Her face is regal, her voice steady and clear. “I give my blessing freely. What you do, do in my honour. Rise, Goldenborn. Rise, Ironmade.” She touches the blood underneath my eye, then marks her own, as her father once did at the Gala. “Rise, Man of Mars, and take with you my wrath.”

The words strike the air like charged particles. The crowd answers in a thunderous roar as she sets the laurel on my head. The ground trembles. I turn to face them, my GravBoots whining as I rise to float in the air. The red cloak attached to my armour flutters in the wind revealing a roaring lion in gold. I lift my slingBlade high, and the plain erupts; frenzied screams that turn the atmosphere electric. I open my mouth and shout authoritatively.

“Augustus!”

“INVICTUS!”

The gathered soldiers shout back, the chant rolling across the Field of Mars in a storm of voices. For seven hundred years, none dared speak those words without the Sovereign’s leave. The few who were sanctioned used it cautiously. Today, I speak those words with relish. Quicksilver’s networks and hackers will send this moment to every corner of the worlds. Let Octavia see what remains. Let her see that Mars still stands, unyielding, unbroken.

Shuttles descend to collect the soldiers. I share a moment with my family, then turn to the closest men and women to me, offering a final goodbye. Alexander rips himself from his aunt’s grasp and runs to me. I bend down and the boy embraces me, tears in his eyes.

“Please come back,” he pleads. “I promise I will.” I say to the boy then look up to his mother and my wife, who smile.

***

The Jackal

I sit in conference with the Dictator. The Ash Lord, his daughter Aja, Praetor Severus, Vitoria au Fabii, Julia au Bellona and three other senators occupy the remaining seats. Two Olympic Knights hover behind, silent sentinels. The air on the Palatine is taut, thick with distrust.

Darrow’s escape fractured this court more deeply than the bombardment of Terra. Every face here hides a question; every gesture reeks of suspicion. They trade chary glances thinking the spy sits among them, wearing the guise of ally but serving the Reaper, Virginia, or my father. Fools. They see only their own reflections, blind to the larger game that unfolds around them.

A Holo flickers to life above the table. The Field of Mars fills the room, brilliant and raw. Thousands roar at the foot of the via Triumphia in Agea, a sea of faces lit by fanatic light. Their noise is primitive, the mindless kind that mocks civilisation. It curdles my stomach to watch Golds and Silvers debase themselves in such worship; the sycophancy of it all.

Darrow kneels before my sister, his winged helm retracting, his brood beside him. The Love Knight’s daughter cradles the infant, born not too long ago. He shows no reaction from his place in the back of the room. I know the ritual that is to come. I do not hear the words, but as I see the White step forward, it confirms to me what Darrow intends. The bloodletting. The ancient Martian blessing.

Involuntarily, gooseflesh creeps along my arms. It is an ancient rite, older than the Society itself, one now reserved only for the sons and daughters of Mars. It was first performed by my ancestors, the Bellona and the Arcos before the Iron Rain fell upon Earth in the Conquering. Julia stiffens beside me. She understands its weight.

When it is done, Darrow ascends into the air like some resurrected god of war. The mob explodes, manic. Then the chant begins. His voice cuts across the noise, sharp as a blade, invoking words once reserved for House Lune. The answer rises, thunder rolling across the crowd, swelling from the legions to the civilians until it fills the sky. Invictus.

Octavia’s expression remains a mask, but her fingers tap against the table in silent irritation. It must wound her pride to see a Martian upstart command such devotion. The broadcast now runs across every signal and frequency. Attempts to purge it are met with a viral counterstroke that burns through systems like plague. Even after the supposed victory on Terra, I can feel our hold on this war, on the worlds, loose with every passing moment.

“What do you think?” Octavia asks the assembled Golds. The others play at thoughtfulness, but their fear is apparent. They never shared the Institute with Darrow. They do not know what it means to be trapped under that gaze. To saw your hand off as he watches, expressionless. They never saw that look in his eyes, that stillness before the storm. The man is not a warrior. He is a cataclysm.

Vitoria breaks the silence. “Do you think he is headed for Luna?” Her voice wavers, unable to hide her fear. The Ash Lord’s gaze hardens, disgust dripping from every word. “Are you a fool, woman?” he growls. She looks down, crimson rising to her cheeks.

“Be kind, Magnus,” Octavia murmurs, amusement curling her lips. Yet beneath her tone lies the question she does not voice: Could he?

The Ash Lord reclines, voice heavy with contempt. “Even if the Martians have cobbled together a dockyard and learned to patch their ships, we outnumber them two to one. Darrow would not dare, unless he means to make his wife a widow. This spectacle is posturing; he may strike elsewhere, foolishly.”

He pauses, then turns on Vitoria with venom. “So no, he is not coming to Luna. And he is certainly not hiding under the fucking table. Now act like a Peerless Scarred, not some gorydamn simpering Pixie.” The woman flushes a deeper shade of red. Octavia’s cruel smile glints in the light. Severus laughs softly, and Aja studies the Holo, expression unreadable. Julia catches my eye; I arch a brow, and she rolls her eyes before turning away.

They can dismiss him as a passing threat, point to Earth’s ruin and applaud their victory, but it is nothing more than a veil for their fear. I know Darrow. He is a trickster and his winded plans only make sense once the razor has already pierced your heart.

When the meeting ends, I linger at the Dictator’s behest.

“Any progress with our little project?” she asks. Her tone is mild, but her eyes gleam with impatience.

“Not yet, Dictator,” I reply evenly. The work of decoding those memories is more complex than even I anticipated.

She dismisses me with a flick of her hand. I bow slightly and turn to leave. Inside, I curse her, curse this palace, curse the cage my brilliance has become. Yet even as I walk away, one thought steadies me. The game is not over. And I will change its rules.

***

Cassius

I sit in the bridge of the Warchild, my father’s dreadnought, reborn in the dockyards of Deimos. Once captured by the Telamanuses during the Martian civil war, its old scars have been replaced with new purpose. The whir of its systems feels almost like a heartbeat beneath my feet.

A handful of my family’s former clients have returned, their loyalty rekindled by memory or guilt. Darrow filled the ranks with Rimsmen and Terran veterans, drawn from ships captured in the battle over Africa. This was met with virulent protest from his officers; some still hover menacingly around my ship, waiting to turn their warheads on me at the slightest provocation.

Strange, to be here again among the stars, bound once more for war. My wounds still ache, though they knit little by little. The man I was is gone; in his place stands something quieter, uncertain, but alive.

I laugh softly, thinking of the irony. Darrow, once my ruin, now my compass. My guiding light. The universe has a cruel sense of symmetry. I snap out of my reverie and command my Blue pilot, who looks at me expectantly.

“Take us to Ilium, Pytha.”

“Yes, dominus,” the Blue replies, voice calm and sure.

As the Warchild cuts through the void, I feel it again. The slow, familiar pull of fate, the whisper that always follows in Darrow’s wake

Chapter Text

Darrow

Our voyage to Jupiter lasts just over three weeks. In that time, I refine my strategy for facing Roque. Even after our grand display on the HC, spectacle alone will not win this war. We need precision, patience, and a plan strong enough to outthink a poet. He will know we are coming, perhaps even when, but he cannot yet know our vector, our strength, or the true composition of our forces. That uncertainty is our only advantage.

Roque is a commander of rare genius, a talent not seen in generations. Still in his youth, he possesses an instinct for war that borders on the divine. The closer we draw to Jupiter, the more the unease settles in my chest. I fear I may have been reckless. What if the Sovereign strikes Mars while we are gone? I force the thought away and trust that Virginia, with her network and the Sons, will keep her occupied until my return.

Then, Jupiter fills the void before us. It grows from a distant ember into a world of storms and light. Bands of bronze and ochre coil around it in eternal motion, like the breathing of a giant. The Great Red Spot churns ceaselessly, vast enough to swallow Earth whole. Lightning flickers within the clouds, illuminating a kingdom of endless tempest. It is beautiful and terrible, a living body of gas and fury. The last time I came here, it was to pull Lorn into my war with the Bellona. Now I return to fight a friend, and I cannot help but wonder who I will lose this time.

As we pass the Belt, the armada disperses into squadrons, each under a Praetor. They move in silent formation toward the Jovian moons, using small asteroids and uninhabited satellites as cover. Roque holds several of the lesser moons, quiet victories that escaped fanfare but grant him immense power. He has pressed Revus into a war of attrition, who only holds on using his knowledge of the system and the loyalty of the Rim’s Colours, who despise the Core’s yoke.

Of the great Galilean moons, only Callisto has fallen fully under his command. From there, he strikes at Io, Ganymede and Europa, his fleets moving like chess pieces across the dark. My dreadnought, Fortuna, glides toward Europa, where I will meet the Moon Lords and prepare for what must come.

***

I land on the island Harmonia at Lorn’s estate with Aeneas, Cassius, Thraxa, Hector au Norvo and a handful of former Knights of Elysium who now make up my Howlers. I came to wait. The Moon Lords are already gathered among the Nixian Isles; the largest of those is Artemis, a crescent shaped island where our meeting will take place. Though they are our allies, I must be careful: the Rim prizes ceremony, and any sign of familiarity can be read as disrespect.

Aeneas runs me through the great powers of the Rim as we move across the estate: the Kalibar who govern this moon, the Codovan of Ganymede, and the Lux of Callisto, recently deposed. Hector supplies the nuance; age has given him a map of loyalties and grudges that younger men do not see. The people here are simpler than the Core, truer to the customs of their ancestors rather than to the decadence that clings closer to Sol. I listen and prepare myself.

Two hours later I stand before the Moon Lords. They occupy the assembly in their uniforms of office. Twelve figures in armour sit ominously apart from the rest. The Olympic Knights of the Rim sit as judges and guarantors The chamber is a marvel, shaped like an amphitheatre that descends toward a central dais. Though it lies on a single level, the room rises high above in sweeping tiers of marble beneath a vast transparent dome.

Light floods through, casting the Lords in gold and shadow. The walls are covered in mosaics that chart the history of the Rim: its wars, its oaths, its betrayals. After the burning of Rhea, and before the House of Bounty was completed, this hall served as the Moon Lords’ meeting place. The Lyceum Concordium. Here they surrendered their war to the Ash Lord; here they proclaimed Octavia au Lune Sovereign. Now I stand before them to offer the opposite: an end to that rule and the return of their freedom.

Revus, who met us at the entrance, ushers Aeneas, Hector and me forward. My two companions, now bound to me more closely than to their houses, file in behind me; their faces are set, their posture a quiet endorsement. I walk down the middle, feeling the eyes of the Rim upon us. Here and there I see the faint lift of a brow, the slow nod of a head; approval gathers like a tide.

At the sound of two metallic gongs the assembly is stilled. Revus inclines his head to the Olympic Knights. From among them a figure I do not recognise rises. He is tanned and weathered, his features sharp as a hawk’s; a white moustache sits at his lip like a flourish. A white cape is slung over his armour, the emblem of an open book embroidered upon its shoulder. Helios au Lux, Truth Knight.

He steps forward from the quiver of Knights, his armour gleaming faintly beneath the light of the dome. His face is carved by age and duty, his bearing that of a man accustomed to reverence. He raises his right hand, palm outward, the traditional salute of the Rim.

“Imperator Augustus,” he begins, his voice calm but commanding. “The Rim Dominion welcomes you to the Lyceum Concordium. Your name is carried upon the winds of these seas; your presence honours this court. You stand before the Moon Lords of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, gathered in solemn accord. Aeneas au Raa, Hector au Norvo; your faces return from the heart of the Core, and in your return, the Rim remembers its own.”

The gesture is formal, the phrasing deliberate.

I incline my head, answering in kind. “Helios au Lux, Lords of the Outer Spheres, Olympic Knights of the Dominion, I thank you for your welcome. I come not as a conqueror of the Core nor as a supplicant of Mars, but as one who seeks concord between our worlds. May this hall bear witness that we speak as allies, and that the Rim shall rise unbound. May our words be true and our oaths be kept”

When the ritual exchange subsides, I lay out my purpose plainly. “For too long has Octavia au Lune held the worlds in thrall. I stand before you to propose a campaign to purge these spheres of Roque au Fabii. He is a thorn in your side and a thief of your peace. I bring the armada of Mars and ask the Rim to join in expunging this blight.”

I let the plea hang in the vaulted air. I expect the cautious murmurs of diplomacy; I do not expect the sound that follows. The Moon Lords strike their staffs; each staff is crowned with a small model of the sphere the holder represents. The first two blows roll through the chamber, then three, then all, until the hall resounds like distant thunder. Revus stands, a slow smile of satisfaction easing his face.

“The Moon Lords have spoken,” he announces. “Imperator Augustus, you have our leave to lead this battle against the Poet.”

***

As the White begins the benediction, I think of another time I knelt for this rite. Then, Roque stood beside me, his eyes bright with hope and conviction. It was above Mars, our home, over her green and white. There he was named Imperator, and there I took his hand and vowed to be a better friend when the war was won. That day never came. We never spoke of it again. The memory stirs a dull ache in my chest, a whisper of what might have been.

The Chances move among us, placing laurels upon our brows. Others slice our palms with blades of iron. Blood wells up, falling to the floor in crimson drops as the ancient words pass over us: “Now that you bleed, you shall know no fear, no defeat, only victory.” I hear them faintly, their meaning lost in the distance between the man I was then and the one I have become.

Roque’s voice drifts from the past, soft and unguarded. You are my dearest friend, Darrow. I will protect you as surely as you would protect me. I breathe in, feeling the sharp edge of guilt beneath the weight of that promise. I failed you my friend. I should have brought you close.

A movement draws me back. Cassius, ever irreverent, nudges me with a grin that breaks through the solemnity. For a moment, I almost smile. The ache in my heart loosens. We found our way back to one another. Perhaps, even now, there is hope for Roque and me.

When the rites are done, I rise and turn to the assembly. My voice carries across the chamber, rising with the thrum of the ships beyond the walls. I speak of unity, of fire and freedom, of a world yet to be won. The Golds answer me with their war cry. My Martians roar, their zeal boundless, and the Rim Lords echo them with a fervour that surprises even me. The sound shakes the air, thunderous and unrelenting, a hymn of defiance that drowns out the ghosts of doubt.

For that moment, we are not soldiers of Mars or the Rim, but warriors of the same fate, marching into whatever end awaits.

Chapter Text

Darrow

The Fortuna floats in silence above Io’s burning horizon. Beyond her hull, the scattered bones of asteroids drift like a patient storm. Jupiter fills half the sky, its great eye rolling beneath veils of amber cloud. The bridge hums with muted purpose. Officers move as if beneath the gaze of some sleeping god, their voices low, their motions exact. Through the viewport, the combined armadas of Mars and the Rim hold formation, a thousand engines burning pale blue in the dark. Every man and woman aboard feels the weight of waiting. I feel it too, heavy as a blade across the chest.

I study the maps arrayed before me. The battlespace is narrow, cut between two asteroids drawn close by Io’s pull. Their crossing orbits create a corridor, a trap should the enemy dare to enter. I spent the time before the battle refining every vector, every possible line of retreat. If Roque takes the bait, his fleet will be divided and crushed between our guns. But Roque is not a man to be baited easily. Even now his probes drift along the periphery, testing our patience, refusing to commit. He knows what I intend and will not grant me the simplicity of a straightforward battle.

Orion appears over the Holo from the Pax, calm as ever, her face lit by the blue light of her screens. Next to hers, Ignis au Rath watches the flanking squadrons from the Jewel of Thessalonica, his jaw set like carved stone. Daxo leans forward, restless, his eyes sharp on the movement of the asteroid field. He holds the flank aboard the Reynard. Hector calls out ranges in measured tones from the Amphitrite, steady even as tension thickens around us. I give each a glance and find in them what I need; focus, control, the stillness before the descent. Yet beneath that surface calm runs the tremor of strain. The men can sense the uncertainty. They can feel the game beginning to tilt against us.

Roque moves at last. His forward scouts press along the corridor, drawing fire from the picket ships I have placed there. The exchange is brief but costly. A destroyer blooms in silence, its hull peeling away into molten fragments. I order the next line to advance, but Roque refuses the pursuit. His wings fold back, his columns spread wide, and the Sword Armada begins to encircle rather than enter. He knows. He always knows. The noose I have laid remains open, mocking me with its emptiness.

On the bridge the tension sharpens to a wire. Orion reports a loss of contact on the eastern flank; Ignis curses beneath his breath. Daxo slams his fist against the console, demanding permission to strike. I refuse. I let them see hesitation in my eyes, let the bridge taste the unease that creeps through the fleet. Orders come slower now, my voice measured and uncertain. Confusion takes root, spreading through the ranks like a rumour. Let Roque think the trap has failed. Let him think me broken before the first blade is drawn.

I turn from the screens and walk to the viewport. Io burns below, her volcanoes spilling rivers of fire into the void. The light glances off the Fortuna’s hull, a crimson shimmer across the glass. I breathe once, deep and steady. The first stage is complete. The Poet watches and believes he has seen through me. He sees only what I have allowed him to see. Soon, he will move closer. And when he does, when he reaches for victory, I will close my hand.

When it becomes clear that Roque will not enter the corridor, I give the order to break formation. The asteroids fall away behind us as the armadas stretch into the open plain of space, the great sphere of Jupiter rising vast and solemn at our backs. The fleets answer my signal with precision: columns unfold, wings extend, engines bloom like new suns. The choke point is abandoned; the bait discarded. If the Poet refuses to be lured into the noose, then I will meet him in the open where there is no refuge, no shadow to hide our intent.

The armadas close with the gravity of worlds colliding. Lines of fire streak the void as the first exchanges strike home. The battle becomes a storm of light and soundless ruin. Hulls flare, beams lance across the black, and through it all the disciplined cadence of command holds. My officers move as one. Orion’s voice cuts through the comms like a blade, directing the Blues through precise arcs of assault and withdrawal. Ignis drives his squadron forward with unrelenting force, his RipWings locking the enemy flanks in a cage of crossfire. My legates and their Obsidians surge where the fighting is fiercest, boarding ships as if born of flame and iron. Hector’s wing formation pivots on their axis, shielding the Fortuna’s core batteries as they burn through the Sword Armada’s centre.

Roque’s fleet moves with equal grace. He shifts formations like a composer changing tempo, each movement answered by a ripple of destruction. His lines refuse to break. His Praetors advance by inches, trading ships for space, pressing closer to our forward wings. The discipline of his command is absolute. I know his rhythm well; he fought for me once. Yet it is in that very mastery that his flaw lies. He expects symmetry. He expects control. I mean to give him neither.

I send coded orders across the fleet, simple and precise: hold for the count, then fall back. No explanations, no signals of distress. My commanders understand. They have learned the language of misdirection as well as I have. At once, the forward line begins to waver. Our ships peel away in measured succession, engines flaring as if in disorder. I let the appearance of collapse bloom across the field. A wing falters, a cruiser spins adrift, an entire column recoils under the weight of Roque’s assault.

I can feel the change in the field. Roque’s centre thrusts forward, confident that the momentum is his. His wings extend to envelop my retreating flanks; his reserves commit in full. He means to finish this with one decisive blow, as Darius once sought to crush Alexander on the plains of Gaugamela. The farther he presses, the more his formation stretches. The symmetry he loves begins to fray. His lines elongate into the void, their cohesion thinning with each burn. Still, he is hammering my ships and I begin to worry that his numbers will overwhelm us.

From the bridge, I watch the pattern unfold upon the HoloMap like a slow revelation. Each retreat draws him deeper, each failure opens the seams of the battle. I let the silence hold for a moment longer, watching the fierce rush of his advance. When the final vector aligns, I beam in Orion. She meets my eyes without question. The retreat has done its work.

Roque believes the line is breaking. His fleet surges forward, hungry for the kill. Across the void, the Sword Armada burns with purpose, every ship driving hard to close the distance, every captain certain that victory lies within reach. My formations scatter in feigned disarray, their signals fragmented by the electromagnetic haze. Around us, the scattered debris of battle drifts like a graveyard of fire. Thebe’s orbit carries her slow and silent across the battlespace, her coppered surface glinting in the reflected light of Jupiter. Beneath her shadow, unseen even by the Poet’s unerring eye, my last gambit waits.

We have fought for hours. The Fortuna’s hull is scarred and burning, her decks trembling beneath each impact. Reports pour in from every quarter: lost ships, collapsing wings, voided oxygen fields. Still, I hold the line. I keep my fleet angled toward Thebe, drawing Roque’s vanguard closer to the moon’s orbital path. Every manoeuvre costs blood. Every deception carves deeper into the lives of my crew. Yet all of it serves one end. I have brought him to the edge of the pit he does not see.

Thebe turns. Her rotation completes the long curve that brings her between Io and the red face of Jupiter. The distance narrows to less than twenty thousand kilometres. Sensors shiver with interference as her mass distorts the local field. Roque drives forward regardless, determined to strike the final blow before the tide can change. I can almost feel his certainty. He thinks me spent, broken upon the wheel of his order, his symmetry restored. His fleets advance in perfect formation, the elegant machine of the Sword Armada poised to crush what remains of mine.

Then the dark behind Thebe stirs. Engines flare to life where there should be none. Cassius bursts from the moon’s shadow at the head of the Warchild, its hull gleaming like a drawn blade. The Rim Lords follow: Helios au Lux aboard the Dustmaker, Grecca au Codovan aboard Zeus, and the reserve squadrons of Europa and Ganymede descending in silence. They fall upon Roque’s rear with surgical precision, cutting through his flanks before his commanders can even relay the alarm. Beams of gold and violet pierce the dark. The void ignites anew.

Panic ripples through the Sword Armada. Their formation, once a wall of perfect geometry, begins to bend. Roque’s centre presses forward even as his wings collapse under the assault. Cassius drives through their rear lines, his dreadnought carving a swath through the trailing cruisers. Helios isolates their reinforcements, severing their retreat toward Callisto. From the bridge of the Fortuna, I give the signal, and my fleet pivots like a hinge upon the anvil of Thebe. The trap closes.

The field becomes a storm of converging fire. Roque’s centre hangs exposed between two hammers, his once-flawless order swallowed by chaos. The comms fill with the screams of the dying, the static of collapsing signals, the hollow cries of ships torn apart. I stand at the heart of it, feeling the weight of every choice that brought us here. Thebe’s orbit carries her onward, her shadow sliding across the ruin she helped to birth. The Sword Armada fractures. The trap is complete. And in the widening silence between the explosions, I know that the Poet’s heart lies bare before the blade.

Now, I act.

Chapter Text

Darrow

The Sword Armada shudders under pressure. Roque’s centre hangs exposed between converging fleets, but his discipline does not break. Orders cascade; his lieutenants reposition ships, fill gaps and steady faltering wings. I watch the Fortuna fighting at the heart of it, my pulse steady. Her hull burns like a lantern of red and black amid the chaos; my officers execute their parts with cold precision. The Moon Lords and Cassius drive wedges into his flanks, but Roque remains a living engine of precision, an apex predator sensing the net around him and shifting, weaving and striking back where he must.

Still, confusion stirs within the armada. Some captains hesitate, unsure whether to press or pull back; others lash out, terrified of isolation. Beams stitch the void with chords of atomic light. Hulls bloom and vanish in blue flashes, yet their formation holds, stretched but coherent, dangerous in their endurance. Roque threads his ships through narrow gaps between leechCraft and ambushers with quiet ferocity. He recognises the edge of the trap but refuses to yield; he will not give me the satisfaction of watching him break.

Aeneas’ voice crackles across my comms. “Darrow, he is requesting a tight beam to the Fortuna.” I tap my datapad and Aeneas fills the holo; he stands on the bridge of my ship, fingers sliding over the console. Behind him, I see my officers exchange a brief look; the choice is mine. I think of Roque’s voice, calm and edged. He expects to speak to me from my bridge, I am not where he expects. Aeneas has taken temporary command of her and holds the line, ready to receive the Poet. The question hangs: will I answer?

I meet Aeneas’ eyes and speak with measured authority. “Beam me through.” The words are calm, the meaning electric across my empty space. The beam locks, Roque’s golden form materialising before me from his moonBreaker, the Colossus. Shock etches his features. “Darrow!” He demands, eyes scanning the cramped confines of my leechCraft, “Where are you?”  I stay silent, the quiet of a man who always meant to be where the fight is fiercest.

He does not expect to see us emerge from Hector’s underbelly. His ship crouches around us, its insides hollowed out and swollen with leechCraft far greater in number than a standard dreadnought should hold. He forgot the dead horses of the Institute. From the Amphitrite, I release wave after wave of craft designed for boarding. Within them are fifteen thousand Obsidian Venatores, Peerless Scarred hunters, eyes bright with slaughter; twenty-five thousand Grays of the Winged Legion, veterans bred and sharpened to match Praetorians; five thousand Golds whose blade work outclasses many of the highborn. And the rest, Martian and Rim veterans forged in my war on Terra. Boarding parties fan out, swift and precise, cutting into the exposed centre of the Sword Armada.

The Holo fades in an instant, my old friend’s face contorting with rage. I have never seen him that way. The kind eyes replaced by hot coals of gold, jaw set, nostrils flaring. The Fortuna pulls back as if by plan, slipping away from Hector’s pivoting formation. It now joins the fray beyond, turning its guns on the Sword Armada. Roque’s flanks react to Cassius and the Moon Lords, unaware that his centre now bleeds under the weight of my second, hidden snare. LeechCraft swarm like carrion birds; their single purpose capture, the old Academy lesson we both learned.

My leechCraft attaches to the Colossus. I activate my winged helm and nod to my team. Thraxa stands with Valdir and Holiday, ready. We move through the opening hatch. The ship is a leviathan of gold and black; its shields hum under impact but still stand. Berserkers go through the breach first, a living fuse clearing the first line of defence. They burn with glorious fury. My Venatores follow, guarding my advance, ForcePikes and PulseSpears in hand. The Grays and Golds of Winged Legion comes after, disciplined and feral in turn. The killing is immediate and brutal; my men are sharper. They were trained for this moment, trained for my victory, my glory.

Our strikes land with the geometry of practice. My Obsidian hunters tear through the first defensive layers that mount on our way to the bridge as detonators punch through sealed bulkheads. Doors begin to fall and seal, standard procedure after boarding, but the blasts peel away metallic plates and create new entries. Each barricade slows us, but not for long. We move with speed to evade the closing hatches; corridors becoming funnels of violence. The sound of dying men thunders through the ship’s spine. The ambush unfolds as planned and outside, Roque’s lines splinter under each incursion.

Grays and Obsidians continue to breach airlocks in waves. Golds secure command decks on nearby ships, claiming the spoils in my name. Inside the Colossus I push forward, Venatores flanking. Roque tries to rally his men whose order collapses under our infiltration. Corridors burn, smoke eats the light and vented air hisses like a thousand small deaths. He sees now that the trap has bitten deeper than he thought; the open ground he chose was always mine. It was all an illusion, but a costly one. Men died to sell it. Their sacrifice the currency of my deception. He played to my tune all along.

From the Fortuna’s bridge Aeneas watches as it all unfolds: many vessels captured, others drifting dead. He feeds me updates of prize and purge across the comms while I drive the strike. The heart of Roque’s naval empire fractures; the Poet is forced to answer a chaos he cannot fully perceive. The void, if he cannot recover, will become his grave.

I cut through men without mercy. Flesh parts before my razor like paper. Each step toward the bridge brings more of Roque’s Scarred to intercept. They fall back from all over the moonBreaker to shield their Imperator. They will die to the last. Valdir, ravenous, charges ahead with his fellows, a blur of pikes and spears. I follow through the wake of their violence, finishing what they begin.

We file into a lobby right by the bridge door at last. It is sealed shut, near impenetrable. GravMines and PulseGrenades are latched along its seam, each device ready to detonate. A Fulgur Bellator works with my Grays at the terminal, fingers furious on the hack. Each explosion strips a layer away; every second costs us. The lobby behind me starts to fill with men who would gladly die to stop me. They believe my death will turn the tide or at the very least, cripple my forces. They are eager.

More footsteps join from the far end: measured and heavy. Praetorian purple sweeps into view and at their head come the Death Knight in armour of all black and a woman in sky blue, the new Joy Knight. My men collide with the Praetorians and I uncoil Lorn’s razor until I hold two. I slice through them; my blades move in a flurry of violet and white. Death assumes the formal stance of a duel; I do not grant him the courtesy. Lorn’s razor sweeps low; he evades and I rise through the opening, my second blade finding his neck. The head falls.

Their lines falter. For a moment they hesitate. I glance back; the team has not made the progress on the door as I expected. Bloodydamn. I cannot fight every wave. I need to be on that bridge, to seize the ship before their tide drowns us. “Faster!” I shout, driving my Green and Grays. They redouble their efforts and push the hack forward, but time thins with each heartbeat. Another wave floods the corridors. The gravity of risk presses in. The Joy Knight waits for more men before launching her attack. This may spell doom for my cause. I might die here.

Then the door hisses. The lock gives. I do not wait or question. I launch myself through, my soldiers close behind. We are inside the bridge.

***

The lights are dimmed, as Roque prefers, and somewhere hidden speakers send a slow Beethoven through the room. Faces are pale in the wash of Holo light. Two Golds walk the metal catwalk toward the forward dais where Roque stands before a thirty meter Holo, his hands moving as if conducting the death of a fleet. Ships dance within the projection, the flames of engines tracing the battle he commands. He is beautiful and terrible, a mind that shapes violence as others shape song. Around him the bridge is calm as a tomb.

I move with the deliberate quiet of hunters. Blues and Grays edge behind us, eyes wide and uncertain while their ship still bleeds in the background. To our left, near the armoury, Obsidian and Gray squads strap on heavy weapons and take position, ready to die to hold this deck. To our right, pressed against the control console by the open hatch, a Pink in a white valet uniform sits trembling. Her passcode glows green beneath her fingers. She is small against the iron backdrop of war, but her chin is set. The door shuts behind the Joy Knight’s force.

Everything changes in the breath it takes for the panel to slide. A Gold infantry commander spins at the sight of us. Wolves kill best in silence, so I point left and my soldiers surge. Valdir moves like a blade through the cluster, his weapon finding throats and knees before a single alarm can be raised. Venatores follow, smashing into the remainder. By the time the commander falls, only two guns have answered and their shots die on the bridge floor. Grays on the far pit open fire, Holiday and my Gray legionnaires pick them off with clean efficiency. My helm comes away; I breathe the hot, recycled air and let the hunt do what it does.

Roque turns then, the conductor broken from his score, and for the first time the mask slips. The cold imperator is surprised and human. He stares at the Pink who let us in, not with fury but with the mingled betrayal of a lover. Amathea meets him without shame. She strips the rose badge of his gens from her collar and drops it like a thrown hand. We close the distance, boots ringing on his marble deck, blood tracking in our wake. Behind Roque the Holo shows the Amphitrite, her once-majestic form reduced to twisted metal, the cost of every move paid in fire and blood.

The bridge suddenly feels smaller than it should, as our eyes meet. His hands still hover over the projection as if he could still command a hundred ships with a single gesture. He does not shout, does not curse. Calm radiates from him in slow waves.

“You lured me to Thebe’s orbit,” he says finally, voice low but carrying the weight of every ship in his Armada. “I did not see it until-” He stops, and I catch the edge of frustration. “Until it was too late.”

I step closer, my boots echoing against the polished metal. “I know you too well,” I say. “You were too cautious, too exact. You expected symmetry, control. I gave you neither. Yet, you fell into my trap because you were too eager. You reached for the kill without seeing the net above”

His eyes, gold in the dim Holo light, narrow. “A trap? Perhaps. But only because you let me think I was breaking your line. I still held formation; I did not falter. Your retreat was… clever. I almost believed it real. Almost.”

“Almost,” I echo, and for a moment we both smile. A fleeting recognition of the duel we have fought across strategy, instinct, and deception. “You expected me to crumble under your advance. Instead, I baited you further, stretched your centre until it bled. You fought to hold every inch, every captain in place, and in doing so, you handed me the edge. It is the only reason I stand here instead of the void.”

Roque steps forward, hands brushing the Holo. “You played the Maestro, Darrow. But you forget, I taught you the rhythm of fleet warfare. Every retreat, every advance, I knew the pulse. I could feel it. Even stretched, I could have snapped the lines back together.”

“You could have tried,” I admit. “But you did not. You did not expect the Amphitrite or the leechCraft. That and Thebe, Cassius, the Moon Lords… My hand did not break the formation, it guided you to your own doom. You are the apex predator… but I learned how you hunt. I changed the rhythm, and you danced to it anyway.”

He stiffens at the mention of Cassius then laughs, low and bitter, and it echoes in the hollow bridge. “Darrow… I can see the field you drew. I can see the patience, the cunning. You earned this victory, yes. But do not think it changes anything. When you meet the Ash Lord, he will read the shadows before you even step into them.”

“And I will step in anyway,” I reply, voice hard, carrying the certainty of hours spent calculating vectors, reading minds, and bending instinct to strategy. “Because, like you, he will always expect symmetry. You two taught me that at Deimos.”

We pause, both of us aware of the screams still echoing in the corridors outside, the dying fleets and scattered survivors.  Roque nods, slow and deliberate, a gesture of acknowledgment rather than surrender. “Then we are… even,” he says.

 “Even,” I agree. Then the conversation curdles into argument and memory. We speak of betrayals, of duty, and of the men counted as losses on both sides. He clings to honour, and I tear at it with the blunt truth of what he has done. For a moment I see the boy he once was. I cannot help but sound accusatory as I speak.

“You betrayed me, Roque. I was your friend. Your brother!” He seems unmoved by my passion. His eyes narrow, a cruel anger painting his face. Now I see the truth. It was not by chance he was selected for House Mars. Those are not mistakes the drafters make. They must have seen something in him, some rage, some need to burn. Just as they saw it in me. I sigh, finally admitting to myself that we can never go back to how we used to be.

“When did I lose you?” I ask, hesitant, afraid of the answer. “Was it over Agea, because of the Sovereign? Or was-” I continue, but he cuts me off.

“No, Darrow.” His voice is like a rod of iron. I flinch, taking a step back. “It started with Lea. I thought I could forgive you. Then the Gala. I could have excused the sedation. Maybe you cared. But Quinn? She was innocent, Darrow. She was an innocent girl, and she died because she followed you!” The words are like acid. I feel them burn, and I do all I can to stop my tears. His eyes brim with tears of his own.

“Everyone around you dies, Darrow. You are like a plague. Life is not like the Institute. It is not all about conquest or death. I could have bought your contract. We could have risen together, Reaper and Poet. There was so much in store for us, and you threw it away. And for what? Glory? Power? To be Nero’s killer, his son?” The barrage hits me, blow after blow. He is right, but he does not know my truth. He does not know I fight for more. That there once was a beautiful girl with red hair and dull eyes that seem to shine. And because I cannot tell him, I must let him think I am a monster.

My eyes soften, and he looks surprised. “I am sorry, Roque, for everything. For Lea, for Quinn, for this war. I am truly sorry.” He hesitates, the fire in his eyes burning out. I move forward unconsciously, arms open and honest. He looks down at them and back at me. A tear streaks down his face, then another. “Come back to me, brother, come home.”

He looks about to take a step forward, his eyes considering, then he takes a hold of himself. His face seems to harden, and the tender moment passes. “You are a warlord, Darrow. You would watch the worlds burn to sate your thirst for blood. Earth lies in ruin because of you. The Society is in chaos, by your hand. I loved you,” he pauses, “I still do. But you are not my home.”

I look down, exhaustion beginning to spread. I could fight a hundred battles, duel a thousand times, but this, this has drained all my energy.

“Then I, Darrow au Augustus, Imperator of the Martian Armada, claim this ship and all the spoils of this battle. Your command is forfeit, your battle done. I strip you of your title and place you under arrest. Roque au Fabii.” I say it formally, in HighLingo. Roque nods, as if accepting the sentence, yet as he does, he uncoils his razor.

“No!” I shout, arm stretched out. He does not stop, only offering a kind smile, one I last saw that night before the Gala when he promised to protect me. “Roque, just listen to me. It does not have to be this way. This is not the end. This is the beginning. Once this war is done, once Octavia is dead, we can repair what is broken. I will not let you suffer. I promise. The worlds need Roque au Fabii.” I hesitate. “I need you.”

He does not stop, drawing the razor close to him. “Remember me fondly. Tell our friends, Mustang, Cassius, all of them, I died well. There is no place for me in your world. We were brothers once, but I would kill you if only I had the power.”

I am in a dream. Unable to change the forces that move around me. To stop the sand from slipping through my fingers. I set this into motion but did not have the heart or strength or cunning or whatever the hell I needed to stop it. No matter what I do or say, Roque is lost to me. I step toward him, thinking I can take his razor from his hand without killing him, but he knows my intention and he holds up his offhand plaintively, as if to comfort me and beg me, again, the mercy of letting him die as he lived.

“Be still. Night hangs upon mine eyes.” He looks to me, eyes full of tears.

“Keep swimming, my friend,” I tell him.

With a gentle nod, he wraps his razor whip around his throat and stiffens his spine. “I am Roque au Fabii of the gens Fabii. My ancestors walked upon red Mars. They fell upon Old Earth. I have lost the day, but I have not lost myself. I will not be a prisoner.” His eyes close. His hand trembles. “I am the star in the night sky. I am the blade in the twilight. I am the god, the glory.” His breath shudders out. He is afraid. “I am the Gold.”

And there, on the bridge of his invincible warship as his famous fleet falls to ruin behind him, the Poet of Deimos takes his own life. Somewhere the wind howls and the darkness whispers that I am running out of friends, running out of light. The blood slithers away from his body toward my boots. A shard of my own reflection is trapped in its red fingers, and I feel the weight of my name.

The Reaper of Mars.

Chapter Text

Darrow

After the capture of the Colossus, the battle ends swiftly. My boarding parties seize nearly half of Roque’s fleet, while the Moon Lords manage a modest sixth. Celebration ripples through the armadas, thousands singing, dancing and weeping in relief. The Galilean moons mirror their joy. Crowds fill the plazas of Ganymede, Europa and newly liberated Callisto. Most of my armada remains stationed around Io, while some ships dock above Ganymede for repairs.

I find myself on Io, in the city of Plutus, walking through the heart of Demeter’s Garter.

Plutus is a marvel, a city of impossible grace carved from a brutal world. Modelled after ancient Athens, its surface gleams beneath atmosphere bubbles that cast warm, artificial sunlight. The contrast against the bleak Sungrave in the south is striking. Academies brim with Yellows, open-air theatres with Violets and Pinks, laboratories with Brown Growers, each corner alive with craft and learning. Beyond the city limits, orchards and golden fields stretch to the horizon. I marvel at the ingenuity of the Rim, turning a volcanic wasteland into a garden.

To the north, the Demeter of Plutus rises like a giant, a kilometre tall statue upon whose open palm stands the House of Bounty. Aeneas walks beside me through the city, pointing out landmarks with the pride of one returning home. He gestures towards the Arbour of Akari, a domed sanctuary preserving the Garter’s horticultural history.

We wind through the promenades where Browns and Reds move together, carrying tools and baskets, laughter echoing off marble colonnades. Others rest in shaded parks or drift towards the bathhouses built for fieldhands. Even if the Rim’s Golds are slavers, their yoke weighs lighter than that of the Core. Here, the LowColours live with a measure of dignity, though I know such comfort is not shared across every sphere in their dominion.

“I used to go to the fields with Mara, one of our chief Growers,” Aeneas says quietly. “She taught me about the trees, the soil, the way crops breathe. The Browns treat their harvest like their children. When even one tree sickens, it pains them.”

His voice fades with the memory. There is empathy in him still, an innocence the Society has not yet burned away.

We turn from the lower districts and head east towards the volcanic gardens. They are etched into the mountainside, tier upon tier of green and gold life where none should thrive. Exotic trees stretch from ancient seedlings beside Carved hybrids and new creations altogether. As we climb, the air thickens with the perfume of ripening fruit and the heady scent of flowers in bloom. Waterfalls whisper down from the higher terraces, feeding the pools below. Bright fish and Carvelings swim lazily through the streams, leaping at intervals from one pond to another in flashes of colour.

Aeneas leads me to one of the upper gardens overlooking the city. It is a quiet place, removed from the sound of the streets. A small fountain murmurs beside a carved door set into the cliff face with marble steps leading to it. Vines and roots coil across the stone, the pattern shaped into what might be the entrance to some forgotten labyrinth. Two Golds and four Obsidians in armour guard the entryway.

“My grandfather wished to meet you here. This is a shrine to our ancestors,” Aeneas says, his tone reverent. “We keep the Shield of Akari within.”

That gives me pause. The Shield of Akari has not been granted to a Gold of the Core since the death of Silenius. Even among the Rimborn, none have received it in sixty years, not since the Moon Lords’ rebellion. Aeneas gestures for me to go ahead but remains where he stands.

“Will you not come in?” I ask.

“Entry is only by the invitation of our primus, even for me.”

I nod and step forward, alert. The air cools as I pass beneath the archway and ascend the marble steps into the shrine. I pass the ionic columns and enter a circular chamber with a pool at its centre. Floating above the water is the Shield of Akari itself. The sun from the skylight spills down in orange rays, setting the shield aglow. The chamber smells of mint and sweet resin.

Revus au Raa stands before the pool, robed in deep blue with white dragons embroidered along his sleeves. His white hair is streaked with gold and black, bound neatly in a ponytail as is custom among his line. His eyes are large and kind, his smile warm with welcome. He extends a slender hand.

“Welcome, Darrow,” he says, motioning to a nearby bench. I sit, studying him quietly. He reminds me of Imperator Tiberius, Cassius’ father: a man of restraint, courtesy and strength born of conviction. Revus is famed for his honour and hospitality, known even to greet his rivals with generosity.

“I wished to thank you properly,” he begins. “The Sword Armada has darkened our skies since my father and his peers rose against Octavia. To see it destroyed…” He pauses, eyes lifting to the skylight. “It is an inspiring thing. My people can now dream of freedom. Perhaps we can at last be rid of Luna’s yoke.”

He stands and moves to the pool, lifting the Shield of Akari from its GravMixer. The metal hums faintly, light rippling across its mirrored surface.

“In sixty years, this has been given to no one, neither Rim nor Core. None have earned it. But you, Darrow au Augustus, have proven yourself. Wear this honour with pride.”

He approaches, the shield unfolding with a low whine. He beckons and I extend my arm at his gesture.

“I must warn you, it may sting,” he says.

Three slender spindles emerge and press gently to my forearm. Heat follows, sharp but tolerable, as they etch the symbol into my skin: a shield with the four-headed dragon of House Raa encircling a miniature of Jupiter. When it is done, the actual shield folds itself shut and drifts back to rest.

“You are always welcome in our spheres, Reaper,” Revus says softly. “Our people will not forget what you have done.” The ceremony is short and intimate, a reflection of House Raa. He returns it to his perch and we leave the shrine together, descending into the sunlight. Aeneas waits at the edge of the terrace, his gaze fixed upon the city below. Revus falls into step beside me.

“When do you intend to return to the Core?” he asks.

“As soon as my ships are ready. Can I expect your aid?”

He nods, drawing his datapad from his sleeve. “A third of the Shadow Armada and half of the Dust Armada will accompany you to Mars. I shall hold the rest until Venus nears its closest approach. Then we shall move, striking Octavia between us.”

I nod, already weighing the logistics. With the Sword Armada broken we can match the Sovereign’s fleets. If Mercury enters the war, the campaign may drag into years. I set the thought aside as we approach my lancer.

Aeneas glances at my forearm, his eyes brightening at the sight of the new mark. He looks up and smiles, pride softening his features.

“If I may, grandfather?” he asks. Revus inclines his head.

“Imperator Augustus is a man worthy of that shield,” Aeneas says. “In the short months I have served him, he has taught me much.” The praise startles me. I give a small laugh, half embarrassed. Aeneas looks down, flustered, and Revus joins in my laughter. The sound echoes through the garden like the breath of peace after battle.

A shuttle lands beyond the terrace and we board together for the House of Bounty. There, the Moon Lords assemble to honour the commanders of the Battle of Ilium. It is solemn and brief. When it ends, the Rim rings with quiet pride, and for a moment, I almost believe in the peace we have promised them.

As we return to my ships, a small host of Browns and Reds accompany me. They carry crates of seedlings, saplings and the delicate shoots of the Garter’s fields. Others bear sealed containers of soil, vats of cultured rootstock and frozen embryos of livestock bred over five hundred years. Still more carry HoloCubes filled with schematics, formulas and a few choice secrets of the Garter. Revus’ generosity is unending. Not even the other houses of the Rim have been permitted such treasures. These will one day take root on Mars, populating the fields of the Valles Marineris. The convoy ascends before me into the Fortuna, a line of providence and bounty.

***

Soon after, the Martian Armada turns homeward, hundreds of ships falling into ordered formation. Yet beneath the glow of victory, unease stirs. It has been twenty-seven days since I left Mars. Twenty-seven days for Octavia to plot, to rebuild, to strike. No word has reached us from the Alliance, no cry for aid, no sign of distress, and still I cannot shake the feeling of waiting for the blade to fall. Too often, calm has come before ruin. Earth, Luna, Lorn, Ragnar; every triumph has carried the eventual taste of loss.

The armada itself swells with captured ships that now bear our standards. Though, many limp along, patched only well enough to reach Deimos for repair. The Ganymedi Dockyards gave them life, not strength. I walk the decks of the Fortuna daily, watching engineers splice foreign alloys with Martian steel, hearing the hum of mismatched systems forcing themselves to work together. Victory, it seems, is as fragile as the machines that carry it.

The voyage stretches before us in long, quiet days. In the first week, the ships settle into rhythm. Crews run diagnostics, patch holes, recalibrate weapons. The smell of ozone and machine oil clings to the air. Holiday drills her Grays in the hangar bays, her barked commands echoing off the bulkheads while the low-gravity wrestlers of the Winged Legion practise controlled landings in full armour. Cassius and I spar in the training ring most mornings. The sound of his blade meeting mine draws small crowds, though neither of us fight to win. It is a ritual now; a conversation of steel and silence. Aeneas spends his time among the bridge officers, absorbing procedures with the bright, hungry curiosity of youth. He takes to command naturally, though I often find him in the observation gallery, staring at the endless dark. When I ask what he sees, he only says, “Possibility.”

In the second week, normalcy begins to return. The ship’s canteens grow livelier. Music drifts through the mess halls, old Martian ballads and Rim songs blending into something new. In the evenings, I sit with my friends. Cassius tells stories of the old days at the Institute, embellishing details until even Daxo laughs. For a few hours, we are not soldiers. We are simply people suspended between wars. Sometimes, I catch myself thinking of home, of the plains and the wind across the valleys. The Browns have taken to decorating the lobbies with sprouting vines from the Plutian gardens.  I imagine the seedlings taking root in Martian soil, imagine my children one-day climbing trees that which once grew on a volcanic moon. In the night, I miss Sevro, this campaign has felt hollow without him and Ragnar. They were the closest to my heart, they were a grounding force. In their midst, I felt free, unafraid, unashamed. I also dream of my wife and our children. I long to hold them again, before I must leave again for battle.

By the end of the second week, the ships hum with quiet purpose. Basic repairs near completion. The wounded heal. Confidence builds again. Yet that unease never fades entirely. Every vibration through the hull feels like the first tremor of something vast beneath the surface. Octavia waits somewhere beyond the dark, and we sail toward her, carrying hope like a torch through the endless night.

Chapter Text

Darrow

“Dominus, an urgent message from Mars,” one of my Pink attendants says as I pull on a shirt. Sahar, from the Gardens of Concordia on Venus, is a beautiful woman with piercing quartz eyes so common among Roses. Her frame is slender, her movements graceful, almost rehearsed, each one a remnant of her training. She is kind, even for a Pink, yet still afraid. No matter how many times I tell her otherwise, she does not believe I should dress and groom myself.

“Who has sent it, Sahar?” I ask as I lace my boots. She stands meekly, hands twitching as if to help.

“The ArchGovernor, dominus.”

At that, I quicken my pace, leaving my quarters and striding down the corridor towards the strategy chamber. Aeneas meets me halfway, a Holo clutched in his hand, its encryption light pulsing.

“The foremessage stated it was for your ears only, Imperator,” he says, voice formal.

I take it from him and tell him to wait back in the chamber. Returning to my stateroom, I dismiss Sahar and sit on the edge of my bed, the Holo heavy in my hands. For a long moment I hesitate, then speak the words to decrypt it. 

The projection flickers to life, and the faces of Mustang and Fitchner appear. I am startled to see them together. Both look worn and anxious. Fitchner seems to have aged years in the few weeks since I last saw him.

“Darrow,” Mustang begins, her voice urgent. “The Sovereign knows about the Sons. We are not sure how much, but we must assume she knows more than the surface. We suspect…” She glances at Fitchner, worry clouding her expression. “We think she used a device called the Pandemonium Chair.”

I freeze. The words drag a memory from the depths of pain and despair. One of my last sessions on Luna. A Gold, perhaps Octavia herself, suggesting that very machine after my torture failed to break me. A distortion hood. Pain. Mustang’s voice pulls me back. “She used it on Sevro. It draws out memories, alters them. We are trying to counter its effects, but it is not simple.”

Fitchner steps forward, his tone softer. “She might know everything, boyo. About you, me, Sevro. You need to return to Mars, now. In the meantime, find Holiday. She will explain more..”

The message ends with a brief farewell from Mustang. The light fades, leaving only my reflection on the dark surface of the Holo.

I send a quick message through my datapad and begin to pace. Could Octavia have known who I am and still let me leave for the Rim? Unlikely. If she truly knew, she would have exposed me before I ever set foot on the Fortuna. Or is that why she does not stir from Luna? Yet the Pandemonium Chair changes everything. It tears through minds, drags truth from thought. If she has scoured Sevro’s memories, she could know it all; my words to Proctor Apollo, our conversation on the Pax after the Gala, his charge to me before the Lion’s Rain. So many instances hidden in my best friend’s memories. The thought of it turns my stomach.

And the Jackal. His games on Luna take on a new and darker meaning now. What did he tell her? What does she truly know? He investigated the Sons before I started the Martian Civil War. Could he another of her sources?

A knock at the door pulls me from the spiral.

“Enter,” I call.

Holiday steps inside, hesitant. “Dominus?”

I move to the small bar and pour a measure of whiskey. “Holiday,” I begin carefully. “I wanted to ask you about a mutual friend. The Rage Knight, Fitchner au Barca.”

At the name, she stiffens. Her Terran accent thickens when she speaks. “What would you like to know, sir?”

I knew she was part of the Sons, but we have not spoken since Luna. She has avoided me since, perhaps thinking me a dangerous Gold with dangerous friends. I study her, seeing the unease beneath the discipline.

“Sit,” I tell her, gesturing to the chair across from mine. She obeys, wary. “What do you know about the Sons of Ares?”

She hesitates, caught off guard by the bluntness of the question. “The Sons of Ares were formed to fight against Gold, to break the hierarchy of the Colours.” She stops there.

“Are you part of the Sons, Holiday?”

Her eyes flicker to the door quickly the back to me, weighing. I let the silence draw out, hearing her heart beat faster, pulse quickening. I sip my drink and say nothing. I begin to smell her fear, apocrine sweat glands working. Still, I wait.

“Yes,” she admits at last, shoulders dropping as if bracing for execution. I relax slightly, setting the glass aside. She exhales when she realises her life is not forfeit, yet. If I were not a Son, her confession would have cost her, her head.

She falls silent, thinking. Then her eyes narrow slightly. “Sir… are you part of the Sons of Ares?”  “Yes,” I answer without hesitation. The word lands like a stone between us. Her shock is plain, her mind turning over what that means. She slumps in her seat, perplexed.

“Is he Ares?” she asks quietly. “Fitchner?”

I nod again and her lips part, but she finds no words. “How does that make you feel?” I ask.

“I do not know, sir,” she says after a moment. “He is a Gold. Why would he fight for the LowColours? But then, I met him in Hyperion, searching for you and his son. He contacted us through a HighColour in my cell. I thought he must have been involved, or aware at the very least.”

I do not let her dwell on it. “Tell me everything you know about Octavia au Lune and the Pandemonium Chair.”

Holiday straightens, steadying herself. Then she begins to speak, and I listen, the glass forgotten in my hand.

***

An hour later we still sit in my rooms. Holiday has exhausted all she knows of Octavia and her court, and I have run out of questions. I turn her words over in my mind, reeling from the grotesque things Octavia has conjured. She is a peculiar woman, and what Holiday has told me changes everything about how I must act. This will not be easy.

I move to dismiss her, but as she rises she lingers and looks at me. “Go on, ask,” I say, seeing the question already on her lips. She blinks, taken aback by my invitation.

“Wh...why did you join the Sons?” The question is expected, yet I search for an answer as if for a lost thing. I look down, thinking, before I speak.

“I did not plan to…but the Society took something dear to me. Gold took it. At first I thought the Sons only offered a path to revenge, but on that path I found friends, hope and a love greater than the one I had lost. I realised I had more to fight for. So I stayed the course.”

She listens and nods thoughtfully. When she leaves I press a quiet warning to keep our conversation to herself. Then I return to my plans. Whatever Octavia knows, I must be ready to meet her.

The LowColours on Mars have been training, but they are nowhere near ready to face Golds and Grays. I may not lose my Obsidians; their loyalty was purchased with myths and oaths, and Ragnar laid the groundwork for the day I would call them. But what of my fleets? I have forged them to be the best, to fight Praetorians and to wage war on Octavia’s Society. Will their loyalty extend to a general who was once a slave and now wears the trappings of a king? What of my children? Will they be hunted as abominations and slaughtered? The questions weigh heavy on my heart and I curse the day I was given this Gold body.

I push the thoughts aside and rise. I walk to the strategy chamber and find Aeneas talking with Cassius. The two seem to get along despite the Rim’s contempt for the Morning Knight. They fall silent when I enter.

“What did the ArchGovernor say?” Cassius asks, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. I sigh, rolling my eyes and sit.

“We need to be back on Mars, immediately. She believes Octavia is planning something and we must consolidate our forces before she acts.” They both nod, my words only confirming what they suspected.

“Did she say what?” Aeneas asks.

“No. Her spies on Luna can only get so close.”

“Do not worry, my goodmen,” Cassius interjects with a grin. “We are a week from home and the Sovereign three. If she has anything to pull out of her slagging cooch, it will not reach us before then.”

Despite myself I bark a laugh. I hope it will be that simple, brother. They talk as officers do, trading scenarios and counters while my thoughts run elsewhere. After a while Cassius notices my distance.

“You prime, Darrow?” he asks, brows knitting.

I nod and shrug a response. He looks unconvinced and I cut him off before he can press. “Take me to train?” I ask. He brightens, the question forgotten.

We go to the small training room on the upper decks. I reach for a practice razor, then pause and turn back. “You two start. I will watch first and then join,” I tell them. Aeneas wears a wicked grin, eager to test himself against one of the best duellists in the worlds. With Lorn dead, Cassius may indeed reign supreme in the Bleeding Place.

I climb to a raised bench and draw up a peculiar book from my datapad’s library. It a favourite of my wife’s; she used to read it with abandon. My finger hovers over it, recalling the lines I remember. The gong marks the beginning of the duel and Cassius and Aeneas begin to circle. I slip on an earpiece from my pocket and set the book to audio narration, selecting Mustang’s voice. I sit back, listening to the silky smooth cadence of her voice.

 ‘To those who wrote that we might read,

to those who fell so we might walk,

to those who came before so we might come after,

gratitude.

The First Understanding:

The path to the Vale is inscrutable, eternal, and perfect.

It cannot be seen with the eye,

nor felt underfoot.

It winds as it wills.

It ends where it must.

It climbs when it does.

It falls when it should.

It stretches deep into the rocks we dig, and back into our hearts.

It winds on before and after us, in all directions and none.

Though we may walk the path we may never master it.

Though we may see the path, we can never know the truth.

The path to the Vale is inscrutable, eternal, and perfect.

It must be followed at all cost.’

I watch the two move, the clack of blades a steady drum, and I know that this too shall pass.

Chapter Text

Octavia

The Fabii boy has lost the Sword Armada. He was always too confident, too convinced of his own skill. Magnus once thought he recognised in the youth a certain kinship, the instinct to move men and ships through the void. He was wrong.

Reports sit half open across my datapad, blinking reminders I will not let myself read for long. Darrow has achieved what none have since Silenius set himself upon the Morning Chair. He has bound worlds against Luna and the Core. Assassination would not help. Kill him and he becomes a martyr; the deed magnifies him into legend. At twenty-four he might already outshine Stoneside in acclaim. They worship him. Every victory, even his defeats extol him. The thought makes the back of my hand prickle.

I rise and walk to the window. Hyperion sprawls to the distance, a lattice of light and motion. Shuttles move like beetles through the dusk. The city hums with millions of ordinary lives; they go about their business, unaware of the plots and schemes I must birth to give them peace.

Aja stirs on the couch marking a page in the book she reads. She is one of the few who I still trust, with the uncertainty that racks the Palatine. “Is everything all right, Octavia?” she asks, the question casual but steady.

I allow myself a small smile and gesture dismissively. “It is nothing, Aja. Only the weight of all the worlds.” We share a laugh the sound thinning the pressure for a moment. She pats the cushion and I sit beside her.

“I grow weary of this war,” I say. “I am not bloodthirsty. I prefer the slow arts: influence, coercion, secret plots and back stabbings. Assassination and subterfuge have their uses, but war eats resources and patience alike.” I pause, looking up at the woman.

“I wanted Augustus removed, Bellona in power and Virginia to temper their rule. I thought she would see reason. I told her how much it would cost all of us. The money, the men, the materiel. Now we all prepare for the greatest battle in the history of this Society.”

Aja listens without haste, the book resting in her lap forgotten. “We have a plan,” she says finally. “The Augustii may look unstoppable, yet they are only men. You are a force, Octavia. Your father learned that lesson and so will they.”

Her words placate and sharpen me at once. “Let them think I am cowed,” I say. “Let them parade their ships and boast their victories. They do not know who they face.”

She inclines her head with a carnivorous smile. The city twinkles, unsuspecting. I return to my datapad and watch the lines of light that trace the armadas across the map. The boy has won a battle. He has not yet won the war. And I will not permit him.

“What news of our grieving senator?” I ask my Fury and her smile deepens. “Exactly where she needs to be.”

***

Darrow

On the third day of the Mensis Iunius, Mars finally draws close enough to see with the naked eye. Relief floods through me like air after drowning. The last week has been harrowing, and only the ritual meditation and the disciplined sparring have kept my mind from fracturing with worry.

The armada gathers for planetary entry, my flagship at its centre. Behind me looms the moonBreaker, Corleonis, Heart of the Lion. Once named the Colossus, it is the largest vessel ever built, eight kilometres from prow to stern. It was meant as a birthday gift for Lysander, I mean to offer it to Nero. Now more than ever, I need his faith and his favour.

As we close upon Mars, Corleonis breaks formation, accompanied by a procession of damaged ships making for Deimos. I press on toward Agea. The atmosphere burns bright against our hull, and when the Fortuna halts, I exit on a shuttle bound for the citadel, angling toward Apollonia and the Valles Marineris. The celebration will come, the ceremony and the pomp, but that is for another day. Tonight, I return home.

I do not land in the plaza but on a private AeroTerrace. More shuttles follow behind, some veering away toward other Martian cities. Cassius, Aeneas, and several of my Howlers sit with me during descent. They joke and laugh, glad to be home again, but unease shadows me. Victory feels hollow, like a feast without flavour.

Annuarius cu Libres, my wife’s chief steward, awaits our arrival. He is dressed in the red and gold livery of House Augustus with a copper cummerbund. “Welcome, Dominii,” he says with a deep bow that sweeps to include us all. Then he steps closer, lowering his voice. “Imperator Augustus, the ArchGovernor is in conference with the Primus. She asks that you join her, if you can.”

I turn to my companions and release them before following Annuarius with my lancer. “How was the campaign, Dominus?” he asks as we walk. My reply is short, but the Copper nods enthusiastically, lauding me for outstanding command. When we reach Mustang’s office, I wave him away.

The Lionguard on duty salute and open the door. Mustang sits at her desk, a Holo glowing before her. “... and with Marcus au Saud. Oh, how she must seethe.” Nero’s voice crackles through the air.

Aeneas slips quietly to one corner while I approach the table. Mustang offers a small smile and raises a hand for patience. “I shall see you soon. Goodbye, Virginia,” Nero says before the Holo fades.

She rises, smiling, and comes around the table to embrace me. I hold her close, feeling the soft curve of her body, breathing in the scent of jasmine and citrus blossom. Her fingers find my face, and she kisses me long and slow before pulling back with a teasing smile.

“You’ve grown handsome,” she says, laughter in her eyes. She turns to Aeneas, greeting him warmly. He grins, answering her questions with easy charm before she returns to her seat.

“Welcome home, husband,” she says softly.

I smile. “Are they returning?” I ask, glancing at the fading Holo’s light.

“Only for the pomp and ceremony. He will not say it aloud, but my father loves the centre stage. It is his war, after all.”

I nod, understanding the layers to her words. “Perfect,” I say at last. “I have brought him a gift.”

She finishes her work as we speak, sealing the final communiqués before standing. We leave her office together, the echo of our footsteps fading down the marble corridor. I dismiss Aeneas at the junction and continue beside her toward our apartments. The walk is quiet, and though her hand rests lightly in mine, my thoughts are elsewhere. The celebration draws near, but I cannot shake the question of what does Octavia plan. We reach the outer doors, guarded by more Lionguard. They salute and we step inside.

The entry hall greets us with its familiar cool air and scent of home. Tall fluted pillars rise on either side, carved from pale Martian marble veined with crimson. Frescoes along the vaulted ceiling tell the story of Mars, the colours softened by the years yet vibrant in the warm light that spills from bronze sconces. The floor gleams with a mosaic of constellations, polished smooth by time and the tread of countless visitors.

Beyond the entry lies the reception chamber, wider and warmer in its ornament. Evening light filters through high arched windows draped in sheer gold fabric, casting soft patterns over the marble. A wide balcony opens to the outside, where the faint hum of the city rises from a far. The furnishings are elegant yet unassuming, the work of craftsmen who value symmetry and restraint over opulence. A low table of black glass holds a vase of white night lilies, their scent faint but pure.

I pause on the threshold, letting my eyes move over the space. It feels still, as if holding its breath. I listen for the sound of small feet or laughter, but only silence answers.

“They must be with Niobe upstairs,” Mustang says quietly.

We ascend the grand double staircase, the marble cool beneath our feet, until the sound of joyous shrieks and calm laughter reaches us from above. My pace quickens, the weight in my chest easing with every step. We move through the archway into the family reception, the one we use when ceremony is set aside.

Inside, the room is lively. Niobe and her daughter, Xana, sit together, speaking softly with Servilla and Juno. The air hums with conversation and the laughter of children. On the far side of the room, I see Pax, Alexander, Hadrian, and little Drusilla tumbling across the carpet in play. Fortuna rests in Dorian’s arms, the youngest of Lorn’s grandsons, her head nestled against his shoulder.

When they see me, a cry goes up and four small figures race across the room. Their feet slap against the tiles and their voices ring bright. I drop to one knee, arms wide, and gather them into a single embrace. They cling to me, a wriggling bundle of joy and life. Pax babbles with excitement, Alexander holds on longer than the rest, his face pressed to my neck. Their warmth seeps into me, burning away the cold remnants of battle and duty.

I listen to their voices tumble over one another, stories and questions and laughter all tangled together. For a moment, I do nothing but breathe and let the noise wash through me. When I finally manage to settle them, I rise and cross to Dorian. He stands, smiling, and gently offers up Fortuna. She stirs in my arms, soft and small, her brilliant golden eyes flickering open. A sleepy smile spreads across her face before she drifts back into her dreams.

I greet the others, clasping hands and trading quiet words. The night deepens, but we stay together long after the citadel quiets. I speak of the battle and of the Shield of Akari, which draws gasps. I tell them of the gifts from the Garter, and answer Servilla’s questions about Europa. She smiles as though remembering the two years she spent there with Lorn.

And in the midst of it all, I feel it. Contentment. A rare, precious thing. For tonight, the wars are far away. The ghosts are quiet. And I am simply home.

Chapter Text

Darrow

The banquet hall is alive with sound and splendour, a place made for movement and noise. Voices rise and fall in clusters, the polyphony of conversation and laughter stitched together by the clink of crystal and the soft percussion of boot heels on polished stone. Bronze bowls of food and trays of small, savage delights circulate in Pink hands. Holos drift above the crowd, casting pale light like a second sky. The restrained ceremony of the public celebration is abandoned here, in this intimate space open only to Golds.

The architecture is Roman in spirit but brutal in scale: a vaulted ceiling carved from crimson marble veined with molten gold that pulses faintly. Columns of black basalt with copper filigree rise like tree trunks from the mosaicked floor, each engraved with the triumphs of Mars. The air smells of spiced wine and sweet perfume.

I look down at the ring on my finger, the metal catching the light. It is heavy, pure gold, wrought in the shape of a laurel wreath coiled around a spear. I received it this morning, when the gathering of House Primi, Praetors, Rim Lords, Nero and Romulus proclaimed me ArchImperator of the Alliance Fleets. Its weight is more than its metal; almost vibrating with the silent burden of every oath sworn by those in this room. For all its splendour, it feels cold against my skin, as if to remind me that every crown, every title, is only another shackle, forged in finer gold.

Around me stand the powers of the Alliance: Golds from the Rim, survivors of Earth, generals of Mars. People move about as if borne on a current. Nero stands at the centre, not upon a dais but surrounded, a quiet sun about whom the clusters orbit. To his right, Romulus speaks softly with the Rim Lords who returned with me. Dido, poised and regal, stands beside him, and near her is her brother, Marcus au Saud, the Joy Knight.

Once famed for beauty and bloodlust, he looks older now, his hair shorter, his amber eyes hard and watchful. He was rescued by Vittoria au Fabii on her flight from Luna. Her son’s death was apparently  too much to bear and Marcus was her olive branch back into the Augustus fold. Or so they say. She lingers a few paces behind them, her eyes skittish, her hands never still. Uncharacteristically for such an occasion, two Lionguard remain close, their eyes fixed upon her. She has been searched, assessed for explosives, stripped of every suspicion save her presence itself. Yet it still feels wrong, eerie. Perhaps it is the shame of seeing her so broken and knowing I am the reason. I glance toward the far doors. Mustang left earlier to settle the children. Her absence tugs at me.

Apollonius and his father stand near one of the arches, their voices low and tense with agitation. Milia and her brother Lores laugh with their father, Gaius au Trachus, Justiciar of the southern Martian hemisphere. Cassius and Aeneas lean against a pillar, sharing some private jest. The room hums with small noises: a glass dropped and caught, a woman’s laughter echoing and then swallowed, the soft hiss of servitors weaving between conversations.

The doors part and Mustang enters, radiant as sunrise in red and gold, simple yet commanding. There is a lull in conversation as she moves through the room with the ease of one born to rule, her small entourage of Politicos scattering among the guests. When she reaches me, I smile. She takes my hand, her eyes bright with quiet warmth. Daxo hovers near, and she turns to exchange a few words with him.

Nero lifts his glass, and the murmur thins to a single thread of attention. His voice is not loud, but it carries, stripping the air of lesser sounds.

“My friends,” he says. “Brothers and sisters of the Alliance. Tonight we celebrate not only past victories, but our imminent deliverance. The age of Octavia au Lune’s tyranny is ending. Her decadence, her cruelty, her false divinity shall be broken beneath our united will.”

Heads incline. Cups touch lips. Smiles are shared.

“And let us not forget the one who forged this victory,” he continues. “The man who broke the chains of Mars. Who shattered the Institute and took Olympus. Who called an Iron Rain and was answered. Who brought the Sword Armada to heel and took Earth itself. My son, Darrow.”

The hall erupts. Applause shakes the room, voices rising in salute. Mustang smiles at me, her pride quiet but steady. I nod to Nero, my expression measured. His eyes meet mine, a flicker of fire behind them that I can read as favour.

He speaks on, his words swelling into the rhythm of triumph and unity, but my attention drifts. Near him, Marcus au Saud stands too still. His fingers rest upon his cup, eyes unfocused. His sister Dido leans forward, watching Nero with the faintest smile. Behind them, Vittoria fidgets, her gaze darting again and again to the edges of the room.

Then, as ceremony always does, the moment passes. Conversation resumes. Groups close and scatter. Nero moves among those nearest him with practised grace, exchanging small words, offering and receiving congratulations in equal measure. Fitchner nears the circle, speaking quietly with Victra, who wears a scandalous gown of jade. Her gaze flickers toward the Rim envoys. Apollonius drinks deeply, his grin feral.

My eyes latch on to a Rimsman with his hair tied high. He moves along the arc of bodies as if swimming. He is quiet, stepping like a man accustomed to blades, his every motion already in the language of violence. He passes between two officers, brushing a sleeve, offering a small nod. I turn from him as Nero beckons.

A Pink balancing a tray of glasses offers them to us. She has silver hair streaked with violet, her eyes the pale quartz of a Rose. Her face is familiar, though blurred by memory. When she turns from Nero, she catches my eye and bows. The act is ordinary, the gesture ceremonial. I take a glass. There is no alarm at first, only a wrongness at the edge of awareness, something like a note played a semitone off.

The Rimsman moves toward us with steady purpose, a line that skirts the centre and aims for the man whose praise has raised me here. Nero lifts his cup again. “To Darrow au Andromedus,” he says, his voice lowered for those closest. “To the Reaper of Mars.”

“To Darrow,” the crowd answers. Glass meets glass. I drink.

The wine is sharp on my tongue, oddly so. The air tilts. The world narrows. Noise recedes to a soft, distant echo. Mustang’s smile blurs as if seen through rain on glass. Nero lowers his cup slowly, his lips curling into a smile of measured pride. I sense motion, then nothing. A shift of weight, a murmur like a faraway storm. Vittoria leans towards Marcus and whispers. He straightens robotically, face hardening, jaw set. His hand finds the yellow razor at his hip.

Then sound seems to return. Marcus’ blade flashes. Nero’s throat opens, a spray of red stabbing the air. He staggers, a gasp caught in his chest. Romulus roars, sweeping his hasta wide, but Marcus is already moving. He drives his blade through Gaius au Trachus and Ignis au Rath with a clinical precision that allows no pause for life. Blood fans against the columns. Shouts rip the air like torn fabric.

As chaos blooms, I stagger into Mustang. The air thickens. “Darrow!” she cries, her voice pained and distant. Tears streak her face, her features contorted in agony. Nero. No. I loathed the man, but he was still Mustang’s father. As he bleeds out before me, I cannot deny that I came to yearn for his approval. To appreciate our small talks. How fickle this all feels, watching the man who started me on this path eight years ago bleed out on the ground.

There is a whoosh of a hasta, then a wet thud. Dido screams, raw and jagged, the sound cleaving the air. She collapses beside her brother’s headless corpse, her trembling hands fumbling as if touch might mend what is lost. Romulus stands to the side, stunned, as though he was not the one to behead his brother-in-law.

My knees buckle. I fall. The world becomes a kaleidoscope of light, sound, and the metallic tang of blood. Mustang is beside me, anguish marking her features. She calls my name as if sound alone could anchor me. I cannot answer. My limbs are lead, my breath jagged. Behind her, Fitchner duels the Rimsman. Their blades spark and twist. Victra lies unmoving nearby, blood trickling down her temple. The Rimsman angles back, then drives his blade home. Fitchner staggers. My heart lurches beyond the physical pain I feel. Not again. Not him. Curse this wretched existence. Is this all there is? To fight and to lose, to watch comrades fall and victories sour into mourning. To bear the agonising truth that freedom has a cost. Death has shadowed every triumph. It feels endless, this slow unmaking of the soul.

As he dies, we lock eyes.

He smiles.

That smile is its own betrayal. Not of him, nor of us, but of the world that allows such endings. The paralytic tears through me. Agony radiates through every nerve, forcing tears from my eyes. My muscles seize, crushed from within. I taste iron and bile. The world narrows to the sight of him falling, proud even in death. I convulse as Kavax and Daxo lift me from the ground. My vision dims as they carry me out. Even as consciousness fades, I remember a face framed in silver and violet hair, eyes a deep rose, serene and clear. Her name drifts through the fog of pain like a bright coin.

Calliope.

The Jackal’s Rose.

The world contracts and folds. The last sound before blackness is Dido’s keening and the absurd, delicate shatter of crystal.

***

Consciousness returns in flashes as I am eased into a hyperbaric chamber. Tubes coil from my arms and chest, translucent veins that pulse with amber light. MedBots whine at the edges of hearing, their limbs a blur of chrome and precision. Yellows move quickly about the room, hands slick with motion, voices cutting through the filtered air in clipped commands. The scent of antiseptic and burnt ozone mixes with the sharp tang of blood.

Mustang stands motionless beyond the glass, her eyes fixed on me. Her face is smooth, unreadable, but her stillness feels like a dam about to break. Daxo and Kavax speak rapidly with Niobe, their words lost beneath the machinery’s hum. A moment later they sprint from the room, boots striking the deck in unison. I glimpse a worried Cassius at the door before Aeneas’ hand catches his arm and drags him back. Somewhere beyond the walls, a muffled tremor sounds like distant munitions. Is there fighting? The thought swims through the haze as another tube slides into my neck, cold fluid burning its path.

The MedBots shriek softly as they reposition, lights flashing red. Servilla bursts through the doorway, her composure stripped away. Her eyes find me in the chamber, and her breath catches in her throat. I cannot hear what she says, only the shapes of her words as my vision flickers in and out like a failing signal. I fight to stay awake, the weight of sedation pulling at me.

Then everything stops. Movement freezes, sound drops to a hush. Mustang glances down at her datapad, and horror ripples across the serenity she wore like armour. Niobe’s brow furrows. They turn to Servilla, who shakes her head in frantic denial, her gaze darting to me.

Am I dying?

The Yellows exchange uncertain looks. One, a young woman with lemon-coloured eyes, steps closer. Her hands tremble as she reaches into the chamber. I feel the sting of the injector as she sedates me, the world contracting into a tunnel of white light and machine noise before it fades to black

Chapter Text

Mustang

I wait with bated breath inside the valetudinarium. The chamber is bone white and sterile, its light too clean, its silence too exacting. I have never liked this part of the citadel. It smells of preservatives, a place where even grief feels anaesthetised. It reminds me of Claudius and Mother. Father made us watch as the Yellows prepared them for their sun burials. It was a brutal thing, but expected of Golds, even the children. We were meant to learn that the body is nothing, that only duty and legacy endure. Yet I remember only the stillness of their faces.

Now he is gone as well. Dead, and never to return. I will never hear his voice again, never see him in the quiet mornings before the war councils, never watch him teach Pax and Fortuna to ride as he once taught me. He will never sit on the Morning Chair, even if we win this war. The thought cuts deep, and I shudder. The last two and a half years have been driven by that single goal: to end the tyranny of the Core and secure the future of Mars. Now, after everything, the victory feels hollow, an echo without meaning.

The events of the feast replay in fragments: the laughter, the wine, the sudden silence before the screams. I have tried to make sense of it, but my mind keeps returning to the present. I must plan. I must hold the Alliance together. Yet even as I think it, I feel the unity we built slipping through my grasp like water through open hands.

My gaze lifts from the datapad to the man lying before me. Darrow lies unconscious beneath the pale light, the rise and fall of his chest shallow but steady. The poison was caught early, though traces still linger. It must be Atalantia’s work. My teams move with urgent precision around him, Yellows conferring in clipped voices, MedBots whispering in metallic tones.

Even in the chaos, I cannot look away from him. His face, so often set with defiance, is now softened by helplessness. My heart twists at the sight. Beyond the glass walls, the citadel hums with the subdued panic of command centres and war rooms, the steady murmur of a civilisation bracing for fracture.

When he wakes, everything will have changed. Nero dead. Fitchner too. The Rim in turmoil, and the Alliance trembling on the edge of collapse. The future, once so bright and brutal in its clarity, has become a question none of us are ready to answer.

Niobe walks in, her bright orange armour imposing. Her fox helm retracts, revealing a tattooed face. Her eyes soften when she sees me and she moves to lay a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“How is it out there?” I ask, hesitant.

She shakes her head discouragingly and I sigh, feeling the weight of the worlds on my shoulders.

***

Darrow

I wake in an unfamiliar bed. The sheets are soft but smell of antiseptic. My arms move instinctively, searching for Mustang beside me. Nothing. The space is cold, only emptiness meets my hand. How long have I been asleep? My thoughts come sluggishly, tangled and half-formed, slipping away before I can hold them. A faint tremor of weakness runs through me when I try to sit up. Memory drifts like silt through dark water. I remember a feast, the sound of laughter, the taste of wine, and then nothing. I groan in frustration, my mind refusing to reach beyond that broken edge.

“Darrow!” A voice cuts through the haze, bright with relief. I turn my head and find Aeneas seated at the foot of the bed, his armour scuffed, his hair unkempt. He stands too quickly, the chair clattering against the floor, a grin cutting across his face. “I’ll get the Yellows,” he says when I fail to answer. There is something uncertain in his tone, a shadow behind that smile. When the door slides shut behind him, the silence returns, thick and electric.

Minutes pass. The soft hiss of an electrocardiogram fills the air. Then Aeneas returns with a Yellow doctor, Kavax, Niobe, and Mustang. They file in quietly, their faces drawn, their movements stiff and deliberate. I manage a weak smile, but the air shifts as they gather around me. The tension in the room presses against my chest.

Memory crashes back with brutal clarity. The feast. The toast. Nero’s throat. Fitchner’s fall. Marcus’ blade flashing like a dying star. It all hits me like impact shock. My pulse quickens and the weakness becomes vertigo. I sag forward and Mustang moves quickly to my side, easing me back against the bed. Her touch is gentle, but I feel the tremor in her hand.

When I am settled, I open my mouth to speak, my voice a rasp. “How are things?”

No one answers at first. Their silence is a verdict in itself. My gaze moves from one to the next, searching for reassurance and finding none. Kavax, usually a pillar of warmth, lowers his eyes, massive hands clenched behind his back. The machines whisper, counting my heartbeats, the tension thickening until I can taste it. “Goryhell,” I mutter. “Someone tell me what’s wrong.”

Mustang takes my hand. Her eyes glisten, the composure she usually wears beginning to thin. Her voice, when it comes, is low and fragile. “The Alliance has fractured,” she says softly. “Romulus and the Rim have left Mars. The Martian Houses bicker among themselves, divided, some still with me, many uncertain.” She pauses, breathing shallowly. I try to piece her words together, to form a coherent picture of what she is telling me. “How?” I ask, my voice tight. “Did it really fall apart so easily?”

She looks to Kavax. He nods once, heavy and deliberate. Niobe steps closer to my other side, placing a steadying hand on my arm.

“Octavia…” Mustang begins, but the words falter. Her throat tightens.

Niobe takes over, her tone careful, almost apologetic. “Octavia released footage of your Carving. Not all of it, but enough, taken from Sevro’s memory when he watched it.”

The world seems to tilt. Sound dulls to a low hum. My chest tightens as if the air itself has turned solid. I feel my heart pounding, slow and painful. Mustang’s thumb strokes my palm in gentle circles, but I can barely feel it. The revelation sits like a blade in my gut.

I draw a breath, slow and deep, trying not to let the panic take hold. But inside, something has already cracked. I realise now that nothing, not love, not victory, not sacrifice, could have prepared me for this kind of ruin.

“What have they done?” I whisper, though it is not only Octavia I mean. My voice trembles. “How far has it spread?” Niobe answers slowly. “Every Holo, every private transmission…” Her voice fades as emotion surges afresh. The room tilts, my pulse pounding harder. It feels as though the air itself trembles. Mustang’s hand stays on mine, warm and steady, but it feels fragile, as if it might shatter beneath the weight of it all. My mind scrambles to catch up. Octavia has not only unmasked me; she has turned my truth into a weapon.

I am not a great warlord, not a conqueror of worlds. I am Red, a slave wearing a Gold’s face. The truth I have hidden for years is now broadcast for all. I am supposed to be a god, a symbol of power, an Iron Gold. Instead, I am the lie exposed. Every salute, every cheer, every oath sworn to me has been rendered meaningless. The secret once guarded by those I trusted is now a spectacle for the galaxy. Every victory, every speech, every battle clouded by this truth.

I see it now: the footage spreading across Mars, the Rim, Luna, and the Core. The Sovereign watching with that cold, measuring gaze. The Golds recoiling in disgust. The old order gasping at the audacity. The Martian Houses will seize it as justification for revolt. The Sovereign will use it to quell my rebellion and end this war. I am slagged.

Mustang’s hand on my face pulls me back to the room. The monitor beside me shrills, my heart rate spiking. The Yellow hesitates, eyes flicking between me and the readings, waiting for me to calm.

“How bad is it, then?” I manage.

But the real question hangs unspoken between us: is this the end? Mustang’s lips press into a thin line. She nods before she even speaks, and the small gesture says enough. There is still hope, but it feels distant, fragile. We always knew this day might come. We had plans, contingencies, alliances stacked like cards. Yet now that it has arrived, I struggle to see a way through the wreckage.

Kavax answers, his deep voice cutting through the sterile hum of the machines. “A quarter of the Martian Armada burns for Luna. The planetary defence fleet remains under Niobe. The Rim’s withdrawal is only to the Belt, but their hulls are pointed to Jupiter. Emissaries still shuttle between us. The rest…” He exhales. “They argue. I have never seen Mars like this.”

Mustang leans closer, her voice a tether. “You are still ArchImperator,” she says, but even her calm carries strain. “The Consilium has not yet voted on that.” I try to picture the Consilium Martis, the ancient body of governors, Justiciars, and Primi of the great Houses, their faces set in judgement. What will they say? Will they recognise the necessity, or will they brand me a danger to the hierarchy of the Society? The thought twists inside me, sour and relentless.

The Consilium has gathered only twice in living memory: once to name Oriens au Cylus the first ArchGovernor after Mars was terraformed, and again to confirm Nero au Augustus after he wiped the Cylus line from existence. The Compact grants the Sovereign power to appoint or remove an ArchGovernor, but the Consilium must accept that choice, a counterweight to Luna’s leash.

I shake my head, unable to believe it. “They know what I am.” Niobe leans forward, her tone level but urgent. “And Mars rises because of it.”

Mustang taps her datapad. The lights dim, and a cascade of holograms blooms into the air above us. Mars turns slowly, its cities glowing red in revolt. Everywhere, chaos.

Low and MidColours fill the streets in numbers I have never seen. Vast marches clog the avenues of Agea, Olympia, even Yorkton. In the wealthier districts, Violets wear miners’ garb and wear chains, HoloCams spreading their dramatised protest. Oranges and Pinks marching arm in arm with Reds and Browns. Greens and Yellows wave HoloCards bearing my name. They all wear crimson and raise my standard, the wolf and slingBlade.

I stare, transfixed. The Carving has not destroyed me. It has freed them.

Grays try to contain the masses, but they are swept aside, disarmed, or pulled into the marches themselves. Even Whites and Silvers vow publicly to rebel. And in that maelstrom, I see what Mustang has done. She has not let the planet break. She has awakened it. The planet is alive, boiling, roaring, unified once more in my name.

It is bedlam, a thousand hives of fury and hope.

“Now we must act,” Niobe says. “The Carving is public, yes, but those,” she points to the Holos, “prove one thing: you are loved, and that love can be used. We show Mars who its leaders are. We show them that this changes nothing.”

I swallow. Love. It is true, but so is revulsion. I have spent these last few years commanding obedience through awe, through belief in my race, my blood, my invincibility. That is gone. Every soldier I counted on will now question if I belong anywhere, if I can lead at all.

I close my eyes, inhale, and force myself to focus. The Carving is no longer my secret, no longer my shame. It is a lever, a fulcrum, a declaration. And I must use it. This is no longer just about survival. It is about claiming the narrative, bending perception, forcing the worlds to see me on my terms rather than Octavia’s. My Carving is a weapon, one that cuts both ways. I must wield it carefully, or all of Mars will descend on me as predator and jury both.

I open my eyes. Mustang meets my gaze, unwavering despite the tension etched into her features. Niobe’s eyes shine with quiet fire. Kavax nods once, as if to say the moment has come. The weight of their expectation presses on me. I am a Red, a fraud, a man revealed; and yet I will stand.

I rise slightly on the bed, testing my strength and resolve. My pulse is fast, my body trembling, but my mind begins to calculate, to strategise, to turn panic into action. I must change the paradigm somehow.

“Aeneas,” I call. The boy rushes forward and salutes. “Yes, ArchImperator!”

This has changed nothing for him, I see from the smile that threatens to break free. He could have left, gone to the Rim with his father and kin, but he stayed. “Why?” I ask, my voice soft.

“Because I am your lancer. I swore an oath. Your war is my war. I am your sword. My purpose is your glory.” He pauses, hesitating. “And because you have shown me you are a man worth following.” The last words are genuine, heartfelt. They give me strength. They give me hope. They make me believe in Eo’s dream.

If he can follow me, then there is hope for the worlds.

“Gather what remains of our allies. The Reaper of Mars calls.”

Chapter Text

Mustang

“What you ask is preposterous, Virginia! You may be ArchGovernor, for now, but you cannot ask this!”

A lanky Gold, Nectere au Celintus, Primus of his house and client of the Julii, speaks from across the table. Since Agrippina’s death, he has taken temporary charge of Julii Industries. I regard him without expression and he rearranges his robes with theatrical irritation, huffing as though to rebuff my request.

“When the Lady Julii recovers, and she will, Nectere, I trust you will have a sound explanation for denying your ArchGovernor the ships and personnel to enact her will.”

He stiffens, calculating. Ever the merchant, he weighs his chances among the mercantile families, jockeying for advantage amid the chaos. At last, he nods once, and I dismiss him curtly.

I take up my datapad and review the endless list of tasks awaiting me. The Consilium meets again in four days, this time to decide. I do not dwell on it. Que sera, sera.

Kavax still works through the fleets, holding them steady, while Quicksilver rallies his Silvers to pressure the Houses. Theodora’s Pinks prepare for to act, not only on Mars but on Luna as well. My husband’s life hangs in the balance, and so does the future of Mars. I must be hard but I cannot afford to be seen to act.

A knock interrupts my thoughts. Annaurius enters and bows deeply. “Domina, the ArchImperator is ready.”

I nod, though I notice the faint change in his voice as he says it. Coppers, like Grays, cling most tightly to the Hierarchy, second only to Golds. Loyal though he is, it must gnaw at his foundations to know that Darrow was born Red.

I make my way through the citadel. The mood is tense, the usual liveliness subdued by the events of the week. Some mourn my father openly; others feel only the dull ache of life without him. He was one hundred and three when he died, and for seventy-eight of those years he ruled as ArchGovernor of Mars. I feel the void too, the cold emptiness that has settled over the citadel.

A ripWing hums, ready for departure. Holiday, Aeneas, Valdir, and Wulfgar stand near the ramp. They salute as I approach. Darrow speaks with Daxo, and both turn to face me.

“Virginia,” Daxo begins. “We were just finalising the fleet plans.” The conversation soon ends, and I bid my husband farewell. I hold him longer than I should, and realise he, too, does not let go. His eyes, a deep molten gold, meet mine, and I wonder how my life might have been if he had never been Carved into a Gold. That thought alone makes all of this worth it.

The others board while we linger in our farewells. Darrow turns and walks up the ramp. I wish I could go with him, stand beside him in what he must do, but I cannot. My work is here. He turns as the bulkhead closes, waving with a dejected half-smile. I return it, though I feel the same exhaustion, the same fear.

Just before the door seals, a voice calls from across the terrace.

“Wait!”

I turn and see Cassius, clad in the armour of the Morning Knight, his razor coiled around his arm. I smile, then glance at Darrow, who gestures hurriedly for the ramp to lower once more. Cassius fought bravely in the aftermath of the feast, but soon withdrew to Eagle’s Rest without a word. I feared he could not reconcile with the truth.

Seeing him now, I am caught off guard by his bright smile. He starts towards the ripWing, and Darrow’s pace quickens to meet him. Cassius pauses to clasp my shoulder and nod to Daxo before stopping at the base of the ramp. Darrow joins him, and the tension between them is palpable. My husband’s eyes swirl with hesitation and hope, and my heart aches. He has lost so much, endured even more, and Cassius is one of the few friends he has left.

In an instant, Cassius pulls Darrow into an embrace. He whispers something into his ear, and Darrow buries his face deeper against Cassius’ shoulder. It is a fragile moment, heavy and human. They stay that way for a while. I feel a warmth bloom in my chest, a sense of things coming right.

Cassius turns from their reunion, grinning salaciously. “Watch our Horsey,” he says, “I have a weakness for red, dirty, and already taken.”

Despite myself, I laugh, a sound rich and genuine. I have not done so in far too long. Darrow throws his friend a stern look of mock disapproval. They board the small craft, arms around each other’s shoulders, and I remember the first time we met. How they tried to steal my horse and ended up stranded in a lake for hours. The memory glows bright, even as the worlds beyond us crumble.

***

Darrow

The ripWing lifts off, and through the small viewport I watch Mustang and Daxo grow smaller until the citadel itself is a smear of white beneath the clouds. When the city vanishes, I turn to Cassius. We stand in the hold, the hum of the engines steady beneath our boots. I glance around, searching for words that do not come. He steps closer and sets a hand on my shoulder.

“I will not lie and say I was not surprised,” he begins. His voice is calm, almost resigned. “I felt betrayed. And hurt. I was angry, too.  Not at the lie, but because you lied. I needed time, and space.” He shrugs slightly, face brightening. “But it changes nothing. I have seen what this Society is, how it crushes those beneath it. I understand why you did not tell me… why you could not. But, you are still my brother, Darrow.”

I meet his eyes, feeling a sting behind my own.

“Do not look at me like that!” he says, giving me a shove that nearly knocks me off balance, the solemnity of the moment broken.

“Like what?” I protest, feigning my exasperation.

“Like a lost puppy that has just found its mother.”

A laugh bursts from me before I can stop it. I push him further into the ship and he grins, shaking his head. We do not need long words or heavy confessions. He understands. He came back when he was ready. Still, guilt lingers, that I did not trust him. I lost Roque because of that, and I almost lost him.

The flight is short, little more than three hours, yet my thoughts churn restlessly. When the clouds break, I see the jagged towers ahead, rising like black spears from the arctic plain. The spires twist upward, cruel and alien, as though conjured from some fevered dream of a mad god. Fog coils around them like linen strips, and above, vast winged creatures, griffins and eagles the size of bloodbacks, nest among the heights. As we descend, a familiar tightness grips my chest. I tap my foot anxiously, steadying myself as the Blue pilot guides us into a narrow alcove on the tallest spire. The ripWing settles with a hiss of hydraulics. The ramp lowers, and cold air floods in, sharp and biting.

Noise swells from below. When I step into view, it breaks into a stunned hush. I descend in red PulseArmour, razor in hand, every movement amplified by the hiss of my suit. To the Obsidians, it must be a surreal experience. Few have ever seen their so-called gods here on Asgard, and fewer still have lived to tell of it. They drop to their knees as I pass. Some whisper reverently in Nagal.

“The gods have come to judge us.”   “Confess your sins before the stars.”

The words blur into a murmured tide as I walk through the path they clear. At the foot of the great doors, carved with runes and writhing figures, stands a woman who neither kneels nor speaks.

She is severe and magnificent. Her face is sharp, her expression carved in stone. Her eyes are small and watchful, her lips thin and violet in the cold. The left side of her head is shaven; the right holds a long braid of white hair that reaches her waist. On her temple, a wing tattoo circles a ring of astral runes, glowing faintly blue against pale skin. The only ornament she wears is a single iron bar through her nose.

I already know her.

Sefi the Quiet.

She is only a little taller than I am, short for an Obsidian, but the air bends around her all the same. When I stop before her, she blinks slowly, and the tattooed blue eyes on her lids seem to open behind the flesh. I speak in Nagal, the words shaped from Mickey’s data packs and honed at the Academy and through long practice with Ragnar. “My name is Darrow. I come seeking your queen.”

She studies me for a moment that stretches into silence, then turns and gestures for us to follow. She shows no reverence, no fear. The murmurs swell again as we pass through the colossal doors. Inside, the halls are narrow and dim, lit by oil lamps that smoke thickly against the stone. The air smells of seal fat and damp. Sefi leads us down twisting corridors and steep stairways until the passage opens into a vast chamber.

The throne room is immense, its vaulted roof lost in shadow. Warriors line the walls; women mostly, a few men, each armed, each silent. The iron doors close behind us with a boom that echoes through the hall. At the centre, upon a dais of black ice, sits the largest person I have ever seen. She does not rise, does not even shift, but her gaze holds us with the gravity of a world. We approach her, boots striking the slick floor, until we stand before Alia Snowsparrow, Queen of the Valkyrie. She glares down at us, as colossal as Ragnar, but older and darker, like the oldest tree of some ancient forest. The kind that drinks the soil and blocks the sun from all that grows beneath it, watching the lesser trees wither, yellow, and die, while it only digs its roots deeper and stretches its limbs higher.

The wind has armoured her face with calluses and dead skin. Her hair is long and stringy, the colour of dirty snow. She sits upon a throne of furs piled within the ribcage of a griffin’s skeleton. Its skull leers above her in frozen silence, the wings spread across the wall, ten metres from tip to tip. On her head rests a crown of black glass. At her feet sits her warchest, sealed by a vast iron lock, unopened in times of peace.

Beside her stands a man, small only in comparison. He is my height, with hair the colour of dark gold, streaked with black and bound in a tail. His face is long and spare, his skin pale and smooth, his lips almost tender. He wears grayish-black PulseArmour that radiates with malevolence.

Atlas au Raa, the Fear Knight.

My hand twitches toward the toggle of my razor. Sefi turns her head as if sensing my intent. I still my hand but keep my eyes on him. Valdir and Wulfgar watch him with murder in their gaze, beasts straining against a leash. Cassius only stares, his face unreadable. He insisted on coming with me, and I am grateful for it, if only for the steadiness of his presence.

Alia speaks.

“There is a great heresy in our lands,” she says, her voice low and rasping, like a crocodile dragging through mud. Yet her words are in our tongue, HighLingo Aureate. A sacred language in these parts, spoken only by their shamans, spies really. Her fluency startles Cassius. It does not surprise me. I have seen how the low rise beneath the power of the mighty. This only proves what I already knew. Gamma are not the only favoured slaves of the worlds.

“A heresy told by wicked prophets with wicked aims,” she continues. “For two summers and two winters it has crawled through my people. It poisons the clans of the Dragon Spine, the Blooded Tents, and the Rattling Caves. It tells them lies that spit in the eye of our gods.”

She leans forward, wrinkles cutting deep ravines around her eyes.

“They say a Stained son will return, and he will bring a man to lead us from this land. A morning star in the darkness. I sought these heretics to hear their whispers, to see if the gods spoke through them. They did not. Evil spoke through them. So I hunted them. I broke their bones with my own hands. I flayed their flesh and set them upon the spires for the carrion birds.”

I know who she means. The agents we sent to prime the Obsidians, the ones we lost. I understand now. We thought they would join us. How wrong we were.

“This I did for my people,” she says. “Because I love them. Because the children of my loins are few and those of my heart are many. I knew the heresy to be a lie. Ragnar, blood of my blood, would never return. To return would be to break his oaths to me, to his people, to the gods who watch us from Asgard above.”

The chamber stirs. Her chiefs murmur among themselves. I feel the air shift.  Atlas steps forward. His voice is quiet, but it carries.“Augustus,” he muses. “No, that is not right. Slave is better. I am glad you recovered from Atalantia’s gift. I had hoped to test myself against you, though now I fear it might tarnish my honour.” His tone is flat, dispassionate, as if he speaks of the weather.

“Morning Knight,” he says, turning to Cassius. “Your betrayal knows no bounds. You aid a slave. I thought better of you. Octavia was prepared to forgive your…treachery on Luna. She means to give Mars to your mother, and you would have inherited it. But this…” He gestures toward me. “This complicates things.”

Cassius says nothing, though his eyes burn with hatred. Atlas seems amused.

Alia clears her throat. Atlas stops and inclines his head in apology. She smiles faintly and raises her voice.

“Who are you who comes to my spire?”

“My name is Darrow of Lykos,” I answer. “This is Cassius au Bellona, Valdir the Unshorn, and Wulfgar of the Iron Mountain.”

Her eyes sweep across my companions. “And why do you come here?”

“To honour a promise I made to my brother.”

Her thin brows lift. “And who is your brother?”

“Ragnar Volarus, Prince of the Valkyrie Spires, Keeper of the Black Oath, and High Commander of my Venatores.”

The hall erupts in whispers. Alia raises her hand and silence falls. She studies me long.

“His brother?” she says, mocking the word.

“Your son swore an oath of servitude to me when I took him from a Gold. He gave me his Stains and I gave him his freedom. Since then he has been my brother.”

Her voice catches. “He died free?”

“He did,” I say. “His men told you the Morning Star would bring you freedom. Freedom from those who took Ragnar from you, as they took your other children. They told you he was my general, my friend, my brother. He was a good man.”

“I know my son,” she interrupts. “I swam with him in the ice floes when he was a boy. I taught him the names of the snow, of the storms. I took him upon my griffin to show him the spine of the world. His hands clutched my hair, and he sang with joy as we rose above the clouds. My son was without fear.”

She speaks as though recalling a dream. Ragnar remembered it as a nightmare.

“I know my son,” she repeats. “I do not need a stranger to tell me of his spirit.”

Cassius steps forward, his voice tight. “Then ask yourself, Queen, what would make him return here? What would make him send his men here? Would he do that if he believed it would break his oaths to you?”

Alia says nothing. Her gaze drifts back to me.

“Brother,” she says again, the word a weapon now. “Would you use your brothers as you used my son? You come here, as if he is the key to unlocking the giants of the ice.”

Her eyes wander the carvings that climb the walls, great deeds etched into stone by hands that have never been seen beyond this land.

“As if you could wield a mother’s love as a tool. That is the way of men. I can smell your ambition. I can hear your plans in the rhythm of your breath. I do not know the Abyss, warlord, but I know the ice. I know the serpents that live in the hearts of men. I questioned the heretics myself, and the gods have shown me what you are.” She says motioning reverently to Atlas. “I know you descend from a lesser creature. A Red. I have seen Reds. Small and bright as embers, scurrying through the bones of the earth. You stole the body of an Aesir, of a Sunborn, and now you call yourself a liberator. But you are only another chain maker. You wish to bind us to you. Like every man.”

She leans forward, eyes narrowing. She wants to see strength. She respects nothing else.

I step closer, my voice low and fierce.

“Those men and women on Asgard are not gods. They are flesh. They are blood. This land gives no seed. It is ruled by wind and rock and cold. Yet you survive. Cannibals hunt your children, rival clans hunger for your lands, and still you survive. You sell your sons and daughters to your gods, and still you survive. Why? Why live when all you live for is to serve? My world is broken, and so is yours. But together, as Ragnar dreamed, we can build a new one.”

Alia rises.

“Which would you fear more, Red,” she says softly, “a god, or a mortal with the power of a god?”

The question hangs between us.

“A god cannot die,” she says. “So a god knows no fear. But mortal men fear the dark. They fear the silence after the light. And that fear drives them to every cruelty.”

Her words chill me.

She knows.

Alia knows her gods are mortal. She has always known. Whether Atlas told her or she learned it herself, it does not matter. She has already chosen her world.

“There is another path,” I say, my voice trembling with urgency. “Ragnar saw it. A world where your people can leave the ice, where they can choose their own fate. Join me, and that world can be real. I will give you the power to cross the stars, to walk unseen, to fly on iron wings. You can live where the wind is warm and the land is green. Fight beside me, as your son did.”

“No,” Alia says. “You cannot fight the sky. You cannot fight the sea or the mountain or the gods. I will protect my people. I will send you back to the stars in chains. I will let the Gods decide your fate. My people will live on. Sefi will take my throne. And I will die on the ice that gave me life.”

Chapter Text

Darrow

The sky is the colour of blood beneath as we fly from the Spires. This time we ride griffins, chained belly-down against fetid saddles, hanging like cargo. The wind of the lower troposphere cuts my eyes raw. The griffin’s wings beat against the air, muscles rolling under slick feathers, every motion a struggle against the weight of sky.

Words failed with Alia. Now we are bound for Asgard, gifts for the gods to buy her people’s future. That was what she told Sefi. Her silent daughter took my chains and, with Alia’s guards, dragged us to the hangar where her Valkyrie waited. Atlas oversaw the affair with the calm of a man who knows his victory is already written. He played the Vanir, the lesser god, the messenger, pretending to be less than he is.

Through my comms, I ordered Aeneas and Holiday to take off before capture. Now, hours later, we pass over a land forged by wrathful gods in their youth. It is harsh and violent, a scar upon the world, made to punish the ancestors of the Obsidians who once defied their masters. The Antarctic stretches below, vast and frozen, a monument to divine spite.

Asgard hangs in the twilight, a mountain torn from the earth and suspended between the Abyss and the ice below. The seat of the Aesir. The fortress of false gods. Its flanks glimmer faintly in the red dusk, cliffs like glass and iron, lit by the lightning that coils around its base. Atlas rides behind one of Sefi’s warriors, unbound, his hair snapping in the wind. A stairway of black stone steps climbs from the world below, hanging and unsupported, vanishing into the belly of the mountain. The Way of Stains. Every Obsidian must climb it to earn the favour of the gods, to bring glory and bounty to their tribes, to be chosen by Allmother Death herself. Beneath that stair lies the Valley of the Fallen. The bodies of those who failed lie frozen together in grotesque contortions. No decay here, only cold preservation. The crows alone do their work, picking flesh from what the ice will not claim.

I am pulled off the saddle and fall hard onto the ice, legs numb after the long flight. The Valkyrie shove us forward after Sefi toward a black temple. Wind moans through the mouths of three hundred and thirty-three carved faces that scream from the façade, their stone eyes wide and pleading beneath the frozen rock. We pass beneath an arch, snow curling across the floor like smoke.

“Sefi,” I call. She turns her head, slow as frost forming. “May I speak to you? Alone?”

The Valkyrie hesitate. Atlas steps forward to interrupt, but their spears cross in front of him, silent and sharp. Sefi walks deeper into the temple. I follow in my chains, boots scraping the stone until we reach a small courtyard open to the sky. The light here is violet and strange. I shiver. Sefi waits, patient, unreadable. For the first time, it strikes me that she is studying me as I study her. Those dark eyes search for weakness. They see cracks. In men, in armour, in lies.

“Where do they go?” I ask quietly. “The ones your clan sends to the gods. Have you ever wondered? Do you truly believe they are lifted up as warriors? That they are rewarded with gold and glory?”

She says nothing, only watches.

If I cannot reach her here, I think, we are dead. Yet I press on. “If you believed in the gods, you would not have sworn silence when Ragnar ascended. The others cheered. You wept. Because you knew. You felt it, didn’t you?”

I step closer. Her skin is so pale it almost matches her hair.

“You feel the truth in your heart. All who leave the ice become slaves.”

Her brow tightens. I do not let the moment fade.

“Your brother was Stained. A Son of the Spires. A titan. He ascended to serve the gods and was treated like a dog. They made him fight in pits. They wagered on his life. Your brother, who taught you the names of the ice and the wind, who was the greatest son of the Spires in his age, was another man’s property.”

Her eyes lift to the sky. Stars flicker faintly through the black-violet haze. How many nights has she looked at them, wondering what became of him? How many lies has she told herself so that she could sleep? The truth is cruel. It makes every one of those nights worse.

“Your mother sold him,” I say, pressing harder. “She sold your sisters, your brothers, your father. Everyone who ever left became a slave. Ragnar wanted to return here. To bring you with us. To free your people. He died for it. For you. Do you trust him enough to believe that? Do you love him enough?”

Behind us, Atlas stirs. The Valkyrie watch him with cold suspicion. Cassius mutters something to his guard and earns a roll of her eyes. I can feel the moment slipping. If she does not bend now, we will hang from the citadel in Hyperion.

Sefi looks back at me. Her eyes are rimmed red with a fury that feels ancient. Perhaps she has always known her mother’s betrayal. Perhaps she was told, as all queens are told, when the crown passes from hand to hand. Something in her stillness tells me this truth is not new to her, only newly spoken aloud.

“Sefi,” I say, “if you deliver me to the Golds, their reign will continue and your brother’s dream will die. If the world is what you wish it to be, then do nothing. But if it is broken, if it is unjust, take a chance. Let me show you what your mother hid from you. Let me show you how mortal your gods truly are. Let me help you honour your brother.”

Snow drifts across the stone between us. She watches it, lost in thought. Then, with a slow, deliberate nod, she turns so her body shields me from view. Her hand slips into her cloak and draws out a small iron key. The lock clicks. My chains fall loose, though she leaves them draped over my wrists.

When we return to the others, she gestures toward the bag containing our razors, Lorn’s, Cassius’s, and mine, and takes it without a word.

Atlas watches us closely, his eyes darting from me to Sefi as if anticipating an attack. Cassius is shoved forward and I fall between Atlas and the Valkyries. We start our ascent up the Way of Stains. The climb is brutal, my legs trembling from the cold and strain as we reach the summit and see the black glass complex of the Golds crowning the floating mountain.

Between us and the complex stands a second temple shaped like a giant screaming face. In front of it lies a small square, and at its centre grows a gnarled black tree. Flames smoulder along its branches. White blossoms perch among the fire, untouched. The Valkyrie whisper in awe, fearing the sorcery before them.

Sefi steps forward and plucks a blossom from the tree. The flames char the edges of her gloves, but she pulls away with a single white flower shaped like a teardrop. When her fingers touch it, the blossom darkens, expands to the colour of blood, then wilts and turns to ash. I have never seen anything like it, nor do I care to. It is too cold for wonder.

A bloody footprint blooms in the snow ahead of us. Sefi and her Valkyrie freeze. Then more footprints appear, leading toward the mouth of the temple. Fear ripples through them. Even Sefi sinks to her knees when we reach the stairs at the base of the screaming face.

The throat of the temple opens and a withered old man emerges. His beard is white, his eyes violet and clouded with age. He looks displeased but speaks as he descends.

“My lord,” he says when Atlas steps forward. “You have returned! It is far too cold to be making such a journey. Even for you.” His staff strikes each step with a sharp, deliberate thud, his voice rasping the air thin. He looks at Cassius and I, surprised, but does not say a thing.

Sefi steps forward, her poise unbroken. The Violet halts, uncertain.

“Bone and frozen blood is all that should remain,” he murmurs. “Have you come to request a trial of the Stains?”

She nods. Atlas moves to the front so quickly he shoulders me aside. I turn to Cassius and wink. He smiles faintly.

Atlas confers with the Violet while Sefi listens to the exchange. I slip both razors, mine and Lorn’s, into the folds of the cloak they gave me for the flight to Asgard. Then Atlas protests in that deep, measured voice of his, urging Sefi to remember her mother’s command. She ignores him and gives a sharp signal with her hand. Her Valkyrie close in around them.

One seizes the Violet and drags him forward, toward the temple. Atlas reaches for his weapon, but two Valkyries catch his arms and force him onward. The temple doors open when Sefi takes the Violet’s hand and presses it to an onyx plinth.

Inside is a vast chamber beneath a domed ceiling. The air hums with runes carved into golden pillars. At the centre lies a sunken circular pit, its floor traced with silver channels that gleam faintly. Arched corridors lead away into shadow, each one framed by carved reliefs of gods in battle or judgment. The place feels older than faith itself, built for fear, not worship.

Atlas’ calm begins to crack as he is pushed into the centre of the chamber. Sefi signs furiously at one of her Valkyries, fingers cutting the air in quick bursts. The woman turns to us, her words for Atlas.

“The daughter of the Snowsparrow wishes to know if this creature is truly a slave, as you claim. He wears the face of a god, has the eyes of a god, the body of a god. How then can he be a slave? And if he was, who but the gods could grant him such a body?”

Atlas cuts in, voice deep, his HighLingo smooth but sharp with irritation. He speaks past the Valkyrie to Sefi. “Do not be a fool, girl. Your mother instructed you to take this creature to Asgard. Let the Aesir be the judge, not a mortal child.”

The Valkyrie hesitates, waiting for Sefi. She signs again, curt and commanding, then folds her arms.

The Valkyrie moves to speak, but Atlas senses the change in the air. His hand snaps to his razor. His two Valkyrie guards lose their heads before they can draw breath. The four remaining surge to Sefi’s side. I cast off my chains and unfurl both razors as Atlas’ aegis hums to life. Cassius slides beside me, razor raised in a Kravat stance. We lunge as one.

Atlas moves with impossible speed, attacking in a pattern I have never seen, retreating before we can counter. I let Cassius lead, shadowing his motion. Atlas glides around him, each strike perfectly measured. Cassius disengages, already bleeding from a cut to his face.

I step forward, grounding myself in my hybrid flow of Willow Way and Shadowfall. I match his rhythm, strike for strike, until my blade kisses his cheek. He bleeds but smiles, reading me even as he parries. We break apart. The Valkyries and Sefi watch, wide-eyed. To them it must be witchcraft, this blur of light and steel their Obsidian eyes cannot truly follow. Atlas shrugs off his cloak, PulseArmour flexing as if to harden.

“So my brother and father fell for your deception as well,” he says, smiling thinly. “First Aeneas, then Shadowfall. Reaper, you truly are one of a kind.”

I do not let him finish. I lunge forward, abandoning thought for motion. The world narrows to the rhythm of blades. I stab, hack, reach out with a whip, then drive in with a lance. Right hand, left hand. My razor, then Lorn’s. Whip, blade, whip. I fall into the tide. He meets it with impossible grace, fluid and deadly, his movements too precise to be human.

Steel screams. Sparks leap between us. I cut his cheek and see the first bloom of blood. His armour hisses, stims flooding his veins. The calm leaves his face, replaced by cold, predatory intent. Cassius’s eyes flick toward me, startled, but there is no time to think, no air to spare.

Atlas comes again. Eight seconds a set. Then twelve. Each a perfectly disorienting pattern of destruction. He feints, pivots, drives me back step by step. My arms shake from the weight of every parry. I am seconds from falling before Cassius cuts across the space, deflecting a blow that would have taken my head.

The reprieve lasts a heartbeat. Atlas moves like a storm, attacking, withdrawing, then coming harder still. It is the Gala reborn, stripped of pageantry and mercy. Three predators circling, blades whispering, waiting for the other to falter.

Then I see what he intends.

Abruptly, he breaks away down a narrow corridor. I chase after him but I hear GravBoots ignite with a rising whine. In a heartbeat he vanishes into the dark, swallowed by the hall.

“Where does that lead?” I ask the Violet, urgency cutting through. The man is too bamboozled to speak, his gaze darting between Cassius and I as if realising who we are.

I do not rest. He could still warn the Golds inside. I lead my small party out of the temple and move fast for Asgard, the Violet in tow. We enter the main complex, ringed by eight towers, each dedicated to a god, and the sight that meets us is ghastly. The so called gods lie impaled on their own razors, skewered from gut to mouth. The Violet vomits, falling to the ground in a keening heap.

The Valkyrie stand frozen, disbelief written across their faces. Their myth bleeds before them. I take the opening.

“These are your gods,” I call, voice carrying over the marble. “They are only men. They bleed as you do, they die as you do.”

I move up to one of the fallen, a woman, and draw her razor free. The corpse collapses at the sound of bone against stone. I step to Sefi and press the blade into her hand. She is startled, stepping back, then meets my eyes. Something passes between us then, quick and fierce: understanding, recognition that this is only the beginning.

I look to Cassius and he shrugs, unconcerned by my bold deed. We push deeper into the fortress, combing rooms and corridors for Atlas. We find only corpses. Greens in their tech room, Pinks half dressed in the baths, a Yellow with his head split open. When Atlas does not appear, I abandon the search and move to the armoury. There I arm the Valkyrie with what we can carry and take every weapon and munition that will fit in the transport we steal.

***

We return to the Spires on a shuttle from Asgard, bearing eight dead gods. Sefi and her Valkyrie don the new armour, massive and terrible, and the Obsidians flock the halls to see. They pour from the deeper levels, eyes wide at the sight. Most of them have never seen their gods close, only streaks of light tearing over the snow at impossible speed.

This was not how I planned to win them. I had imagined coming humbly, trusting their judgment and risking myself to prove my word. That was the noble foolishness of hope. There is no time for such luxuries. If Alia will not join us of her own accord, I will drag her to war kicking and screaming, as Lorn did before her. For the Obsidian, the only language they understand is might.

Sefi slams her PulseFist into the iron doors that lead to her mother’s sanctuary. The ancient metal buckles and bends. Hinges scream as molten iron gives. We surge through and pass a corridor crowded with giants.

We find Alia at council, surrounded by her famed warchiefs. They sit amid smoking braziers, great warriors with hair to their waists and axes like whole lives strapped to their backs. Rings and studs flash in the low light, but no one moves. The three-hundred-year old iron doors are glowing, the metal soft and sagging away behind us. I drag the corpses of the Golds into their sight as if dragging a confession across the floor.

“Are these gods?” I shout. No answer. I retract my helm. “Am I a god?” I roar. Sefi retracts hers as well. Alia flinches when she sees her daughter standing in the armour of the gods. Fear flutters across her face. The old queen remains taller than most, but she looks diminished.

“Child, what have you done?” she whispers.

Sefi does not answer. The razor on her arm slithers free, glittering. The room goes silent; every eye is drawn to the weapon. One of the warchiefs opens his mouth in outrage. He falls silent when I speak.

“Queen of the Valkyrie,” I say, as formal as a summons, “I am Darrow of Lykos. Blood brother of Ragnar Volarus. I am the warlord of Mars. Beyond this land a war of worlds rages. I came to show your people the truth.”

I gesture to the dead Golds. “They struck him down before he could tell you that you are slaves. The prophets he sent told you true. Your gods are false.”

A shriek rises. An ancient shaman, joints bowed like old tree limbs, screams, “Liar!” He rants something else that collapses into pleading. Sefi cuts him off with a hard look. Alia sees what I have done. She understands what I offered her in pretending ignorance, and what I have denied her by forcing this truth into her hall. I had hoped for a better way. I had promised myself I would be better than this. But war is not kind. It is not noble. Victory is the only nobility that remains.

Alia reads her people and, in their faces, the choice she must make. I could have made her complicit and accused her before her own. Instead I gave her the convenient shock of a first revelation. She does not accept the gift. She stumbles forward, fury and betrayal contorting her features.

“I carried you. I birthed you. I nursed you. This is my reward? Treason? Blasphemy? You are no Valkyrie.” She turns to her chiefs. “These are lies. Kill the blasphemers. Kill them all!”

A hundred hands go for axes, but Sefi moves in a single measured step. She toggles the blade I pressed into her hand and, in a motion that is clean and final, severs her mother’s head from her shoulders. Alia’s eyes remain open as the body totters and collapses forward. The hall holds its breath.

Sefi spits on the corpse, then turns. Her voice, when it comes, is low and carved from ice.

“She knew.”

The words are hardly louder than a whisper, but they own the room. Sefi walks back through the stunned assembly to the griffin throne and pries at the rusted lock of her mother’s fabled warchest until her fingers bleed. With a guttural roar she rips the chest open and drags out relics of power: the black scarab skin used to dominate the White Coast, the red scale cloak from a slain dragon, and finally a great double headed axe, black and edged with old light.

The steel gleams.

“Children of the Spires,” Sefi cries, holding the axe high, “the Reaper has called us to join him in his war against false gods. Do the Valkyrie answer?”

A thunder of blue feathered axes rises into the air. The Valkyrie chant in a voice that shakes the stone. The warchiefs, stunned into motion, fall in beside them. It is as if the ocean has broken through the halls. The drums of war beat inside my bones, cold and ecstatic.

“Ride,” Sefi calls to them. “Ride to the Blood Coast, to the Bleaking Moor, the Shattered Spine and the Witch Pass. Tell them Asgard has fallen. Tell them the old oaths are broken. Tell them the Valkyrie ride to war.”

As the Spires surge with sound and motion, as the first griffins leap and as the first riders take their reins, I feel the truth of what we have done. The worst is not behind us. It has only just begun.

Chapter Text

Darrow

The next few days blur into one long march of preparation. Across the Obsidian tribes, the call to arms spreads like fire through dry grass. Warriors gather from the steep mountains and the icy coasts, their war cries echoing through the snowy canyons. Even as they rally, the old and the young begin to pack their lives into sledges, ready to follow. Their exodus moves slower, burdened by the weight of generations that have known nothing but this barren land for centuries.

When the fires of Alia’s death finally fade, I return to Asgard. I speak to Mustang, her voice hard with resolve over the Holo. She has rallied the planetary defence fleet to my rescue who she tells to stand down. I tell her what we have done, what it cost, and what we gained. The plan, we agree, will go ahead as before.

Valdir and Wulfgar depart with Sefi to unite the clans, and I travel with them; speaking the truth to those who will hear it, forcing it upon those who will not. By the fourth day, the ice plains tremble beneath a host of two-hundred thousand warriors, a tide of men and women hungry for purpose, for vengeance. It takes all my patience to keep old grudges from flaring and new rivalries from igniting into bloodshed, but still they come, tribe after tribe, drawn by a single promise whispered across the tundra: freedom.

In the distance I see ships, not the expected shuttles bearing the Julii sunburst or the Sun Industries sigil. The Corleonis and the ships of the Winged Legion darken the sky. The Obsidians howl their approval, others standing silent, eyes wide at the sight. Sefi and twenty of her Valkyries wearing PulseArmour taken from Asgard form a protective cordon around Cassius and I, the light rippling across their bodies like liquid metal. Only Sefi carries a razor, but the image of her leading them is enough to chill the blood.

The ships stop and a lone craft descends from the belly of the MoonBreaker toward us. I enter with Cassius and the Valkyries. In one of the holds, I find Aeneas, Holiday, and the commanders of the Winged Legion waiting. I have not seen them since my truth was revealed. Apart from my Howlers, who stand together, the rest were handpicked from the finest of the Martian fleets when this war began.

They watch me in silence as I approach. The air is taut, uncertain. I stop before them and wait. Then, as one, they salute. Thraxa, now Tribune of the Legion, steps forward, voice strong.

“Winged Legion reporting for duty, sir. The ArchGovernor told us where you were. We stand ready as your escort.”

I fight the smile tugging at my mouth. I look at each of them in turn, at the iron resolve carved into their faces. Some nod, reaffirming Thraxa’s words.

“And the Fortuna?” I ask.

“Waiting, ArchImperator, with the loyal men and women of Mars who still stand with you.”

This time I allow myself to smile. There are still those who believe. Still those who remember their oaths to me. I motion for my commanders and the Valkyries to follow. Together, we make our way to the bridge, where more salutes greet us, more nods that speak wordlessly of loyalty unbroken. I take my place at the command dais and open the comms. My voice carries through every corridor of the gathered ships.

“This is your ArchImperator. To every soul who kept their oath and stood their ground while others faltered, you have my gratitude. You are the heart of Mars, the iron that does not bend. Our war is not yet done. Our enemies, who already celebrate their victory, still believe we will kneel. But we will not! We have broken chains before. We will do so again.

“So steel your hearts. Look to your brothers and sisters beside you, and know that we stand for each other. We stand for the dream that no man or woman will ever again call another master.

“Hold fast, Winged Legion. Today we rise together, or not at all.”

***

Mustang

I sit upon a plain curule chair, my father’s lion, Nemaeus, resting at my feet. He purrs contentedly as I discreetly stroke his mane with my toes. A reminder. Before me, the Consilium Martis gathers within the basilica of the citadel. Murmurs ripple through the chamber. The chairs, arranged in a semicircle around the dais, flank a grand central aisle that gleams beneath the light of the dome.

Even before the debate begins, the divisions are clear. The most powerful men and women of Mars file in like rival legions. My supporters stride forward with calm assurance, while those opposed to me huddle together, casting barbed glances. The unaligned drift in cautiously, in groups of two or three, avoiding both camps altogether.

As the room fills, I begin to tap my foot against the marble floor, the sound faint but betraying my unease. Niobe and Servilla enter, and I afford them a tight smile as they cross to my faction, greeting several Primi with quiet words. Over a third of the Consilium now stands with us. The rest remain uncertain.

When all are seated, I signal the elderly White to begin. Supported by two Chances, she ambles forward and begins the invocation. Her voice quavers as she chants the ancient words, calling the assembly to order. “...sint vera verba vestra, et corda ad iustitiam prona...” The words echo softly beneath the dome though my mind drifts. My hands itch to reach for my datapad, to check the reports waiting there, but I resist the urge. Whatever happens, I must appear in control.

The ceremony concludes. With a gesture, I open the floor for discussion. Servilla, speaking for House Arcos, rises first. Her tone is steady, her gaze unflinching. She speaks of loyalty to the cause and reminds the chamber that Octavia will not forgive us, even if we surrender Darrow to her. A few muted whispers follow each word, accompanied by approving nods.

A murmur of disapproval rises from across the floor. Lores au Trachus stands, his golden robes immaculate. He sits as both Justiciar and Primus of his house with his father’s death. Once a fervent ally of my husband, he now represents those eager to throw their lot in with Apollonius and the turncoats who must even now be nearing Luna.

“He is a slave, Arcos,” Lores sneers. The words drip with contempt, earning nods from his coterie. “He is not fit to lead. Only fit for the noose.” A cheer rises from his section of the chamber, rowdy and undisciplined. I begin to feel the tilt, the slight shifting of bodies turning to face him. The White bangs her staff for order. Lores adjusts his robes again and turns his venom toward me.

“What say you, ArchGovernor? Will you hold to the Compact of the Society, the same one you and your father invoked to declare war upon Octavia? Or will you be as steadfast in this folly as he was in his…rather ambitious quest for the Morning Chair?”

Nemaeus rouses, roaring menacingly in his direction before I calm him down. I let the silence stretch. Every eye in the room fixes upon me, the weight of expectation pressing down.

“That is for you to decide, Justiciar,” I say at last, my voice measured. “In many ways, I am not like my father. Though, I do share his penchant for grapes.”

A thin smile curls my lips. Lores blanches and sits. A ripple of subdued, nervous laughter passes through the chamber. The debate resumes, quieter now, tempered with respect. I allow myself a small smile. My father’s shadow, at least, still serves some use.

The moment breaks when a Lionguard, against all protocol, bursts through the doors. He strides directly to the dais and bows. His armour clinks softly as he rises and leans close to whisper in my ear. Around us, datapads flicker to life. A few glance down, paling as they read. None near Niobe or Servilla move.

“ArchGovernor,” a diminutive woman begins from across the hall. “There is... a force approaching the citadel?” Her voice trembles between alarm and disbelief, eyes darting between me and her datapad.

I do not answer. Instead, I raise a hand and let a Holo bloom above the chamber, vast and luminous. Gasps fill the room as the projection resolves into the Campus Martius, the Field of Mars, just outside the citadel. Crowds gather along the Via beneath the shadow of a colossal warship. The Corleonis, the biggest ship ever built, is flanked by a host of dreadnoughts; Augustus, Arcos, Julii, Telamanus and even two Bellona. It leads the planetary defence fleet and more than half of the Martian Armada still loyal to Darrow. The sky over Agea seems buried beneath their hulls

The chamber vibrates with agitation. Whispers swell into open conversation, then into fearful argument. Some faces turn to me with awe, others with horror. A few, Lores among them, glare in open defiance.

“You dare turn the fleets of Mars upon its people?” he shouts. “This is deplorable, even for you, Augustus! And for what? A slave?”

Voices rise with him, panic hardening into fury. The chamber descends into chaos. More begin to agree with the man, looking to him for direction. I straighten, heart hammering, ready to intervene before one foolish act ignites the room.

The doors burst open again and silence falls like a curtain.

An imposing figure steps through, clad in PulseArmour of deep red etched with intricate symbols of gold. A cloak trails behind him as he advances, flanked by a man and a woman who lead a host of warriors in matching armour. My husband moves with the certainty of a storm given form. His face is carved from angry marble, his golden eyes alive with fire. His hair, tied back, catches the light with each step. I feel the pull of him, the gravity of a man who commands worlds.

All eyes follow him as he strides down the central aisle. Cassius walks at his right in the armour of the Morning Knight. At his left is a towering Obsidian woman I recognise only from Holos. Ragnar’s sister, Sefi. Behind them come the Howlers, the Winged Legion, and a score of the largest Obsidians I have ever seen. Fifty soldiers in all, yet they carry the weight of an army.

When Darrow reaches the dais, he kneels at its foot, head bowed. Then he looks up, his voice steady and low.

“With your permission, ArchGovernor, I would address the Consilium.”

Pride swells within me, fierce and unbidden. Even I cannot help but look upon him in awe. This is the man I would follow to the end of all things; to Pluto, to Mercury, to whatever hell the worlds might hold.

I nod once, smiling faintly, and grant him leave to speak.

He rises and turns, his gaze sweeping the chamber slowly. There is no arrogance in him, only the weight of a man who has measured power and the burden that follows it. For a heartbeat, the room is utterly still as he stops on Lores. The man flinches, looking to his fellows for safety. They shift uneasily in their seats, edging away from him.

“I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war. My name is Darrow of Lykos.” My husband begins slowly.

“It is true. I was born a lowly Red,” he says, voice calm yet resonant. “But I rose through the offices of this Society. I am Peerless Scarred. I was ArchPrimus of my class at the Institute of Mars. I took Olympus and made slaves of my Proctors. You all remember that day.”

A ripple of reaction moves through the Consilium. Cassius smiles, a small, private thing.

“At twenty-one, I called an Iron Rain and Mars answered me. At twenty-three, I became an Imperator with fleets under my command and armies crushed beneath my feet. Today I stand before you, ArchImperator of the Alliance, commander of armadas, taker of moons and planets. I have been honoured in the Core and in the Rim.”

He pauses and lets the panels of his gauntlet fall back to reveal the Shield of Akari. A murmur of consternation runs the length of the hall.

“I have beaten the elite of Gold. I have proven I. AM. THE. BEST. Yet I have not given myself to decadence. I have not chased the cheap vices of Pixies, or sold my mind to the whims of vanity.”

His voice darkens, steady as iron. “You, however, have not been shepherds. You let rot take root. You turned from duty to indulgence, trading honour for convenience. You allowed a Dictator to twist the lifeblood of this Society, as her father did before her and his father before that. You have abandoned the dream your ancestors built with blood and iron.”

He lets that stand. The silence in the basilica is as thick as snow in winter’s heart.

“The worlds cry for renewal,” he goes on, his tone rising with quiet fury. “The age of conquest is over. We must be builders now. We must dream again. We must reach beyond these spheres and seed new worlds among the stars. But to reach that, we must change. We all must.”

He steps forward, every movement deliberate. “I would have lived in peace. That was my right. But the women and men I loved were taken from me. My first wife was murdered for daring to speak. For daring to question your reign. For daring to be human. For wanting more. For centuries the millions beneath the soil of Mars were fed a single lie from cradle to grave. I was fed that lie. That lie has been exposed.”

His eyes sweep the Consilium, landing on faces pale with shame and anger alike. “Man was born free, yet from the ocean shores of Europa to the crater cities of Mercury, from the ice wastes of Pluto to the mines of Mars, he is bound in chains. Chains forged of duty, hunger and fear. Chains hammered on by a race they elevated, a race they empowered not to rule, but to guide us from chaos. You guided us into darkness. You took our systems of order and turned them to feed your own greed. You expect obedience, ignore sacrifice, and hoard the wealth their hands create. To preserve your rule, you taught them to measure worth by the colour of their eyes and the sigils on their skin.”

His voice sharpens into a blade. “But I stand before you a man unbound. Daring to dream of better worlds than these. Slavery is not peace. Freedom is peace. Until we all have that, it is my duty to make war.”

He narrows his eyes. “I have walked your halls. I have broken your schools. I have eaten at your tables and I have tasted your gallows. You tried to kill me and you failed. I know your power. I know your pride. I have seen how you will fall.”

He spreads his hands, sweeping the chamber as though encompassing the whole system. “For seven hundred years you have ruled the dominion of man. What have you given in return? A web of masters and servants, a sky full of ships that fear neither God nor law, a society that devours its young and abandons the old. It is not enough.”

His voice turns inexorable, a drumbeat. “I will howl and fight to my last breath.” He draws in a breath, the moment tense as wire. “I will be that sword cutting through the void. I will be the spear that burns across the night. I am Darrow of Lykos. I am the Reaper of Mars.”

The last words hang in the still air, heavy with promise and threat. Around him, the Consilium remains silent. Some are struck dumb with awe, others with dread curdling in their throats. Others fold in their seats like men seeing thunder on the horizon. Reformers nodding with guarded agreement.

But all unable to look away.

The White stamps her staff on the ground to mark the end of his address and his soldiers boom as one.

“Hail Libertas!”

Chapter Text

Lysander

“Hurry, Lys,” Ajax calls, already sprinting ahead.

The Martian turncoats, led by the Minotaur himself, have arrived in Hyperion. The Capitoline Hill, where the Citadel rises, hums with motion. Praetorians move in tight, purposeful groups, armour gleaming in the pale sunlight. Ajax has always admired Apollonius, especially since the start of the Solar War. I, however, have always admired the Reaper. Even knowing what he was… what he is. A slave. Yet he accomplished what no other man ever has in generations, as our iron ancestors once did.

We reach the Pyramid Forum just as Kalindora catches up, her expression tight with irritation. “The Dictator might actually take my head for this, Lysander,” she mutters. I shrug, glancing at Ajax, who stares wide-eyed at the descending ripWings. Her scolding fades as even she turns to watch, curiosity overtaking duty.

The Minotaur and nearly a quarter of the Martian Armada reached the Rubicon Beacons a day ago. Since then, Praetors and Politicos have been shuttling between ships and the Citadel, their movements culminating in this formal ceremony. My grandmother is absent, cloistered in the Palace of Light deeper within the Citadel, but I see my godfather, the Ash Lord, standing with his daughter, Moira.

Trust is a rare currency these days. With only a fraction of the Martian fleets breaking from the Reaper, many suspect this is yet another of his traps. I would not put it past him, or the Minotaur. The thought of his words, that speech before the Consilium, runs through my mind like ice. If it truly is a deception, the cost will be unimaginable.

“Do you think Grandfather could match him?” Ajax asks suddenly. Before I can answer, he grins. “I bet he and Moira could. She’s as puffy as a pastry, but she can handle her razor well.”

He laughs. My best friend can be cruel at times, his tongue as sharp as his mother’s blade, but he is not wrong. The woman could swallow a moon for supper and still find room for dessert.

The bulkhead of the lead ship opens. Apollonius steps out, resplendent in gold PulseArmour and a lavender cloak that ripples like liquid fire. His horned helm folds back, revealing a dark, striking face framed by long coiled hair, eyes glowing like a furnace. His smile cuts like a knife; feral, magnetic, as he strides toward the Ash Lord. From our distance only Gold eyes allow us to see clearly. He clasps my godfather’s hand, says something we cannot hear, then turns to Moira with a knowing grin.

She looks at him as one might appraise a prize bull at market. With a gesture, she leads him deeper into the Citadel. The assembled Golds, soldiers and politicians alike, follow in a glittering stream, their chatter rising in the marble air. Praetorians flank the Forum’s edges, watchful and still. Above, faint distortions shimmer against the sky, GhostCloaks, invisible watchers suspended in the light.

Kalindora seizes my arm and snatches Ajax by the other, pulling us back. Her grip is iron. We stumble before finding our balance. Ajax glares, ready to protest, but I have already turned toward the Citadel Gardens. He exhales in irritation, then follows.

“Couldn’t that slave have waited a few more years before starting his gorydamn war?” he mutters. “Just three would have been enough. I’ll be off to the Institute at sixteen. At least, Mother thinks so.” The bitterness in his voice is slight but clear.

Unlike my own childhood, which everyone insists was filled with loving parents, Ajax’s life has been forged in discipline. I can barely recall my father, and my mother is little more than a shadow in memory. But Aja and Atlas were never bound by affection. They never married. They had Ajax, and went their separate ways.

Aja treats her son as a project, the way I have seen Grays or Obsidians trained in the Agoge. Ajax has grown up hungry for battle, aching for war, shaped to be the perfect killer. Perhaps even better than his mother. I look at him now, and a quiet sadness gathers behind my eyes. At only fourteen, he already burns with something I cannot quite name, something that goes beyond being a Gold or a Grimmus.

We reach the Palace of Light just in time to join Grandmother and Aja as they descend from the Ocular Sphere. Grandmother’s face is calm, yet I can sense the tension beneath the serenity.

“What have you two been up to?” she asks, her gaze sweeping across us before settling on me. I do not lie, and she nods once. Beside me, Ajax stiffens as Aja’s eyes narrow at the mention of our visit to the Forum. I quickly add that it was my idea, though her gaze never wavers from her son.

Our procession enters the solium through the side passage and ascends the steps to the dais where Grandmother’s curule awaits. Aja and Ajax take their place to her left. I stand to her right. The chamber is already occupied by fifty senators, two Imperators, and several Primi. The air feels heavy, the mood subdued, as though the room itself is holding its breath.

The great doors part. Apollonius enters behind Magnus and Moira. The rest follow, quiet now, all ceremony and solemnity. The Lunese join their peers, while the Martians move ahead. At the foot of the dais, Magnus and Moira step aside, and Apollonius kneels, his retinue mirroring him.

I slip into the Mind’s Eye and reach outward; the world sharpens until thought and sight become one.

Thirty-three years of age. Ambidextrous. Minor scarring along the ribs from recent combat. PulseArmour of custom make, ceremonial in flourish yet practical in design. His bearing is measured, his stillness deliberate, that of a man who knows power and no longer feels the need to flaunt it.

His posture reveals control lathered with arrogance. His breathing is measured, the rhythm of a duellist. A predator at rest.  The small tightening at the corner of his mouth and the faint tapping of a finger against his knee betrays impatience. He kneels because custom demands it, not because he believes in the authority before him. Beneath the surface lies a restless intellect, the hum of a mind sharpened against its own boredom. Once a hedonist, now something leaner, tempered by war.

I probe deeper. I sense the echo of a musician in him. The pattern of his thoughts moves like a sonata, balanced between chaos and form. He has known art and excess, and turned them into a kind of creed. No faith. No zeal. Only the pursuit of mastery to keep the emptiness at bay. His pride is immense, yet strangely pure, untouched by time. He could kill with beauty as easily as with rage. In another life, he might have been a philosopher, or a poet. Instead, he turned his philosophy into war.

A flicker of awareness brushes back against me. His head lifts slightly, eyes narrowing. He cannot see me, not yet, but he feels the weight of my gaze. For a moment, the air between us thickens with unspoken recognition.

Then my grandmother’s attention snaps to me, her sharp eyes slicing through the thread of my focus. I retreat at once, the connection dissolving like mist under sunlight.

The silence that follows feels absolute.

“Apollonius au Valii-Rath,” my grandmother begins, her voice thick with ceremony. “You are pardoned for your part in the Martian Rebellion, the sacking of Earth, and all other crimes committed in the service of Nero au Augustus and his allies.”

Her words carry more than a pardon. By naming it the Martian Rebellion, she narrows guilt to the Augustii alone, drawing the Rim somewhat clean from the mire. She does not utter Darrow’s name. In this room, it is understood that this was always a war between Gold, no matter who or what the attack dog was.

“Your pardon is received with gratitude, Dictator,” Apollonius replies, his tone smooth, rich with that peculiar music of his. “We swear our men and ships to your cause. We shall not rest until the usurper and his horde lie buried in the depths of Mars from which he came.”

His soldiers answer with a single, thunderous stomp. The sound rolls through the chamber, heavy as the weight of old gods.

When the ceremony concludes, everyone files out in muted reverence. I follow my grandmother’s entourage through the marble corridors, now joined by Magnus, Moira, and Apollonius. We pass beneath frescoes of conquest until we reach a smaller chamber; a private reception hall reserved for those deemed worthy of her attention. Worthy, or dangerous. Some who enter never leave.

I am reminded of that night with Darrow, when he faced my grandmother and her Oracles. I remember my surprise when he beat her. They call him a brute, a warlord, a reckless beast. Yet they neglect his mind, the precision of it. His intellect cuts as sharply as his razor. The chaos he wields is not madness but method, a rhythm he alone can hear.

Few had access to the Institute’s archives as freely as I did. I studied the profiles of the Reaper and his generals. He missed only one question on the written exam. His nature was a composite of Caesar and Mandela, laced with the ruthless genius of Napoleon and Genghis Khan. A true general, a statesman, a man who could rouse the masses as easily as he could command them.

A nudge at my side pulls me from thought. Ajax. His eyes are bright, almost boyish, fixed upon Apollonius, who speaks animatedly with Atalantia. They were friends once, some say more. Ajax wants to meet him, though his pride forbids asking. I take pity and lead him across the room.

Apollonius turns at our approach, that familiar smile spreading. “Ah…little Lysander and Ajax au Grimmus,” he declares. His Martian accent rolls through the air, thick and melodic, his voice touched with amusement. Ajax perks up, excitement flashing before he remembers himself. For all his training, there are moments when the child beneath his hardened exterior edges through.

“How was your journey from Mars?” I ask, stepping into the silence.

“It was an interesting flight, my Goodman,” he replies, eyes sweeping over me in quiet appraisal. “We were pursued by the planetary defence fleet, but not far. Smooth sailing after till the Rubicon.”

We exchange a few more formalities, the kind expected at such gatherings, before I draw Ajax away. Once we are clear, he exhales, the tension falling from his shoulders. I raise an eyebrow. He meets my look with a faint scowl.

“Not everyone is as good at this as you are, Lys,” he mutters, before slipping off among the guests.

I let him go and move through the room, observing the quiet webs of conversation. My gaze catches on Julia au Bellona. Her face is composed, pale and expressionless, yet her eyes miss nothing. When she turns to me, it is with the cool poise of an eagle that has already chosen its prey.

“I had a son your age,” she says softly. “He died when the slave took Mars.”

I incline my head in respect, trying to recall his name.

“He was intelligent. Observant. Analytical.” Her voice softens, the edges of her usual malice worn down by something else. “Tell me, what do you make of this? A trick, perhaps? The Reaper is fond of them. Such a showman.”

Her tone lacks its usual venom. Her gaze returns to the room, thoughtful, calculating. I say nothing, only watch beside her. When a faint smile curves her lips, I follow the trail of her eyes.

The Jackal.

Adrius au Augustus walks in, dressed in black with only a little red and gold. He has been a recluse since the death of his father, his mood brooding and unreadable. He takes a glass from a Pink with such force she almost stumbles away, head bowed, terrified. His eyes cut through the gathering like a knife, fixing at last on Apollonius, who now speaks with my grandmother and the Ash Lord.

The tension that follows his entrance is palpable. Conversations falter. Laughter dies. Even the hum of the GravCoolers seem to quieten. Apollonius turns slightly, as if sensing the weight of that gaze, a faint smile touching his lips. Two different predators recognising one another.

My grandmother’s expression remains calm, but I know her well enough to sense the shift beneath the surface. Her tone softens as she finishes speaking to the Minotaur, offering him a small, regal inclination of the head. Apollonius bows, that predatory grin still hovering as he straightens, the moody light catching on his armour.

Adrius watches him go, then drifts closer, weaving through the crowd like smoke. Moira watches him intently, her words faltering as he passes. He does not acknowledge her. His eyes flick briefly to me before turning to my grandmother.

"Dictator," he says quietly, inclining his head just enough to observe decorum.

"Adrius," she replies, her voice smooth as glass.

The silence between them hums, thick with history. She studies him as one might study a blade; measuring the edge, the balance, the intent.

"You have been missed in these halls," she says at last.

"I find solitude... instructive," he answers, eyes never leaving hers.

"Solitude can sharpen or dull," she says. "It depends on what one seeks to cut."

Adrius smiles faintly, but it does not reach his eyes. "Then I pray, Octavia, that I remain honed."

Apollonius laughs quietly from across the room, as if hearing some private jest. The moment breaks. The Dictator gestures for attendants to refill the glasses, and the buzz of conversation returns like the tide reclaiming the shore. I stand where I am, the threads of their exchanges weaving themselves into something unseen but inevitable. In this room of giants, every smile hides a knife, every word another move in a game that has no end.

I find Ajax, and we leave as Kalindora falls into step beside us. The day has been long, and the currents that stir within the Citadel feel deep and treacherous, as if waiting to drag us all below.

I sigh, wishing I was anything but a Lune.

Chapter Text

Darrow

The Nyx glides through the Belt. My destroyer is black with a sleek hull, reengineered for stealth. I left Mars, secretly, two days ago. Ahead, Hildas Station resolves out of the dark like a metal lotus.

Five immense limbs radiate from a central spine, fixed with two slow turning rings. Each limb is a world in itself: one bright with the lights of a city, another alive with ports and freighters, a third heavy with refineries. The light from the distant sun illuminates a limb filled with green, bands of cultivated land and orchards growing steadily in the isolation of the Belt. The outer ring shimmer like the ribs of some vast behemoth turning in its sleep; docking ports and defence towers line the circle, and long antennae spit points of light into the void.

“Hildas Station, this is the Nyx,” Aeneas announces into the comm. My lancer waits and the reply is clipped and official. “Nyx clear. Docking authorised. Welcome to Hildas Station.”

We pass through the atmospheric dome and dock at a bay on the administrative limb. Heat seeps through the plating, the scent of metal and ozone thick in the air. A pudgy faced Copper administrator meets us the moment the ramp lowers. His manner is brisk but deferential.

“ArchImperator. The council awaits. This way, if you please.”

Cassius walks beside me. Aeneas follows two steps behind, his red PulseArmour immaculate, posture rigid. The Howlers remain aboard the Nyx, taking their time to exit. The Copper leads us across the concourse to a waiting skimmer. It rises without sound and joins the flow of traffic through the great dome above the city.

Below, Hildas unfolds in ordered strata, habitation tiers stacked upon arteries of transport, gardens suspended between towers of glass and alloy. Civilian craft drift through controlled air lanes, their lights moving like fireflies in amber. The dome’s filtered glow turns the city gold, serene from this height though I know its streets are loud with work and barter.

Aeneas leans forward slightly, eyes on the horizon. “The brilliance of this all,” he says, awe weaving into his voice. “Ambition needs no permission,” I answer, trailing his eyes. “Only gravity to hold it in place.” A body of water weaves through the city, lined with palms and exotic trees. It is an oasis in the vastness of the Belt.

The skimmer banks toward the station’s core. There, at the convergence of all five limbs, rises Per Aa, the pyramid citadel of Hildas. Its pale alloy faces are vast and gleaming, engraved with flowing hieroglyphs that ripple with internal light. From its base spread terraces and ordered gardens; from its apex, a beam of energy ascends into the dome, linking it to the power spine of the station. It is not merely architecture but a declaration of Gold ingenuity.

We land upon an upper terrace where the wind hums low along the citadel’s skin. Two armoured guards, with falcon helms, stand sentinel beside the entryway, PulseSpears grounded, visors reflecting the light of the city. They part the doors as we walk toward them.

Inside, cool air folds around us. Per Aa breathes grandeur. Its corridors rise in sweeping arcs, built from white alloy. The walls are inscribed with living hieroglyphs that move and reform as we pass. Music hums faintly through the structure, low tones meant to calm the blood. Many we pass are dressed in flowing linen robes and are liberal with their jewellery, Low and HighColours alike. Columns, tall and regular, reach up like planted stalks. Tapestries woven from papyrus-looking threads spill moving images: river bends, harvest terraces, wolf and lotus. Walls of onyx and pale stone are inlaid with bands of glyph light that crawl like text, part ritual and part interface.

We move through hall after hall until the architecture opens into a high chamber of glass and stone. The Copper bows and withdraws. Cassius adjusts his collar. Aeneas shifts behind me, silent and still, in the way of lancers.

We step inside. Low settees are placed around tables of dark alloy rimmed with gold. A reflecting basin runs along one wall, its engineered surface fracturing the light into slow prisms. There is a heady scent of cedar and spice that adds to the moodiness. Everything is arranged precisely, measured.

Mustang sits at the far end of a circular table. Servilla is to her left, poised and sharp. Daxo occupies the opposite side, broad and steady, his bulk lending weight to the gathering.

There are two women who hold the centre of the room without effort. One wears uniform with the eye sigil of House Maat, the cut exact and martial. The other reclines lazily in a gown of sheer fabric that catches the light with each movement. Her skin is dark and flawless. Her eyes are molten gold and swirl with faint motion, her exposed bosom cradling a necklace of cow horns and a sun disk. The air seems to bend slightly toward her.

I know the soldier, Anippe au Bennu-Maat, ArchGovernor of Ceres. She came to inspect my class at the Academy before we began our mock warfare. She nods, faint recognition on her face that I return. I have not met the other woman before, but I feel her authority before Mustang speaks her name.

Mustang rises slightly. “Darrow. You know Anippe,” she says, then gestures to the other woman. “This is Heba au Bennu-Maat, subGovernor of Hildas.”

The two are almost identical, apart from their vastly different attire. One inherited their father’s domain, the other their mother’s. Heba’s eyes flick over me like a surveyor taking measure. I feel small for an instant. It passes. I sit. Aeneas stands dutifully behind me, drawing a look from Heba.

Mustang folds her hands before her. “We have much to align,” she says, voice even. “Lores au Trachus departed Agea two days after the show with the Consilium. He took what ships he could and went to join Apollonius near Luna.”

 “Let him go,” Servilla replies. “He joins a troupe of fools who mistake pride for purpose.” Her eyes narrow. “Yet his departure has its use. The rest of Mars burns with calls for his and the Minotaur’s blood. Thessalonica is bubbling with unrest. Everyone from Golds to Reds itching for a piece of the turncoat’s meat.”

Mustang inclines her head. “Old loyalties hold for now. Augustus, Arcos, even the Bellona clients remember their oaths. And there are others.” Her glance finds me. “Those who see a place in what you are building, Darrow. Ambition finds room in new order.”

A flicker of something crosses Servilla’s face, before she gives a quick, sharp smile that does not reach her eyes. “Calypso reached the Rimsmen three days ago. She has opened the conversation once more.”

Anippe’s gold eyes narrow. “You trust the Rim to listen?”

Servilla’s answer is measured. “Not to her words. To her name.”

Her sister-in-law is descended from a Raa mother and a Kalibar father. This gave her audience and earned her courtesy; Lorn’s sons were strategic in their choice of wives. I suddenly miss the old man, though he would have already tried to kill me. Now, I direct much to do with his house; Servilla has increasingly deferred decisions, not just military ones.

Heba leans back slightly, the faintest smile curving her lips. “Names move hearts. But hearts are fickle things.” Her voice is sensual but filled with control. “Your Red has unsettled them. They see in him what they fear: the proof that our hierarchy was never divine.”

I meet her gaze and keep my reply short. This is my council. These are my allies. I do not need to justify the history of my blood or the Colour of my birth. We have lived the consequence of those revelations and here we are.

“They can keep their hierarchy. I want their fleets.”

That draws a soft laugh from Anippe. “Fleet or faith, they are both hard to win.”

Mustang interjects before the air thickens. “The Rim is not lost. They hesitate, not reject. We need to give them cause to believe that unity still serves them.”

Daxo speaks at last, his deep voice anchoring the space. “On Mars, the cause grows louder. They do not march with Reds, but Gold pride burns hotter than it has in generations. They will not bleed for Luna. Not after what was done to them. Their fury buys us time.”

“The question,” Cassius murmurs, “is what we buy with it.”

Mustang’s gaze flicks to me. “Time to rebuild. Darrow’s Obsidians has filled the ranks the turncoats took. Deimos works overtime to repair the ships. We have our corners of the system breathing in rhythm again.”

Heba watches us, inscrutable. The room leans toward her attention as if the citadel itself listens when she speaks. “Breathing is not enough,” she says. “We need the Rim.”

Anippe uncaps the logistics. “The Belt will not furnish legions on demand. We can move ships, metals and parts. Allegiance in the Belt trades on advantage. We supply opportunity and watch promises gather interest.” She looks to her sister then back to me. “Still, many here swear to you, if only quietly, in the hope the Rim will follow.”

“How many?” I ask plainly.

“Maybe a million,” Anippe says after a counted breath, “more if the Rim joins with us.”

A million men once tipped wars. Now it reads smaller against the scale of the Solar War, but it is not nothing. I nod. Mustang’s face tightens into thought. We all feel the same pinprick of urgency: the Moon Lords will not move for talk alone. They will want proof.

Silence settles, the pause before decisions harden.

***

In the confines of our allotted room I rub Mustang’s back absently. We are barely clothed, the bed angled toward the terrace that looks down across two limbs of the station. One alive with the bustle of a city, the others glows with the light of cultivation fields where Browns and Reds move through rows of grapes and pomegranates. Among them run children, not only Brown and Red but Green, Silver and White. Mustang follows my gaze, her expression softening.

“It has always been that way here,” she says quietly. “Father hated him for it.”

“Who?” I ask.

“Aten au Maat,” she replies. “Heba and Anippe’s father. He was a Reformer. Introduced measures for the LowColours that most Golds mocked. Children of all Colours could play together. Public libraries, academies for all. Shorter shifts in the fields and foundries for Browns and Reds. It was not an overhaul of the system, but it was something. Even more than the Rim.”

I listen, imagining the man. “What happened to him?” I ask.

“He died in an accident on Ceres,” she says after a pause. “He was with his wife, Governor Heqet, inspecting the Sovereign’s Helium-3 reserves. Conveniently.”

Now I understand why Heba and Anippe allied with us so quickly. Reform is in their blood and they are owed a debt. Mustang’s eyes find mine. She lies close against my chest, small and warm, her hair spilling across my arm. “What?” I ask, smiling slightly at her look.

“Nothing, husband,” she says, the word carrying both affection and levity. “I just wish every day could be like this. No war. No councils. No scheming. Our friends dead or dying, some unable to remember who we are…”

Her voice trails off and I feel the words settle in my chest. Victra lives but has not woken. She was poisoned and left comatose. Sevro breathes but the man I knew is trapped somewhere inside. Mustang spends hours with him, searching for a way back. Even if we win and break the Society, too many of those who mattered most will be ghosts at the feast.

Her hand slips from beneath the sheets and cups my face. “I will save him,” she whispers. “I will save both of them. It might not be now, but I will try.”

I smile, grateful, though the feeling does not reach as deep as I wish it would. The hollow remains.

I turn my thoughts to what waits ahead. “Do you think Romulus will see reason?”

“Romulus is not the problem,” she says, rolling onto her back. “Dido whispers poison, not into his ear but into those around him. Helios and the Codovan more than the rest.”

“And Hector?”

She sighs. “He tries to sway his kin, but his standing is weakened by your association. His grandfather is with Revus. The decision now rests with his mother.”

I nod and fall silent, tracing patterns of light from the dome above the city. Each reflection feels like a choice narrowing to a single thread. The Alliance is the only path to victory, yet it thins by the day. I can almost feel the walls closing as the war draws breathe again.

Chapter Text

Darrow

The Dustmaker looms in the distance, a black leviathan adrift among the stars. The personal flagship of Helios au Lux is one of only four MoonBreakers still active. Only the Corleonis surpasses it in size, though that giant remains shackled to the dockyards of Deimos. A quiet unease gathers in my stomach as I watch a corvette detach from the Dustmaker’s flank and jet towards Hildas. Two more vessels peel away from the Trireme, Romulus au Raa’s dreadnought, their engines burning pale trails across the dark.

I turn from the terrace and stride back inside. My uniform is cut in black military cloth, its lines precise, its bearing severe. Red embroidery traces the seams, the insignia of an ArchImperator resting upon my collar. My slingBlade hangs at my side, Lorn’s razor coiled around my arm. Polished boots tie it all together and gloves conceal my stolen Gold sigils.

Aeneas waits by the door. Together we cross the corridor towards the meeting chamber. When we near the great doors, I step aside into an adjoining room. I will not enter until everyone is settled inside. Minutes pass before a Copper administrator signals from the door.

We walk into a hall so vast that sound itself seems to vanish. Pillars rise like the trunks of ancient titans, each inscribed with faint glyphs that pulse with life. At the centre stands a table of dark alloy edged with gold. Lines of light drift and fade across its surface in slow succession, like a living script.

Romulus sits with Helios and Dido. His face is calm, his single eye fixed upon us with the composure of a resolute man. Dido’s features are drawn and bitter, her resentment laid bare. Helios sits beneath a heavy brow, silent and watchful. Along the table gather the other Moon Lords. Hector au Norvo sits beside his mother, her bearing regal and remote. They speak for Triton, the voice of Neptune’s realm. Saturn and Uranus are represented by Phaena au Auletes and Alberon au Huon, ArchGovernors of Titan and Titania, their heirs beside them, young yet already eager. Two more Olympics sit in the flanks.

I advance through the hush towards Mustang and my council. Words die on lips as I pass. Disdain fills the space between us, cold and visible. Most of it radiates from Dido. I take my seat. Behind me, Aeneas stands still as a statue, loyalty given form in a chamber thick with power. Dido meets her son’s gaze, a shadow of contempt crossing her mouth before Mustang begins.

“We may begin. Thank you all for coming.”

The air tightens. The Rim must be persuaded to stand with us if we are to challenge Octavia. Ten days of debate have yielded nothing, only the weary circling of Politicos and Praetors gnawing the same arguments to bone. Yet here, among the rulers of the outer worlds, the true reckoning begins.

“You lied, Darrow.”

Romulus’s voice is calm, his tone without anger, yet his words fall like stones into deep water. “You drew us into war beneath the banner of honour, yet you had none. You spoke of virtue, yet you deceived us all.” His eye is steady, wounded more by betrayal than fury.

Before I can speak, Mustang answers. Her voice is measured and exact. “Octavia began this. She defied the Compact and placed herself above the law.” She lets the silence breathe, then continues. “At the Gala she plotted murder. Her targets were my father and his allies.” Her gaze moves to the Norvo and Codovan, who allied with Nero. “She meant to assassinate them all in a single night. She forced my father’s hand, and Darrow was his blade.”

Alberon’s deep voice rolls through the chamber. “That would have been a tragedy we could have endured. Your father razed a House to ascend. Such is your way in the Core.” His daughter nods too quickly, eager for his approval. Hecuba, Hector’s mother, silences him with a look colder than ice. Mustang sees it and addresses Alberon directly.

“You forget, ArchGovernor, my father was the buffer between you and the Core. His defiance gave you the freedom your first rebellion could not. Without him, Luna’s yoke would have been far heavier."  Alberon inclines his head, conceding with quiet dignity.

Romulus leans forward slightly. “That changes little, Virginia. Our alliance was forged on lies. We followed him…a Red.” The word lands heavy. Dido’s eyes narrow. The Moon Lords stir, resentful murmurs rising like wind through dry leaves.

Mustang’s voice gains steel. “Yes, Darrow was born Red, yet the first of the Conquerors were Carved from lesser men. He has proven himself in deed and in spirit, an Iron Gold in all but birth.” She pauses, letting them consider that. “If his origins are too much to bear, then leave us. Let Mars and my House fall to Octavia’s savagery. Withdraw to your moons and wait for her to come. You all know she will. Forget this alliance. Forget all we have built. But, when Mars falls, her wrath will turn upon you.”

A tremor of unease moves through the hall. I let it settle before I speak.

“You remember what defiance cost your forebears.” My voice is quiet. Dido scoffs, but I pay her no mind. “At the dawn of her reign, they refuted her claim to the Morning Chair. Rhea burned. Sixty million died. The surface turned to glass, for she wished to prove that none might stand against her and live.”

The chamber falls still. The memory of that horror lies deep in their blood.

“And five months ago,” I continue, “she did it again. Earth itself. Nearly a billion dead. Continents erased, not for victory, but to remind you she can.” I meet Romulus’ gaze. “Tell me, is that the way of war? Is there any justice in that?”

Helios breaks the silence, his voice deep and taut. “You speak of justice, yet your fleets brought ruin in your Rain.”

“I do not deny it,” I answer. “War is never clean. Yet I do not burn the innocent to preserve a throne. I fight to end the need for thrones.”

Argument erupts. Voices collide, sharp and furious, the air thick with pride and hierarchy. The same things: Colour, familial standing, old prejudices, all blaze like sparks in dry air. I know I have said too much, spoken too freely. Mustang waits for the clamour to crest, then cuts through it.

“Before the Solar War,” she says, “Octavia foresaw the chance of rebellion. She placed caches of atomics beneath citadels, along fleet routes, across key worlds. EMPs, spies, hidden black ops cohorts, all designed to cripple you as she recovered from her war with Mars.”

Heba touches her datapad. A Holo blooms above the table, casting blue light upon every face. Images shift. Depots on Mars, in the Belt, throughout the Rim. Citadels: Callisto, Oberon, Titan, Ganymede. Red lights spread like a rash across the map. One shows asteroids in the Trojan Cluster, oozing radiation. Megaton atomics.

Then the most damning, a recording: Octavia after the Gala, composed and cold as an Oracle feeds upon her arm. Above, House fleets are pushed past the Rubicon Beacons.  “Where does Augustus hide his unregistered electromagnetic weapons?” she asks. My voice answers from beyond the light, revealing my old master’s secrets. “…and in the dais of his reception hall.”

The view lowers to my hand where another Oracle writhes. “Where are yours?” I ask. She smiles faintly. “…a bunker in Helios. Two in Hildas Station. Three in Sungrave. One in Ariel. Six in the Ganymedi dockyards. Four in the Garter…” The list continues, sixty sites in all.

The chamber seethes. Anger. Disbelief. Fear. Mustang lets the silence bear its own weight.

“If we do nothing,” she says finally, “she will destroy us piece by piece. When you return to your citadels, the Rim will burn. Your sovereignty will die. She will not stop until we are all utterly broken.”

These are Octavia’s stolen contingencies, half-truths and fragments of fact, stitched together to form a terrifying picture. That fear is enough.

Romulus studies us both. The shifting light paints his face in bands of blue and shadow. “If we accept this,” he says, slow and deliberate, “what do you ask of us?”

“Join us again,” I reply. “Take the war to Luna. Help us cripple the Sceptre Armada and end her reign. Then return to the Rim, free to rule as you will.”

No rhetoric. No flourish. Only survival given voice. Faces change. Pride gives way to thought, thought to fear, fear to calculation. The ghosts of Rhea’s fire and Earth’s ashes drift unseen among us.

Phaena speaks. “And what of your Rising? What prevents you from turning upon us when Luna falls?”

“Our war is with Luna and Octavia,” I say. “We have no quarrel with you.”

They hesitate still. Pride clouds reason. Debate returns, futile and loud. Gold vanity will, yet again, be their undoing. I have seen it countless times since the Institute. It is how I drew them into this war. I sigh and shake my head.

I meet Romulus’ gaze and nod towards the terrace. We rise and walk together into the open air. Behind us, the others continue their arguments. Dido and Heba trade barbed insults, quick as blades.

“The Krypteia,” I say softly. His eye sharpens. “I will give them the locations of all Sons of Ares operating in the Rim.”

A curious flicker crosses his good eye. He studies me, not as an enemy but as a judge. He understands what I have offered, what I have broken. He knows the Sons will never recover, that my influence in the Rim will be lost. He knows that if the truth ever surfaces, the LowColours will see me as Gold in all but birth. The air feels thin, brittle, balanced on a narrow edge.

He turns his gaze outward. The city spreads beneath us, its limbs of metal and light alive with motion. “My father is a Reformer,” he says at last. “A gentle man. He respected all, Low and High alike. He was a friend to the Bennu-Maat.” He looks back at me, forgetting his reverie abruptly. “I can accept this.”

We return to the chamber. The noise dies. Servilla’s eyes search our faces as we sit. Romulus speaks clearly. “I endorse this new alliance with the Reaper of Mars.”

The words settle like stone. Helios stiffens. Cassius leans forward. The ArchGovernors exchange uneasy looks. When none speaks, Dido rises, trembling with fury.

“You cannot mean this,” she cries. “A slave, Romulus? You would ally with him? Madness.”

“That is enough, Dido,” Romulus says, his voice calm, almost languid.

She wheels upon him. “Enough? Was it enough when Thesalia died at his Triumph? When the Jovian moons endured Rain after Rain in his war?” Her finger jabs toward me. “A Red, Romulus. A creature from the mines.”

He regards her steadily. “And what would you have done, wife, had you been born a Red in those mines?”

The words still every sound. Dido falters, looking around, then lowers herself slowly into her seat.

Something changes. A quiet current passes through the hall, unseen yet felt by all. For the first time in ten days, consensus is born.

Mustang’s gaze meets mine, filled with sorrow. She knows what I have done. I have condemned the LowColours of the Rim to hardship, perhaps to ruin. Yet I tell myself there was no other path. Each choice is a wound. Each compromise a scar. Yet this one feels necessary. To save my home. To survive.

We turn to the work of war. Divisions, fleets, the mathematics of conflict. Old battles are studied for their strategy. Speed will be our only ally.

“My father is already in motion,” Romulus says. “He will reach the shadow of Venus in two weeks.”

I nod, though the thought twists like a blade within me. Revus trusted me more than any other. He taught me Shadowfall, gave me the Shield of Akari, lent me half his strength. To him, this betrayal will be immeasurable.

The meeting ends. Delegates depart in quiet clusters of intrigue. Aeneas waits beside me as Romulus leaves with Helios. Dido approaches her son.

“You have bound yourself to the slave,” she says coldly. “Your grandfather let you think too freely. Of equality, of fickle things. Now you dishonour him.”

Aeneas’ gaze is clear. “I swore an oath before you, Mother. I will keep it. I am a Raa, and my word is my life.”

She exhales sharply, half sigh, half laughter. “So be it. I have other sons and daughters. My womb is not yet barren, your father’s loin yet dry. Farewell, Aeneas.”

She turns away, regal even in sorrow. For an instant, I see grief touch her face before she hides it.

“I will release you if you wish,” I tell him quietly. “You would not break your oath. You have served with honour.”

He shakes his head. “I meant what I said on Mars. I fight by your side because I believe in you, and in what you fight for.”

I say nothing, clasping his shoulder. Then, as the vast hall empties and the lights of Hildas glimmer beyond the glass, I draw him into an embrace.

Chapter Text

Darrow

Mars hums with the sound of industry. The sky is alive with ships, their hulls gleaming as they prepare to depart for Luna. Far beyond, the Rim armadas drift in formation, a slow and distant tide advancing from the Belt. Even here, far from Agea, the air vibrates with anticipation.

Phoenicia rises in the east, her towers glinting in the midday sun. I stand within the small estate my family keeps, surrounded by fields that stretch to the horizon. Children’s laughter ripples through the warm air: mine, my nieces and nephews, and the young heirs of House Arcos. For four days they have played here beneath the watch of Niobe, twenty Lionguard, and my mother.

She now sits with Niobe in the shade of a low acacia, their voices lively, laughter bright as birdsong. They lean close, two women who have shared too much loss to remain strangers. Nearby, Servilla, Juno, and Calypso rest beneath a domed portico, speaking easily with Leanna, Dio, and Mustang. There is no stiffness among them, no ceremony, only the ease of trust. It is a sight that warms me more than I expected. If only the rest of the worlds could learn what peace looks like.

Cassius steps from the house beside Kieran. He is explaining something that makes Kieran roar with laughter as they stroll towards me. I am glad that they get along. We have spent the day here, letting the children cling to us, saying our farewells before the Lunese campaign. The moment is tender and sharp in equal measure, a sweetness already haunted by absence.

“Why the hurry, Darrow?” Cassius calls out in mock complaint, his tone light. Kieran joins in, grinning wide. “He has always been this way,” he says. “Even in the mines, always moving, always driven. Never a moment to breathe.”

I huff, attempting a stern look, but their amusement only deepens. The sound of it stirs something long dormant in me. Mustang notices us and rises, crossing the courtyard with that measured grace of hers, sunlight threading through her hair. The rest follow, and soon we are all gathered at the front of the compound.

The sun hangs high over the estate, turning the distant fields to gold. The air carries the scent of dust and grain, the kind of day that should have been simple. Instead, it has the heaviness of ending.

Kieran and Cassius clasp hands first, their laughter still echoing from some earlier jest. Kieran’s grin falters for a heartbeat, his hand tightening before he lets go. “Keep him out of trouble,” he tells Cassius, who assures him with a pompous oath.

The Arcos widows stand with Dio and Leanna, watching us. Fortuna lies quiet in Servilla’s arms, a pale bundle asleep against her breast, unaware of the world around her. They say their goodbyes one by one. I hesitate with Servilla, first nuzzling my daughter with a crooked finger, then turning to the woman.

“Come back, Darrow. She needs you,” she says, then, turning to the children, adds, “They all do.”

Alexander approaches next. The boy’s face is solemn, his jaw set in an effort not to tremble. He bows formally to Mustang, then to me. “I’ll look after them,” he says softly, though the words sound rehearsed to hold back fear. Mustang rests a hand on his shoulder. “You already do,” she replies. He nods, eyes wet, and steps back to stand beside Juno.

Cassius scoops Pax up without warning and tosses him into the air. The boy squeals with laughter, arms flung wide, his joy cutting through the tension like light through storm clouds. When Cassius catches him again, Pax clings to his neck, breathless with delight. The sight draws a faint smile even from Niobe, standing watchful near the shuttle ramp.

Rhonna is the last. My niece hesitates at the edge of the group, her small hands twisted in the hem of her tunic. When I crouch, she rushes forward and wraps her arms around my neck. “You’ll come back?” she whispers. I nod, though I cannot bring myself to speak. She presses her face into my shoulder before she lets go, stepping quickly to stand beside my mother beneath the acacia.

Mustang glances at me, then at the sky. Around us the laughter fades, replaced by the hush of engines warming. I can feel her reluctance to leave the children. The war weighs heavy on us. With no words left to say, we turn towards the shuttle and leave for the city, then for Agea.

***

The flight to Agea is brief. From the viewport, I watch the city surge beneath us, its towers piercing the skyline. The spires gleam like white iron, and the steady flow of ships moves between them in measured currents. Once, I might have been awed. Now I only note the rhythm of the city, its pulse quickening as if bracing for what is to come. The Citadel rises from the centre of that pulse, a crown of white and gold. Our transport settles upon one of the upper Aero Terraces, the hiss of the landing gear lost in the churn of the air.

Officers and attendants cross the causeways with quiet urgency, their movements brisk. Inside the Citadel, the air is cooler. Salutes greet us as we pass. Some are crisp, others perfunctory. Mustang’s stride is even, her face composed. I walk beside her in silence, my thoughts already on the meeting ahead. The Sons of Ares have waited too long in uncertainty. They are restless, coiled.

Sefi waits at the end of the grand stair. Her PulseArmour gleams a dull silver in the light, a midnight razor coiled around her arm. Her expression is unreadable. “You left without escort,” she says flatly. I do not speak. She studies me once, then falls in behind us without further word. The soft hiss of her boots follows us down the hall towards the meeting chamber.

The doors are guarded by two Venatores, two Lionguard, and two Valkyries in dark armour. They stand in rigid symmetry, but the tension between them is palpable, an unspoken contest of strength. I nod to each. They salute in unison, eyes sharp and proud, unwilling to acknowledge each other.

“Darrow, my boy.” Dancer says as we enter. His voice carries affection as I shake his hand. He looks smaller now, without the dye or lenses he used to fit in, the years worn plain on his face. He nods at Mustang with a spare deference that does not mask a lingering dislike. Quicksilver rises next, ever the courtesan, bowing slightly to her. Matteo rushes to me, taking my hand with both of his, brimming with a simple, unguarded joy that stings. Guilt sits in my chest like a stone. I remember what I have done.

We take our seats. Sefi remains to my right, silent and still, her eyes moving like a hawk’s. Mustang sits to my left, letting the room’s gravity settle around us. Two Reds sit beside Dancer, unsure if they belong. He gestures to his companions.

“Niamh of Crevos. Wil of Pathos.” They rise and speak in unison, “An honour, Reaper,” and then glance down, embarrassed. I smile to put them at ease.

“With Ares gone and his boy… indisposed,” Dancer says, “we are what remains of the Sons’ command.” His voice is low but steady, every word measured. “The cells grow impatient. They want purpose. They want to join your Armada. The Sons have waited years for this chance. We want to fight Octavia. To see her fall.”

His words hang in the air like dust caught in sunlight. I study him, uncertain whether he speaks for himself or for the movement that made him. “You want to sail on Luna,” I say.

“To fight beside you,” he answers. “To remind the worlds that things are changing.” His eyes flick briefly towards Mustang. “And no offence meant, Darrow, but if this war is won as it stands, it will be remembered as a Gold victory.”

I do not reply. I turn the thought over, its edges still sharp. To most LowColours, I am still a Gold. They only remember the young Peerless warlord who started a civil war. My Carving is forgotten. My birth in the mines all but erased from their minds.

Sefi stirs beside me. “And what will you do, little man,” she asks Dancer, her tone cold but not cruel, “when the killing starts? Will you hide behind the Reaper when the Sunborn come with their razors?”

Quicksilver barks a laugh, the sound sharp as glass. “I like you, Sefi of the Valkyrie Spires.”

Dancer’s jaw tightens. He looks at her without blinking. “I will fight,” he says. “We all will. You have your warriors, yes, but we have waited, trained, built. The Sons are ready. And,” his gaze turns, reluctant but sincere, “thanks to the ArchGovernor, we are better equipped than ever. Reds and Browns in machines built for killing, trained by her officers.” He inclines his head towards Mustang, the gesture grudging but real.

Mustang says nothing. Her hand rests lightly on the table, her fingers still. I feel her patience beside me, a quiet flame.

The room holds its breath. Matteo glances between us, his nervousness plain. Quicksilver folds his hands before him, expression unreadable. I can feel the weight of Dancer’s request pressing on the air. The Armada already strains under the weight of its parts. The Obsidians bring their own tempests. The Sons would bring more. Too many loyalties. Too much rage.

“I will consider it,” I say at last. “But if the Sons join the Armada, they answer to command. No factions. No vengeance.”

Dancer nods slowly, but I see the conflict behind his eyes. He still does not trust what I have become. Perhaps he fears that I will abandon the Sons now that I still command Golds, Obsidians and Grays. Perhaps he is right to fear. Deep down, I wonder if all Colours truly share the same place in war. When I fell in my first Rain, I wondered if my Red brothers and sisters could ever measure to Stained and Peerless. That question still lives inside me.

Sefi leans back, the coils of her midnight razor whispering against her armour. “Then perhaps,” she murmurs, “the Sons will finally have a true taste of battle.”

Dancer meets her gaze, a glint of challenge lighting his eyes. “And perhaps the Valkyrie will learn humility.”

Mustang’s voice cuts cleanly through the tension. “Enough. If we sail on Luna, we sail together. If we fail there, none of this will matter. Not Mars. Not the Sons. Not the AllTribe.”

Both of them look away, chastened. Before the silence can settle again, Quicksilver speaks.

“What of logistics?” His tone is business-like, in the way of Silvers. “The Sons will join the Obsidian AllTribe on my ships from Roque’s fleet.” I answer plainly.

My personal armada is vast now, third only to the Arcos and Augustus. Ships captured in my battles on Mars, Terra, and the Rim swell my ranks. Dancer and Sefi exchange a look that could ignite vacuum.

“You cannot expect us to work together,” Dancer says, his voice taut.

“I agree with the little man this once,” Sefi replies, her tone flat as ice.

“The Obsidians are fine infantry,” I say, my voice steady, “but cavalry is a different art. It requires precision and rhythm, not brute force. The Sons have Oranges, Reds, and Browns trained for mechanised assault, equipped with Sun Industries ExoSuits tuned for speed and shock, striking where the line is weakest. Infantry holds the ground. Cavalry breaks it. One without the other is useless.”

Sefi tilts her head, considering. The midnight razor around her arm rasps faintly as it coils. “Then perhaps the Valkyrie hold the line while your Sons ride the storm,” she says. “Let them break what we pin.”

I nod once. “Exactly that.”

Dancer mutters something under his breath, and our tenuous agreement collapses into renewed debate. Their words grind against one another like metal on stone. I rub my temples, feeling the ache bloom behind my eyes.

Mustang’s voice enters softly, steady as gravity. “The Obsidians and the Sons together could face any Gold fleet the Society fields. Apart, they will bleed one by one.”

Quicksilver hides a smile. Matteo cannot. He laughs softly, the sound like chiming bells. It lightens the room for an instant.

Dancer looks at me, realisation dawning. “You wanted this all along,” he says, pointing a finger accusingly. “You walked in here and acted like you would side-line us so that this would feel like compromise. You little—” He stops himself, lips tight.

Sefi gives a low chuckle. “You are as sly as a mantis fox, Reaper.”

I let them vent before drawing the air back to stillness. “Are we in agreement?”

Quicksilver and Matteo nod first. Dancer and Sefi exchange a long look before inclining their heads together, reluctant yet resolute. I lean back in my chair, the tension easing from my shoulders. One fracture mended. For now.

“These ExoSuits,” Sefi says after a pause. “What are they?”

Matteo answers before I can. His voice carries the quick, eager rhythm of a man proud of his work.

“They are akin to your PulseArmour, my lovely, though built for Reds, Browns, and Oranges.” He glances at Dancer as if seeking forgiveness for the comparison. “Scaled to their frame, fitted with reflex enhancers to match Gold speed.”

Sun Industries has been refining the design for two years. The suits are few, barely two hundred thousand, but each one gives a LowColour the strength to stand against gods. That alone may shift the tide of the war.

The meeting dissolves soon after. The others file out through the bronze doors, their footsteps fading into the corridors of the Citadel. I remain with Quicksilver.

“Are you ready?” he asks quietly. There is something almost paternal in his tone. Since discovering his hand in the founding of the Sons, a strange kinship has grown between us. I am, perhaps, his finest investment.

“Can we ever be ready for what comes next?”

He nods, slow and thoughtful. “I have done what you asked. When the time comes, it will be in place.”

I rest a hand on his shoulder, a gesture of thanks. At the door, Dancer watches us in silence, his eyes sharp and measuring. I meet his gaze and offer a small smile. When I finally turn away to follow Mustang and Sefi deeper into the Citadel, the echo of that look lingers. I wonder how far the distance has grown between us in the last two years, and whether it can ever be bridged.

Chapter Text

Lucius au Cern watches from a grey picket frigate that drifts at the edge of Luna’s patrol ring. The viewport glass before him catches swathes of reflected city light. Luna is no bare rock now. Seas swell in the north and the south, mountain ranges stand hard as old scars, and a belt of cities girdles the equator like a crown of living metal and glass. The sphere below is familiar in its outline and alien in its brightness. His hand rests on the glass though he does not trust his fingers. The weight in his chest is memory.

Six months ago New Sparta burned beneath the Ash Lord’s assault. Lucius watched that ruin from the Annihilo. He saw the domes burst into fire and the rivers of ash run. That loss is a small, persistent dagger lodged in him now. He had imagined other things for himself: a quiet shop in the city, pastries, jasmine ice cream with dates. The thought makes him ache as the present arrives.

Beyond Luna, the Rubicon Beacons hover like a ring of sentinels. Each pillar rises from the black, metal columns banded with light, their crowns bearing the sigil of House Lune. They hold station with the indifferent patience of monuments. They are not weapons. They do not need to be. They are law made visible. Every ship that crosses through them is logged, registered, and judged. Permission is recorded; transgression is declared.

The bridge crew shift in their places. A technician fidgets at a console. An officer smooths his sleeve. A young man with bright insignia at his breast stands too straight for a man who is afraid. He asks the question men ask when days change: will the Ash Lord stop him? Lucius does not answer. He only watches.

Then, through the viewport, something vast emerges from the dark.

At first it is a glint of engine fire, a scatter of wake that grows into pattern. Ships peel out of shadow and take formation, movement as clean and certain as a blade. They array themselves into arcs and lattices, tens at first, then hundreds, then thousands of shapes aligning under a single intention.

And at their heart moves a leviathan.

Lucius’s breath catches.

The largest moonBreaker ever built. He has seen images of it in reports, in still frames, in whisper among veterans. Now he sees its curve in motion: a crescent prow, broad and hungry, biting into the dark. It is a thing made to unmake worlds. Engines flare, lights blink, and the hull eats the stars.

The Beacons flare as the armada takes station. The signal pulses down their columns and through the system. Somewhere, Luna Defense Command will receive it. The message will pass into court chambers and war rooms. The small certainties that make war arrive with predictable regularity. Lucius feels a tremor under his boots and thinks of names: His brother Seneca, of those he loved who will not return. The steadiness he has kept all his life feels suddenly threadbare.

A klaxon thuds through the deck. The comm protocol fires. Someone sends a report and somewhere a hand will lift the ink that makes history official. Lucius keeps watching the crescent as it holds its course through the ring, the pillars flaring in sequence as its prow passes.

He does not speak. He only thinks, in the language men use when they cannot pray. The age of peace is over.

***

Darrow

I sit in the Morning Star and the ship feels like a second skin. She breathes beneath me like a living thing, her vast heart pulsing with reactors and men. Once she was the Corleonis, before that the Colossus. Now she bears the name the Obsidians have given me: Tyr Morga, the Morning Star. I feel her weight through the soles of my boots. She is more than a ship. She is a might made steel.

Across the forward viewport the Rubicon Beacons, a sphere of transponders floating in space one million kilometers beyond Earth’s core, hover in the dark. They encircle the innermost domain of the Sovereign. Towers of exotic alloy. Their geometry is perfect, their stillness final. For five hundred years, no enemy fleet has passed beyond their borders. They measure trespass, record identity and broadcast the Sovereign’s writ. To cross them without sanction is to make yourself an enemy of the law, to write an irreversible line in the ledger of war. I have been called many things. Today, enemy will do.

Destroyers and corvettes are scattered ahead, clearing any mines that may be left as surprises. Our approach on Luna was fast, faster than they would have expected. The Sceptre Armada is to the far side of the planet, an array of ships hastily assembled into formation. They did not think we would move so fast. Still, we are outnumbered. With the inclusion of the Martian turncoats and the Venusians fleets, we will be hard-pressed.

On the HoloTable, the feed renders the Armadas with mathematical calm. The Martian line spreads at centre. The Dragon Armada forms to starboard under Romulus au Raa and holds like a living fortress. The Dust Armada under Helios au Lux glints on the port side, lean and hard as wire. In reserve, the Nyx and a string of stealth TorchShips wait, their signatures tucked into shadow.

Orion stands in the pit below the bridge, surrounded by her flight crew. Her face is blue-lit, calm and confident. She is a pilot and a thing of exactness; when she inclines her head I answer with the nod. Mustang is at my shoulder. She is quiet in the way she always is when the worlds nods toward violence. She looks determined, purposeful. Her hair is pulled back and the curve of her face catches the light of Luna below. She says nothing. The benediction will start soon.

Sefi joins us as we move through the ship into the hold we have turned into a sanctum. Ceremony clears the mind of a soldier. The hall is long, polished, the walls bare and honest. Before me stand those who have answered our call. Imperators and Praetors, Primi of Houses and seasoned warriors, all stand in a ring. Romulus is at the head, a granite of a man. Helios stands with the patience of one who uses rage only as a tool. Cassius leans on a pillar, a half smile forming when we enter.

I remain apart, Sefi near enough that I feel the frost of her silence. Her eyes glint with the twin lights of curiosity and contempt. The Rim Golds stare as zealots do at a blasphemy. They see in me not a commander, but the shadow of deception. My very presence profanes this sacred ritual. Others wait, anxious for a revelation, as if I will unmask some sorcery to make this war less real. My Martians stand still, iron in their calm. They have seen too much to hope for miracles.

The sound begins: drums and the low raw chanting of Obsidians. It passes through comms, like a tide. I feel the beat in my chest and let it calibrate my pulse. Voices rise in cadence and the hall breathes with them. The benediction is not show. It is a contract. An old White steps forward and intones the words. The Chances wheel in, bearing sceptre, sword and laurel crowned scroll. Gold to Gold they step, slicing palms with small ceremonial blades. They whisper the line an old world taught them: my son, my daughter, now that you bleed, you shall know no fear, no defeat, only victory.

Aeneas kneels and takes the rite. I watch him, near his father and next to my wife. The blade opens the bead of blood. A Chance marks his cheek with the red line. He rises with a steadiness that sets the room to a new axis. Mustang moves and the hold folds toward her voice. She does not beg. She names the action with clarity.

“Hear me, sons and daughters of Gold,” she says. “Children of Iron, listen well. We come not as supplicants but as a reckoning. We come for the head of a tyrant. We will unmake her rule that strangled breath. We will offer no mercy, and we will ask for none. Today we carry thunder into their streets and truth into their courts.”

Her words strike the hall like a hammer. The Golds answer with the rhythm of their boots. The deck quakes.

“Mars gives no quarter!”

THUD.

“Bring the storm to their gates!”

THUD.

“Claim every road, spare no standard!”

THUD THUD THUD.

When the noise fades, she speaks again, this time with cold precision. She names them; our enemies. The men and women that will hunt above all: Magnus au Grimmus, Scipio au Falthe, Apollonius au Valii-Rath, Lores au Trachus, Aja au Grimmus. The names pass through the air like a ledger of death. Octavia au Lune. The hall stills. That one is mine.

The ceremony ends and the officers disperse to stations. The chorus of departing boots is a slow unthreading. In corridors perfect for private conversations, Romulus finds his son. No words pass between them. Only a nod. A father’s quiet and final goodbye. When he looks back to me, the weight in his gaze is an unspoken command. Take care of him. Survive if you can.

Cassius finds me and presses his forearm to mine in a quick, private gesture. His expression softens for a moment when he trails my gaze. “Such loyalty you summon,” he says lightly. His hand is warm and true. For a heartbeat, it feels like we are back at the Institute, two boys still pretending they can master fate.

When I walk back to the bridge, it is quiet. Only my ship officers and the bridgecrew remain. Orion waits at her console. She motions for Mustang and I to join her. A Holo flares to life on the wall, coalescing into the sun-dark face of Quicksilver. He has the careful look of a man who has seen much, the odd grace of a person who has always preferred mediation to murder. He is a Silver, a man of currency and economy; his province is not war. The image wavers slightly, light flickering from the transmission’s delay. Behind him, the towers of Phobos shine with cold brilliance. He bows to Mustang through the Holo. His voice comes rich and smooth.

“Nine minutes,” he says. “Not ten. Not twelve. Nine.” His tone is smooth, calculating. “The Sons are in position. The teams are primed. After that, it is up to you.”

I incline my head. “Prime, Quick.”

He smiles, thin and weary. “Be swift, my boy. History rewards precision.” Then his image freezes. The feed stutters and vanishes.

For a while, no one speaks. The engines thrum. The light changes hue. Mustang’s hand finds mine, warm and steady. Her palm is small beneath my grip. I hold it like an anchor. Her eyes glint with something unspoken. Fear perhaps?

“I do not like this,” she says quietly.

“It is the only road left,” I answer.

She nods once, the motion sharp as a blade. “Then walk it well.”

We stand together for a moment longer. When she turns away, I let her hand fall from mine. The ghost of her touch remains as she heads to the Dejah Thoris.

Orion’s voice breaks the silence. “All ships report green. Dragon to starboard, Dust to port. Martian holds centre. Nyx group ready, cloak is active. Rubicon range confirmed. Seven hundred clicks.”

“Proceed.”

Through the viewport, the Rubicon Beacons glow brighter, their signals aligning into a perfect circle. The Morning Star prepares to move forward, the armadas arranging themselves to follow. A voice from Luna cuts across the comms with practiced formality. It is heavy with the bureaucratic intonation of a Copper.

“Unidentified vessels approaching Luna,” the transmission says. “This is Luna Defence Command. You approach the Rubicon Beacons without the Dictator’s leave. You are in breach of the Compact and in violation of Societal deep-space boundary regulations. Cease approach or be engaged.”

We do not answer.

The hum of the engines swells. I feel it under my boots, through my bones. Every motion of the crew is deliberate now.

“Continue with the advance,” I say.

The ship lurches forward. The formation holds like a living thing. The Beacons continue flashing in sequence. We cross their perimeter. Each pillar flares and records our passage. The ring around Luna flares, then stands witness.

Breach.

The bridge holds its breath. No one cheers. No one speaks. The silence has its own gravity.

Another transmission arrives from Luna.

“New direct link incoming,” the comBlue says behind me. “Praetorian.”

“Main Holo,” I say.

A Gold Praetorian with an aquiline face and grey at the temples of his short-cropped hair materializes in front of me. The image will appear on all bridges and HoloScreens in my fleet.

“Darrow of Lykos,” he asks in an impeccably well-bred Lunese accent. “Are you in possession of imperium over these armadas?”

“What need have I of your traditions?” I ask.

“Very well,” the Gold says, maintaining propriety even now. “I am ArchLegate Corvus au Sejanus of the Praetorian Guard, First Cohort.” I know of Sejanus. He’s an eerie, efficient man. “I am come with a diplomatic envoy to your coordinates,” he says dryly. “I request you stay further aggression and give my shuttle access to your flagship so we might relate the Dictator’s intentions in…”

“Denied,” I say.

“I beg your pardon?”

“If any Society ship comes toward my fleet, they will be fired upon. If the Sovereign wishes to speak with me, then let her do it herself. Not through a lackey’s mouth. Tell the hag we’re here for war. Not words.”

The transmission lights up again.

“You will be recorded as violators of the Compact. The Sceptre Armada will answer. You are warned.”

I do not look up. I feel the crossing like a hand on my spine, a cold decision made warm by motion. The Morning Star eases past. Outside, the Beacons burn like judgment. Inside everything is a machine of intent. My voice is low, hard in its finality, as I address the bridge.

“The Rubicon is crossed.”  

The words are small and finite. The ship holds its course. The fleets fall into step. The System begins to turn.

War has come again to heart of Gold.

Chapter Text

Octavia

From the Ocular Sphere, I watch the legions of Luna assemble. Ground cohorts move with mechanical discipline, loading into transports bound for the armada in orbit. The city stirs with panic. No one expected the Reaper to come so soon. Word of his secret peace had barely arrived, and now he brings the full strength of Mars and the Rim to my sphere. I may outnumber him, but the boy has a habit of wrenching triumph from ruin.

Lysander stands across the chamber, his eyes turned to the sky. The enemy armada is still hours away, yet he watches it with reverent unease. The boy is wise beyond his years, all one could hope for in an heir and more, but still too idealistic. He was born into a gentler age, before the Reaper’s fury, raised on the noble tales of Gold, stories of valour and duty. He still thinks of war as a game. The way of our race. He does not yet see that for the first time since the Conquering, Gold faces its end. This is not the Dark Revolt, nor the Year of Two Sovereigns. This is something altogether new.

I should have seen it that day Darrow beat me with the Oracles. I do not know why I dismissed the boy’s fury as youthful vanity. His ambition as recompense for his poor birth. It was too deliberate, too intelligent in its hunger. Not the rage of impulse, but the will of something larger. Yet I cannot dwell on that. He will fall today. For all his cunning and theatre, I have the Ash Lord. The old monster has never failed me. His mind is a blade shaped by almost a century of war, sharp and pitiless. He is as natural to slaughter as a fish is to water.

Aja enters without knocking. The armour of the Protean Knight shimmers faintly, its metal breathing like a living thing. A tension radiates from her. She will not see much of battle, not if all goes as planned. Of all the traitors she longs to face, it is Cassius who haunts her most. She begged for him to keep his position after the Gala, trained him to rival Darrow himself. She saw in him something of Lorn and something of herself, a soul ready to die for his beliefs and convictions. He betrayed that faith, and she has never forgiven him.

“The legions are ready. They wait in the Pyramid Forum,” she says, her tone flat with restrained discontent. I incline my head and turn to Lysander.

He wears a toga over a plain tunic, a sash of gold marking him a Lune, heir to one of the oldest patrician lines. He smiles at Aja, and her frost thaws. She has always loved him, even more than she ever loved her own son, Ajax.

“Shall we go?” he asks, voice light, almost hopeful.

We follow him. I rest a hand on Aja’s shoulder as we pass, and feel her tension ease. She understands she must stay. I offer a quiet smile in gratitude. In these times, loyalty is rarer than victory.

The benediction at the Forum is a pompous spectacle. A milky-eyed White leads the rite with shrill fervour. Soldiers pound their chests and howl, whipped into frenzy as Magnus and I speak. His words are the kind that wake the beast in men, calling to their bloodlust. Mine speak instead of duty, of honour, of the glory of Gold.

The senators stand apart to the side, shifting uneasily in their robes. Some are retired veterans, though age has softened them. Most are Politicos whose only battles were fought in the Holos. Their scars were earned in youth and polished ever since into symbols of legitimacy.

I watch as Magnus ascends into the sky aboard his transport. The light catches on the hull, and I whisper a silent invocation. Come back, old friend. We have more to do yet.

***

Mustang

Aboard the Dejah Thoris, I watch the rows of battleships slide through the void toward Earth’s moon. The Sceptre Armada rises to meet them, more vessels lifting from the surface to join the swelling host. Around me, my officers murmur in low, urgent tones. I sit in stillness, thinking.

Theodora breaks away from a cluster of Golds and walks to my side. To my surprise, they bow their heads slightly as she passes. It is not the gesture they would offer a superior, but it is something. Her sharp intellect and her quiet mastery of men has earned her that respect. She carries it like a crown of her own making.

“Virginia,” she says softly, “I have spoken to your contacts. The work will begin soon.”

I nod, returning her calm smile. She turns her gaze to the void beyond the glass, following the line of my eyes. For a while she says nothing, simply watching the slow drift of ships beneath the pale light. Then she speaks again.

“We will defeat them. I know it. Darrow…” she hesitates, and for an instant I see devotion flash behind her composure. “He can do this. I have watched him from his first days at the Academy until now. If anyone can end this, he will.”

I murmur my agreement, though unease stirs in me. Something about this battle feels wrong. It coils in my gut, quiet and cold. Perhaps it is the weight of history, the end of a seven-hundred-year empire. Or perhaps it is something simpler, more human; the fear of death, of a final parting from my children and the man I love.

I do not know.

A faint vibration passes through the deck as the forward squadrons take new formation. I stand before the viewing glass now, watching the warships stretch into long, ordered lines. On the tactical display beside me, the patterns unfold like a vast game of chess. The enemy grows nearer, each manoeuvre mirrored in kind. What begins as stillness becomes tension drawn taut between two blades.

The first exchanges are cautious. Probes and scouts move ahead, firing at distance, reading the enemy’s resolve. Bright traces of energy flicker in the darkness, brief flowers of light blooming and fading against the shields. There is no sound, only the slow rhythm of movement and response, question and answer. Each armada tests the other, measuring patience, measuring fear.

Darrow’s Praetors are as deliberate as their master. They push forward in waves, never too far, never too fast, as if he were already speaking through them. On the display, their markers shift with unsettling grace, folding and unfurling like the wings of a great bird. I have seen this before, the rhythm of his wars. It is the same pattern that broke the first societal fleet over Earth and humbled the Sword Armada. Calculation wrapped in chaos.

The Ash Lord’s commanders hold firm. They know that a single rash strike will open the throat of the line. Their volleys are sparse, controlled, disciplined. The old man has trained them in restraint, and restraint is the cruellest virtue in war. The silence between each exchange grows heavier. My officers glance to me, searching for permission that does not come.

Outside, the light of Sol bathes the hulls of ships in bright yellow. I imagine the people below, looking up at the sky and seeing the glow of fleets reflected in their seas. They cannot hear the silence between shots, the breath that the universe takes before it screams. Empires die like this, I think, not in the moment of impact, but in the gathering quiet that comes before.

The tactical display shifts. A ripple of motion disturbs the balance on the enemy flank. Small, deliberate, precise. It might be a feint, or the first hand closing into a fist. Theodora leans close, her eyes sharp. “It begins,” she says quietly.

The bridge falls still. I rest my hand against the table and feel the pulse of the ship beneath my palm. Somewhere far ahead, two armadas begin to breathe the same air. The first act of the war has begun.

***

An hour later the display is a constellation of wounds. Small icons wink out in a slow, terrible arithmetic. Each blink is a ship gone dark. On the viewport, the void ahead is stitched with orange and white, ruptures of flame and slow, curling smoke where hulls have been rent open. The first surge of fury has burned itself to embers and now the two hosts circle the aftermath like scavengers. The bridge is tense, everyone focused ahead. I watch the casualty markers with the same detached care a surgeon gives a failing patient and feel the same learned numbness tighten in my chest.

Grecca au Codovan’s squadron led that storm. His ships drove through the Ash Lord’s forward screen in perfect discipline, his assault clean and certain. His Praetor’s tag, the intricate gear sigil of the Codovan, showed his movements. The first volleys traded like the opening moves of a duel, the line folding and reforming with each pass. For a moment it looked as though he might open a breach through their centre, but the enemy adjusted, drawing him into the narrowing corridor between their flanks. He cut free before they could close it though his rear-guard was shredded as he withdrew. The screen above the table still shows the pattern, the scar he left in their formation like a wound that refuses to heal.

The exchange had lasted only minutes, but it felt like hours. Now, commanders on both sides have tasted the rhythm of the other. The Ash Lord’s tactics were austere, the work of a mind that values control above glory. His ships yielded ground only to strike at the moment retreat became pursuit. Grecca’s precision turned against him then, his formations moving so predictably that their elegance became a weakness. I saw it even as he advanced, saw how the Ash Lord watched him and waited.

When the order came to disengage, the void lit with dying metal. Fragments drift even now, silent proof that the battle has begun. My officers whisper of the lost ships and men. The sound is small, almost reverent. We have won nothing but understanding. The enemy’s patience is the measure of his power, and our own endurance will be the price of victory.

An officer reports that the Ash Lord’s centre has fallen back, regrouping along where his heavier vessels hover. It is a move of calculation, not fear. He means to draw us closer, to make us fight well within the range where his guns will have the advantage. Darrow has not answered. His silence is strategy, as always. I sense him weighing what I already know he will choose.

Outside the viewport, the wreckage glows faintly, like embers scattered across a dead hearth. Somewhere in that ruin drift most of Grecca’s ships, crippled but alive. The lull holds, fragile and deceptive. Every heartbeat tells me it will not last. The hour of testing is over. The next will decide who still commands the void.

Theodora seems to read my thoughts. Her eyes flicker over the HoloMap, watching the icons crawl in slow, deliberate arcs. “They’re adapting faster than expected,” she murmurs. I nod, not in agreement but in acknowledgement. The Ash Lord’s armada has always been a serpent; flexible, patient, venomous. Their main line draws back further, regrouping behind a wall of scorched debris. I can almost feel his will through the static, that cold intellect shaping the field as if the void were clay.

“Patch me through to Sefi,” I say. A second later, her image flickers into being beside the main console. She stands in the hold of a ship, Valkyries around her like a living storm. PulseArmour glows faintly in the half-light, each helm reflecting the grey of the warship’s heart. A Red in a heavy ExoSuit stands among them. Orange mechanics and Green techs move about, checking suit calibrations and making adjustments. Sefi’s face is composed, serene even, though the air around her trembles with battle readiness. “We are almost ready,” she says in a thick polar accent.

Her voice is a blade of conviction. I study her for a moment before replying. “Good.”  Behind me, Theodora issues the orders through the comms. On the map, tiny ships peel away, creating a gleaming path through the dark. Sefi inclines her head and cuts the feed. For a heartbeat, the holographic residue of her form lingers in the air like ghosts of a future myth. I exhale slowly. If she succeeds, the balance will tilt. If she fails, the price might be every ship in orbit.

I open a new channel. The signal connects instantly. Darrow’s face appears; steady, lit by the glow of command screens. The Morning Star’s bridge is alive with quiet intensity. Aeneas leans over a projection, tracing attack vectors with his finger, Thraxa beside him, her jaw set in grim excitement.

“Thoughts?” he asks. His voice is calm, but I hear the strain beneath it, that thin wire stretched taut by waiting. He has always hated waiting. I smile without meaning to. “I only wanted to see how you were,” I say. His brow creases, then his expression softens. For a moment, his mellow laughter breaks through the static. Then, he scratches his head sheepishly, the gesture disarmingly ordinary in the glare of war.

“You shouldn’t worry about me,” he says. “You’ve enough to handle.” “And yet,” I answer. “Here we are.” He looks at me, quiet and tender. Between us, words dissolve into a shared silence, the kind that needs no explanation. He understands battle as a living thing, a rhythm of instinct and memory. I understand the cost. We are both necessary halves of the same burden.

When Romulus’ request flashes across his screen, he gives me a nod. Then he is gone.

The silence after his departure is heavy. Outside the viewport, the wrecks of ships still drift like vast bones in the void. Engines flare across the horizon as our surviving squadrons reposition. The Martian Armada stretches its wings again, light rippling along the armoured spines of its destroyers. The enemy answers in kind, their dark hulls sliding into new formations. The stars blur with motion, and for a moment the whole sea of space seems to tremble with anticipation. I turn to my officers.

“Signal all commands,” I say. “It begins again.”

Chapter Text

Darrow

“Darrow,” Magnus au Grimmus’ voice rises from the Holo, smooth and measured, carrying command. He reclines in the command chair of the Annihilo, broad shoulders relaxed, golden eyes fixed on me with the patience of a predator observing the flight of a fledgling. Dark complexion marks his gens, his age in the quiet control he wields. “I am surprised you convinced the Moon Lords to abet your little treasonous farce.”

I smile. He mirrors it.

“I always wanted to meet you on the battlefield. When you were a Gold and still, now, that you have been unmasked. They can argue semantics in the Palatine, but I know what you are; A warlord like none I have seen in a hundred and seven years.”

His Lunese accent punctuates the words, imperial and deliberate. “I wonder, what would your mentor Lorn have said? Always too stuck up for his own good.” The light from his consoles casts harsh angles across the stern planes of his face

I incline my head slightly. “Lorn would have killed me by now.”

He chuckles softly, the sound resonating through the comms, rich with a dark amusement. “And yet here you stand, Reaper. At the head of three armadas and leading his House to war.The rebel ArchImperator. The Slave King of Mars.”

I let the moment linger, letting the tension between words and silence stretch. Then I turn to the viewport. The fleets are in motion. Luna’s surface glimmers below. In the distance, the Rubicon Beacons flare in their precise, unyielding patterns, each tower recording, judging, declaring our trespass.

“‘Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant’” I quote, looking back to the Holo. He shrugs understanding the quote.

“Tacitus?” He says rhetorically. I nod. “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.” He translates. The quote is apt, on such a day, when an empire might fall.

“Well, fortes fortuna adiuvat.” He says menacingly as the Holo fades. Fortune favours the brave.

***

I lean over the console, the Holographic map spinning beneath my fingers like a living thing. Vela au Raa drives the forward assault, Dragon Song cutting clean through the black. Romulus’ sister is one of his favourite naval commanders. Her squadron follows closely in precise formation, engines flaring softly before slipping into darkness.

The destroyers Libitina and Lord of Zeelhem spearhead the line with her, while groups of frigates and TorchShips fan out to the side. RipWings launch in tight companies, their thirteen-metre frames flaring blue as they break from their bays, vanishing into the dark. For every one that falls to enemy fire, three more slide into their place, an unbroken tide pressing into the void. They weave between enemy hulls, their chainguns leaving brief trails of molten light. I catch a flash as a corvette rolls, its engines shredded in a bloom of fire, and the glow lingers long enough to taste the silence that follows.

Following close, hugging Vela’s flank, is Phaena au Auletes. The ArchGovernor of Titan keeps her dreadnought, Hyugens, steady as the massive ship rolls to present her guns. Craft of all sizes slide along the periphery with a calm precision that belies the chaos. A destroyer convulses under their onslaught, shedding debris in all directions, the shards reflecting distant stars like a shattered constellation. Every movement she makes is deliberate, every strike intended to leave maximum disarray.

At the rear, stalking like a tiger in high grass, is Daxo. The Angelus, his massive dreadnought, weaves through the mounting chaos, guarding Vela and Phaena while probing for an opening. His squadron cuts around the enemy’s flanks, engines flaring as his destroyers swing around the back, engaging isolated targets with methodical precision. The exposed ships are met with a brutal vengeance.

I see the glint of weapon fire from his destroyers, hear the faint clicks of targeting relays through the comm sensors, and feel the tension coil in the pit of my stomach. The enemy hesitates under the rear guard, their formation bending to accommodate his presence, revealing gaps that might widen into catastrophe if exploited.

The battle grows in intensity. RipWings spiral in tight runs, cutting through defensive screens and emerging with minimal exposure. They leave gaping wounds along dreadnought hulls before peeling away to safety. More dive in, leaving the enemy scrambling to respond. TorchShips move silently between clusters of enemy vessels, hammering weak points and fading from sensors before reinforcements can react. The void becomes a theatre of light and cannon fire, a choreography of destruction where every flicker and flare carries the weight of strategy.

The enemy ships try to close ranks, and for a moment the void becomes a series of lines folding, arcs tightening and warcraft turning in great slow spirals as their guns thunder in unison. Vela drives through the middle, her formation cutting open the front while Phaena’s ships knife in from the side. I feel the tremor through the deck as Dragon Song’s main batteries fire, the shock rolling through the bridge’s frame. Warnings flicker red across the console. Plasma scatter lights the viewport. A corvette spins past, engines dead, hull venting atmosphere in a thin white mist.

The scale dwarfs sense. Hundreds of ships drift and collide in a slow, violent dance. LeechCraft latch onto crippled frigates, their magnetic claws cutting through hull plating to disgorge boarders. TorchShips vanish into the dust fields made by shattered hulls, reappearing behind the enemy lines like revenants. The space between dreadnoughts is littered with the skeletons of smaller craft, their wreckage drifting in silent arcs. For every victory, another spark dies out, yet the momentum builds, a pulse beating through the chaos.

Daxo’s rear guard blocks relief, each strike pulling the enemy apart piece by piece. I note the glimmer of collapsing engines and ruptured weapon banks, my chest tightening as if the void itself presses against the bridge. Even the smallest misalignment could cascade into catastrophe, yet the squadrons move with fluid certainty, my will expressed through hundreds of vessels.

Time stretches and bends. Every strike leaves a trace; every movement shifts the battlefield. I watch it all, silent, knowing that the balance of the fight, of this thousand-ship maelstrom, rests on precision, nerve, and the quiet, unrelenting execution of each commander’s will.

Abruptly, the Angelus breaks formation, her engines a white glare as she pushes through debris toward the enemy’s command line. The forward squadrons split to clear her path. The HoloMap flares as the enemy’s MoonBreaker turns to engage but it’s too late. Vela and Phaena converge, their fire hemming the massive Venusian ship in. Daxo’s guns find their mark. Megaton atomics.

The MoonBreaker ruptures from bow to stern, its spine tearing apart in a blaze that swallows half the screen. The bridge goes still. For a moment, all that remains is the drifting field of ruin and the pulse of returning transponders, whispering through the static like the sound of distant breathing.

One down.

The dance resumes. The HoloMap breathes with red pinpricks, pulsing like open wounds against the calm of our formation. Voices overlap across the bridge, reports, warnings, half-finished oaths. The air feels charged, metallic. We are not in danger, not yet, but even trained soldiers feel the pull of chaos when the void begins to burn. Some of my officers watch me from the periphery, waiting for the inevitable gambit they think I am hiding. They still do not understand that sometimes survival itself is the gambit.

“Darrow?” Thraxa’s voice cuts through the noise. I lift my eyes from the shifting lights. “I agree…have Anippe prepare to engage. Pull Daxo back, and have Alberon take his place. It is time for an all out attack.” Her jaw flexes in wordless assent before she turns, her stride deliberate as she moves toward the comms pit. Around her, the junior tacticians snap into motion, their gestures carving paths across the holographic field, redirecting entire squadrons with the sweep of a hand.

Aeneas hovers near me, watching the battle unfold. The map paints his face in stuttering light, the boyish confidence of my lancer tempered by something rawer now; uncertainty, awe. His hands rest on the table’s edge, white-knuckled as the reports flood in. I see the tremor in his shoulders before he hides it.

He steps closer, as if drawn by the quiet that clings to command. I offer him a smile, a small reassurance in a storm too vast for words. He does not notice. His eyes are fixed on the field, on the ships that bear his friends, his kin, his future.

The HoloMap pulses again. Somewhere in the dark, engines flare, and fleets converge like the closing of a fist.

***

Mustang

I watch the Obsidians make their preparations. Around them, smaller figures move among the ninety-metre contraptions that fill the belly of the ship. Each rests in its cradle like a slumbering giant, cables running from the ceiling into open maintenance panels. The hold hums with caged power, the air alive with the sound of magnetics charging. Every inch of the Dejah Thoris that does not serve her navigation or shielding has been given over to this operation.

Sefi stands beside me, small and still within the tide of motion. Her eyes do not leave the rotating projection above us. The HoloMap turns slowly, corridors and weak points marked with the economy of a surgeon. It renders our target in thin blue lines. She nods once when the path completes its sweep. Around us, voices weave through the comm feeds: Theodora issuing quiet orders, officers answering without hesitation. No shouting, no wasted sound. Each voice knows its place in the sequence.

“You say this ship is two hundred years old?” Sefi asks quizzically. Obsidians are not naturally as short-lived as the other LowColours, but the ice denies them long lives. Only a chosen few, like her mother, the Snowsparrow, escaped that fate. I nod and keep my eyes on the projections. The two of us stand in silence for a moment.

Around the bay, Red Helldivers work beside Valkyries and Braves, fitting armour and sealing drills. It should feel unnatural, that mixture of Colours, but it does not. A few of the Reds laugh softly at something, and even one of the Valkyries grins behind her visor. I allow myself a small smile.

The plan is brutal in its simplicity. The Helldivers will fall first, their ClawDrills carving open the hulls of the Sceptre Armada’s dreadnoughts. They will clear the way for Sefi’s Obsidians, who will follow through the breaches, secure the decks, seize the bridges and decapitate Gold command. Outside, two more dreadnoughts and their escorts are preparing to launch identical assaults. The scale is staggering, even by our standards.

I leave Sefi to her command and move back toward the bridge. The corridors tremble with the distant pulse of weapons fire. When I reach the command deck, Theodora stands before the HoloMap, its pale light tracing the fatigue on her face. She watches the battle unfold with a keen but troubled eye, still unaccustomed to the callous waste of men and materiel that space warfare demands.

“How does it go?” I ask as I move beside her.

“Daxo has managed to take down the Magellan,” she says. “Atomics.”

The Venusian MoonBreaker is no equal to the Morning Star, but it was still a bastion for the Sceptre Armada’s defence.

“Perfect.” I shift the HoloMap to show the opposite end of our war theatre.

As the battle progresses, the Augustus fleet extends forward, pushing our line into new positions. Scipio au Falthe and Antonius au Severus hold where we edge towards, their squadrons pulsing on the map; the raven of Falthe and the serpent of Severus shining in enemy crimson.

 “Prepare the pods,” I say, voice calm. “Get the officers ready.” Theodora nods, already moving. Somewhere below us, the first of the ClawDrills begins to wake.

***

We push closer, surrounded by the steady glow of engines. The void ripples with heat. I twist my wedding ring between thumb and forefinger, a small act of steadiness, and keep my gaze on the HoloMap. RipWings crowd the path ahead, silver streaks cutting through the dark in disciplined arcs, a reflexive response to our sudden advance. The main clash burns toward the centre, far from here, but from this vantage the field narrows into a single path of intent. Beyond it, cold and immense, stands the Annihilo. A spear of ancient metal, patient and still. The will that directs this slaughter.

“Echo of Ismenia down,” an officer reports, his voice tight but measured as alarms pulse across the bridge. “Cry of Thebes through.” The deck trembles with the drum of distant impacts. I do not blink. My expression remains the small mask between thought and order. “Closer,” I say. The pilot answers, and the Dejah Thoris surges ahead. The Liburna fills the viewport, vast and brutal, a kilometre longer than we are. Antonius au Severus built her for intimidation, not grace. Beyond it lies the Corbita, proud and waiting. Scipio au Falthe will be waiting.

“Incoming tight-beam request,” Theodora says. “Severus.”

“Patch him through.”

The image forms in the air. Antonius au Severus looks much as he always has: sharp jaw, Gold eyes, and that cold beauty the patricians bred into their bloodlines. “Virginia,” he begins, his tone smooth, the words meant to wound. “How long it has been. I still recall the Bleeding Place… and your tears for Claudius.”

I say nothing, refusing to rise to the jibe.

He waits for a reaction, then leans forward. “What do you intend? If you mean to mimic your slave’s gambit at Ilium, prepare to die.”

Silence stretches. His composure slips. The mask of charm fractures under gnawing irritation. “As you wish,” he says, and the image dissolves.

The Dejah Thoris takes its first blows. Shields flare and collapse in ripples of light. The hull vibrates, answering the assault with a sound that feels almost alive, a deep metallic groan. We press forward, through wreckage and radiation, a single blade cutting through chaos. My dreadnought was never meant to survive this. She is a hammer. Her purpose is destruction, not endurance. She will break them, and Sefi will claim what remains.

The bridge is nearly empty now. My officers have gone to the escape pods. I look to the Blues still at their stations, loyal even in the end. “Say your goodbyes,” I tell them quietly. “We leave now.” Delphinus rises from the sync, salutes, and turns away. Theodora waits by the doors, her face calm but her hands trembling. The air tastes of smoke and copper. Red light flashes in the reflection of the glass. Sirens echo like distant choirs.

We run. The corridors are alive with sound alarms. The floor shudders beneath each impact. The ship breathes around us, groaning as if aware of its fate. We reach the pods and throw ourselves into their cushioned embrace; a motion more ritual than flight. The cocoon seals. For a heartbeat, the noise disappears. A rush, then silence. I float in the restraints, weightless, breath shallow, eyes fixed on the viewport. Outside, the battle unfolds in perfect silence. Fire blooms and fades in the dark. Theodora is beside me, motionless. Behind us, the Dejah Thoris burns. Her light spills across the black like a dying sun, as if the ship itself refuses to die quietly.

When the Fortuna’s hold swallows us, I feel the tremor of separation. A hollow where the ship once was. I race to the bridge and to the Holo feed. The field burns brighter. Yet deception is a patient predator. From the Dejah Thoris, two hundred leechCraft disgorge from the hangars and streak across the gulf between capital ships. They are ugly things, small and relentless. They draw fire from the Severus escort.

As we race back toward the bulk of our ships, the first ClawDrill shoots out. It bites the Liburna with a unbridled rage. Metal peels and turns molten. Another follows, then another, each drill opening wide tunnels in the enemy ships.

Then comes the storm. Armoured transports full of Sefi’s wrath.

***

Darrow

I am aboard the Nyx. The ship glides steadily through the debris. Around us, the stealth flotilla moves in the hidden corridors of space. Fifty TorchShips. Ten destroyers. Each heavy with soldiers, each ready to slip between the folds of the greater storm. They are my hidden fist, clenched in patience. My secret hand, tensed and waiting for the moment the battle’s spine bends just enough to break.

Two divisions. Eight legions. Three hundred and fifty thousand warriors gathered for one purpose. Legio X Mortis. Legio II Adustio. Legio IV Alata. Legio II Ultor. The Knights of Elysium. The Dawn Phalanx. The Phoenix Phalanx. My finest troops.

We move through the drifting bones of ships. Sun Industries stealth hulls and debris fields masking our movements. The void hums with distant fury, but here, in this quiet, it feels almost reverent. Aeneas stands at my side, helm retracted. Thraxa rests one hand on the console, watching the scanners with a predator’s patience. Orion commands the Morning Star behind us, her atomics making contact with the ships above us.

Ten minutes. That is all the shadow will give us before the storm turns its eye our way.

***

Jackal

Endymion, unlike Hyperion, is a city of industry. From the Crescent Orb, the Quintlian Interplanetary Docks lie to the east. They are the largest in the Core, and the busiest, ferrying more people and goods in a single day than Phobos does in three. Now, not a single ship rises from them. To the west, the Ephor Spires pierce the skyline, jagged man-made peaks like crooked fingers clawing at the light. Between them spreads a sea of warehouses, factories, fabricating halls and repair yards, the veins and organs of the city. I turn from the window and back into the command room.

The Luna Defence Command is housed here, along with the Sceptre Armada’s central communications array. Gold officers move briskly between consoles, eyes locked on the battle above. Copper administrators, Pink attendants, Blues at the sync tables, and Green techs occupy every station. The comms never rest. Voices from all theatres crackle in and out, each message caught, processed, and redirected within seconds. One of them catches my ear.

“Augustus fleet engaging Antonius,” a voice crackles through the static. “Received, Blood Medusa. Reinforcements inbound.” I narrow my eyes. What game are you playing, Virginia? “Give me a visual,” I tell the nearest Copper. He hesitates, uncertain, until my stare bores into him. Only then does he pull up the Holo projection, hands shaking slightly. Even now, word of my fall has travelled far enough that a Copper could think of questioning me.

The feed is fuzzy, relayed from a TorchShip well behind the line. The Dejah Thoris streaks through the dark at speed, heading straight for the Liburna. Without warning, escape pods eject at two hundred metres as enormous ClawDrills, each the size of a small corvette, blast outward toward the surrounding dreadnoughts and destroyers. LeechCraft swarm ahead to draw fire, a luminous screen of decoys that lets the heavier transports tail the drills unchecked.

“Show me a visual from any of those ships,” I order, pointing at the Liburna and its escorts. The Copper fumbles with the datadesk, fingers clumsy, and fails to access the feeds. I shove him aside and work the system myself, hands moving faster than thought. A soft ping confirms entry. The view that opens on the Holo dries my throat.

A ClawDrill punches through the Severus dreadnought like a razor through silk. The transports follow, disgorging waves of Obsidians in PulseArmour. These are not the disciplined Venatores under the Reaper’s command but hulking berserkers driven mad on God’s Bread. Some wield razors, others PlasmaRifles and Scorchers. At their head moves a shorter woman, her presence radiating command. Her black razor unfurls then straightens into a blade. I shudder. Even for Darrow, this is blasphemy. Would the Rim condone this? Would Romulus?

Before I can dwell on it, another group appears in the feed after them. They move with precision, their armour sleek and newly forged. Two of figures pause next to the Obsidian woman. Their helms retract, and pale faces appear; one a young woman, the other a grizzled man with rust-red hair. Reds. Leading boarding parties. In armour. For a moment, my mind rejects it outright. By Jove. The sheer cost of building those suits. Virginia and Darrow must have begun this madness right after the Triumph.

I close the feed and cross the room to Corvus au Sejanus, ArchLegate of the Praetorians. He stands surrounded by a coterie of officers studying the broader engagement. “Corvus,” I call, but he is focused on the HoloMap, watching Vela au Raa’s assault unfold. One of his officers mutters a slur about Moonies, and the cluster bursts into laughter.

“Corvus!” The word cracks from my throat sharper than I intend. The room falls silent at once. Dozens of eyes turn toward me. I fight the twist in my gut and square my shoulders. Corvus looks back, lip curled. “What, Jackal?” He spits it out like a curse. I meet his glare. “The Augustus fleet-” An alarm cuts me off. The main HoloDisplay flares red. ‘ANNIHILO,’ it reads. A Copper stumbles to accept the transmission. The Ash Lord’s face fills the room.

“Are you gorydamn mad, Corvus!” His roar shakes the comm feeds. I have never seen him so livid. “The Reaper’s broodmare is about to take out an entire squadron with her madness and you do nothing!” My jaw tightens. She is still my sister, still an Augustii. She deserves more than his contempt, but I let it pass.

Corvus turns on me as if I summoned the storm myself. His eyes blaze, his fury naked. My lips curve in a thin, satisfied smile. “Sending reinforcements, ArchImperator,” he snaps to the feed. On the map, ships peel away from the armada’s centre, breaking toward the flanks where the Severus and Falthe lines collapse. From the window, I watch fresh reserves lift off from the surface, a line of engines rising like a new constellation.

The room remains a knot of panic, but my attention is fixed elsewhere. Minutes pass. On the Holo, the crimson dreadnought Fortuna tears away from the wreckage, back toward the safety of the rebel lines. Virginia will be aboard her. A flicker of sorrow twists through me as the Dejah Thoris breaks apart under enemy fire. The battlefield shifts. The Reaper's forces seem to mount a new wave of attacks, relying on my sister's distraction. The Ash Lord responds in kind. Even with the Falthe and Severus lines in disarray, the Alliance have no hope of taking on this fight head on. Then my datapad lights up with a single coded phrase. RED IS BLACK.

Darrow is not on the Morning Star.

I look up.

The tropospheric shields of Endymion begin to falter. Flickering on and off. I freeze. Tiny flares pierce the upper atmosphere, too small for full ships. StarShells. HivePods. The first bites of an Iron Rain.

Goryhell.

Chapter Text

Lysander

My grandfather once said, “When falls the Iron Rain, be brave. Be brave.” Then, he was speaking to the Martian usurpers. A lifetime ago, it seems. He was a usurper too. The world was not so different then. Only a civil war between warring houses, not the total collapse of civilisation we now face.

Luna Defence Command has sent a dire communique. The tropospheric shields have been compromised, their ground defence artillery sabotaged, anti-orbital strike infrastructure impaired, and an Iron Rain falls over Endymion.

The Ocular Sphere thrums like a disturbed hive, my grandmother its furious queen. Officers and courtiers move about her like a star at apogee. Aja surveys everyone, cold and unspeaking. Julia au Bellona occupies her corner, pale and watchful, cataloguing every gesture with that cold, clerical precision of hers. The Olympic Knights: Death, Cloud, and Love, hold one side of the room, solemn as statues. Opposite them lounge the new Joy and Storm Knights, Cornelius au Carthii and Atreus au Falthe. Handsome, restless, and far too green for the fire about to consume them, their presence is currency. The Falthe and Carthii are now loyal enough to rival the Grimmus, and so they are here, ornament and offering alike.

Atalantia and Moira stand with my grandmother and Aja at the main war table. The last time all three Furies were gathered in one place, a civil war followed. Atalantia has changed since her time on Earth. She is harder. Her eyes now mirror her father’s, the Ash Lord: always plotting, always hungry. She has spent every waking hour since she returned, studying his craft as one studies a holy text. She has also trained beneath Aja’s hand, learned her austerity and her rage. That Aja would ever consent to such tutelage speaks of the gravity of this hour.

Kalindora sits beside me, her gaze fixed on the HoloDisplay. The battle above Luna rages in impossible scale. Millions of tonnes of steel trade blows, thousands of skirmishes across five million square kilometres of blackness. Ships burn in silence, flame blooming like mechanical flowers. It is terrible. I wonder, not for the first time, if this ruin could have been avoided.

My grandmother, ever the master of deceit, is the finest player of the political game in all the worlds. Yet, in this she may have overreached. Darrow, despite his birth, has the intellect of a Gold. He is unparalleled in his daring, the Ash Lord’s equal in brutality, and a contemporary of my grandmother in his guile. His capacity for violence far outstrips them both and his mythos enchanting to both High and Low. I see that now.

“What of the ground reserves? I want every gorydamn RipWing, corvette and frigate in that city in the air. That slave cannot make landfall. He cannot!” My grandmother hisses, her voice piercing the air. Officers recoil, panicked beneath the Holos’ light. I have never seen her like this. The Dancing Mask she wears is thinning, threadbare and dulled by years and fear alike.

Atalantia bends to a comms relay. Static fills the chamber, then a sharp reply. She listens and actually flinches! “Most reserves were diverted to aid Antonius and Scipio after Virginia’s manoeuvre. Imbrium City units inbound, but still minutes away.”

My grandmother turns from the table and walks to the window. The murmur in the chamber fades to near silence. Outside, Hyperion glows beneath the warring sky, beautiful and doomed, a pale and perfect jewel awaiting desecration.

I have been a permanent fixture of Octavia’s court since I was seven. Then, Darrow and his classmates had just left the Institute. They were already legends in the making. Cassius, Roque, Virginia, Adrius and his Boneriders, the Howlers. That year marked the first true shift in our age. No class had ever risen so swiftly, nor played the game with such defiance. From that rebellion came all this.

Still, Gold did this to itself. Darrow merely mastered our cruelty and exploited our flaws. He wielded the same instruments of tyranny that my people used to keep the worlds in line. He learnt our art of domination just to turn it on us. For the first time in history, an Iron Rain falls on Luna. None had ever dared to bring war to the cradle of our people, to the womb of empire. To despoil Gold in this way was unthinkable.

A tremor passes through me as I watch friction trails over the Holo as a Red falls on Luna as our iron ancestors did on old Earth. For the first time in my twelve years, I am uncertain of everything. Of my house. Of my people. Of our future that once seemed eternal.

“Hail Asmodeus,” my grandmother says as she returns to the table. Her composure has reformed, each step punctilious, every motion deliberate. Moira gestures to a waiting Politico, who transmits a request to the Primus of the Carthii and the new ArchGovernor of Venus. The reply comes almost instantly. A Holo blooms at the centre of the room.

A man materializes within the projection, handsome and tan as most Venusians are, though leaner than their usual compact build. He is older than my grandmother by nearly a quarter of a century, yet cell rejuvenation has sculpted the illusion of youth upon him. His face belongs to a man not yet forty, smooth and symmetrical, but his eyes carry the weight of his years. They gleam with the weary cunning of one who has outlived rivals, wars, and perhaps even his own convictions.

 “Dictator,” he says, inclining his head with the practiced civility of one who once considered himself her equal. His voice carries a trace of unease as his gaze sweeps the chamber. “May we speak privately, Octavia?”

Before she can answer, Atalantia cuts in, voice sharp with disdain. “Now is not the time for private innuendos.”

Asmodeus’ eyes narrow, then flick back to my grandmother when she speaks. “How far are you from Luna? You are required here by week’s end.” Her tone is cool, stripped of warmth or patience.

He hesitates, then answers. “Revus au Raa has already crossed our orbit. He moves toward Luna with the Shadow Armada. His approach was masked by Sol. The fastest route is littered with mines and remote atomics.”

My grandmother’s jaw tightens. The Furies exchange wary glances. The ground war will spread before my godfather can finish Darrow’s fleets and the advancing Rim armada. We are not yet defeated, but this will protract the war, and the toll will be immense.

“Scorpio?” Moira asks quietly.

“He has rebuffed us,” Asmodeus replies. “But if he believes the Reaper will darken his skies, he may be convinced.”

My grandmother inclines her head, a small gesture that carries the weight of command. When this is over, the Votum will have much to answer for. Asmodeus flickers away and the room returns to its ordered chaos. My grandmother leans to whisper into Aja's ear. I read their lips as she taught me.

"Sejanus and the Jackal?"

"Already on their way to Hyperion." Aja answers just as softly. My grandmother nods. More schemes. 

***

Darrow

I am cocooned in a spit tube. The shell grips me like a living thing, humming with life support and comms chatter. I have done this enough times to keep terror at bay, yet a pool of worry festers in my gut. What if I die? What if I am shot down before reaching the surface? What if our sabotage was discovered? My mind races, snapping back only when I remind myself that fear is a tool, not a master.

“Morning Knight to Reaper,” Cassius chimes through my private comms channel. His voice bubbles with levity, but I hear the tremor beneath it. This is his first Iron Rain. I know the feeling.

“I told you not to use those. They will spot us far easier if you do,” I reply, irritation threading my words.

“I know, I just wanted to say good luck…” he murmurs, trailing off.

“Cassius?”

“Hmm?”

“Please don’t die, brother.” The words hang in the void. He chuckles nervously. I switch to HoloComms and see his face, worry etched into perfection. I smile, and the slightest flicker of confidence steels itself in his eyes. I switch to the general frequency, addressing every StarShell and HivePod.

“Friends, I have no grand speech. I will not promise victory. I will not swear that we will all survive. But we are on the cusp of history. Today, we do what none have done. Today, we fall on the jewel of the Society. Fight, win, live.”

Comms crackle with renewed life. Officers and commanders are alight with purpose. The deadliest legions of Mars and the Rim prepare to fall over Endymion. The mechanical whir of spit tubes replaces chatter. I draw a deep, measured breath. The catheter tugs, a reminder of my body’s presence beneath the shell. The tube charges, presses, and then hurls me into space.

The launch jerks me violently; sight, sound, and touch merge into a blur. For a heartbeat I forget myself, a soul adrift in sensation. My perception of reality warps as we coast through the void. Then my eyes open and I see Luna below. The pale blue orb sprawls, seas and mountains stretching across the northern and southern hemispheres, cities clinging to the equatorial belt. TorchShips and destroyers steer us straight at Endymion, shields flickering then disappearing. Quicksilver’s warning cuts through memory: nine minutes.

My mind drifts, as it always does at this height, to Eo. To the song that changed everything. I trace the chain of events that followed: Nero and the hanging, the Sons, the Institute, the Martian civil war, Earth, Mars, Ilium; every decision that led me here.

I see her as she was, red hair dim in the glow of the mines, eyes full of something larger than our little world of Lykos. I think of the child we might have raised, the life they never had the chance to live. Would she have found peace in the deep beneath Mars? Would I have been enough to keep her from singing? From flying away like a caged bird set free? The guilt burns, fierce as the heat building along my StarShell, searing through the armour and into the heart it protects.

Then I think of Mustang, of Pax and little Fortuna. My new family. They have filled a void I once thought endless. Their love, and mine for them, runs deeper than the oceans of Venus and wider than the black between the stars. They are the home I lost and the hope I built anew.

I must win the day for them. For her. For all who bled and all who still believe.

The silence breaks as we pierce through Luna’s atmosphere in a wash of heat. Sound floods back in brutal waves. For a heartbeat we fall unopposed. A thousand StarShells cascade downward in terrible synchrony. Peripheral railguns swivel sluggishly. Their missiles arc and vanish into nothing, impotent against the speed and precision of our descent.

Above, TorchShips carve protective arcs, intercepting missiles with surgical patience. Destroyers neutralize ion bombs before they can interfere. Some strikes break through. One missile finds a StarShell and blossoms into fire. I see Aurelius au Festus flash white before tumbling out of our formation in a smoking heap. My stomach knots and relaxes. Loyalty dies in elegant, terrible silence.

The cloud layer seizes us. Moisture sizzles and vaporize against our shells, painting the world in technicolour. Endymion rises below. The streets and canals stretch out beneath us, punctuated by small, stubborn bubbles of green. I instruct Aeneas on landing vectors, Cassius listening in silently. Impact approaches not as a single moment, but as a choir of strikes. I adjust my GravBoots’ thrust, then land with a thud that rattles teeth and spine.

I lift my hatch into a world of light, smoke, and dull heat. Dust bites at my lungs. The tang of scorched metal and ozone fills the air. Around me, orders crash in waves, shouted, screamed, carried by the chaos of an assault from the heavens. We have made landfall.

I drop to one knee and scoop a handful of soil, letting it sift between my fingers. I inhale deeply, letting the grit and heat fill my lungs. Conquest is a tangible thing. The time of Lune has ended. The Reaper of Mars has arrived.

The surge of emotion strikes like a hammer. Triumph, sorrow, rage, all compressed into a single flash. It peaks, then recedes, leaving a cold, hard clarity. I rise fully to my feet, the heat of the battlefield pressing in. Every sense is alive: the crackle of GravBoots, the sharp tang of iron in the air, the chorus of voices giving shape to war. I feel the weight of every slave who ever bled, every brother who died in the mines, every child taught to fear the Gold. They are here with me now. Every heartbeat echoes in the ground beneath, a pulse of reclamation.

Aeneas lands a few paces away. His hatch clatters open and he retches violently, a right of passage during a first Iron Rain. “Prime landing, my Goodman,” I say with slight amusement. A string of Ionian curses tumble from him as he rights himself, dusky golden eyes sweeping the city ahead. The eastern edge stretches before us, kilometres separating us from the gravLoop that links Endymion to Hyperion.

The city seems serene from this distance, yet I know better. Thick forests give way to the HighColour districts, bastions of resistance that will test our will. Legions are already assembling, preparing to meet our mad charge with steel and gunfire. Comms buzz with the steady, unrelenting rhythm of reports: Legates, Tribunes, Gray Centurions confirming rallying points and troop positions.

Above, StarShells continue to descend in disciplined chaos. Hundreds of HivePods spiral through clouds thick with smoke, disgorging Grays trained to strike with lethal precision. RipWings emerge from destroyers, tearing toward Luna Defence Command and other fortified targets. Missiles leap and arc, detonating in showers of fire that blot the sky. The city was a place of calm architecture and unrestrained fury, now that intricate tableau of human ingenuity prepares to face violence.

“Legates report,” I call into the comms. Answers filter back: Daxo, Cassius, Hector, Xana au Telamanus, Oriens au Lux, Gaius au Hostus. One by one, each confirms their status. The first wave of legions has touched down on Lunese soil.  The city trembles beneath our feet. Smoke curls from shattered pylons. Streets erupt in fire and fury. RipWings dance between beams of ionized light. It is beautiful. Terrible. The myth of the Reaper realized in flesh and steel.

I glance at Aeneas. His eyes hold the same fire I feel burning in my chest. We are no longer shadows in the sky. We are a storm given shape. And in that instant, I know it: Endymion will remember the day the Reaper fell upon it.

We are the new Conquerors.

***

Three hundred and thirty thousand of us made landfall. Twenty thousand did not. Their bodies smoulder in the fields east of the city, scattered in pieces. Twenty thousand gone in minutes. The thought passes through me like an aftershock. So many lives snuffed out, so little trace left behind.

The survivors march. Golds, Grays, and Obsidians. Peerless Scarred lope ahead. Stained following behind, led by my Venatores of Legio IV Alata. Valdir and his warriors can carve through Golds with the grim efficiency of a human chaff cutter. Gray Lurchers twist through the ranks, bodies shifting as if pulled by invisible tides. They are all the finest killers of this age, and they move with purpose. The sound of them fills the plain; a deep metallic thunder, the breathing of a vast machine made of men.

I lead them from the eastern edge, through the forests. The branches shake with the wake of our passage. Birds flee north in frightened flocks. Ahead, Endymion spreads like a wound of light, its towers sharp against the storming sky.

The Rim phalanxes break away, a hundred thousand strong. Their formation ripples forward, gliding through the arteries of the city to root out what remains of the Society’s defenders. They move to seize the ground-to-orbit cannons that lie dormant from Quicksilver’s sabotage. Soon those guns will rise again, and their thunder will carve a path through the upper atmosphere for the next wave. That wave will carry my wife. She will descend at the head of half a million more who wait above, coiled in orbit, ready to fall upon this world. The thought steadies me. I will clear her path.

Our advance surges deeper into the city. The first defenders appear through the haze. Golds of the Legio V Capreae, their insignia still bright upon their armour. Behind them, the Legio IX Belbus and the Legio XI Aurei Basilisci rally, veterans clinging to a dying order in its final throes. Their commanders gather on a wide concourse strewn with marble statues and fallen transports. Isa au Thani, Britannia au Cerana and Swati au Dlami. They are well armed, disciplined, and desperate.

“Form line.” My voice carries through the comms, a low growl that cuts through static. The legions obey. Our ranks tighten like a closing fist. The clash comes like the meeting of storms.

The Peerless surge ahead, PulseFists blazing before razors unfurl in sweeping arcs of multihued terror. The Venatores lead the Obsidians, hunting enemy Peerless with methodical hunger. Grays lay down volleys of gunfire, their rifles stuttering munitions before they drive forward into brutal close combat. The air fills with the sound of gunfire, the smell of heated alloy and the savoury stench of human flesh.

Plasma fire streaks through the gloom. Razors sing. Armour shatters. The world dissolves into a blur of motion and noise. The enemy fire is precise, each burst measured and cruel, but our momentum is greater. Obsidian berserkers crash through the Gray cohorts, PulseAxes cleaving bodies apart. Stained warriors follow, chanting the songs of the Vale as they carve paths through defenders who have never seen such madness.

I fight in the centre. The heart of this battle. Every motion in my StarShell is deliberate. The pulse of my Aegis hums at the edge of hearing. I cut through the Belbus line, feeling the resistance of armour, bone, and flesh. A Gold’s helm splits open beneath my blade. Blood sprays into the smoke. I feel nothing but the rhythm of the work. My movements are fluid and fast, turning soldiers into bloody pulp.

The Aurei Basilisci make their stand at the steps of the gravLoop terminal. Isa, their commander, raises her standard, her voice ringing with defiance. She dies beneath a storm of plasma before the banner touches the ground. The Golden Basilisks break, and the killing becomes slaughter.

To the west, Britannia au Cerana of the Belbus rallies her cohort for one last charge. The Carthii client burns with fury, her armour gleaming, her face bare and proud. She screams a challenge at Aeneas. He meets her head-on. They trade blows, razors stiffening into metre-long blades before snapping into whips in the space of a heartbeat. He feints a stagger, swats her weapon aside, and severs her head with a single stroke. Her body collapses among her dying men, and the cry that follows breaks their spirit. My lancer has taken his first standard.

The rout spreads like fire in dry grass. The survivors flee toward the city’s heart, but there is nowhere left to go. GravBoots roar above the rooftops. RipWings and corvettes descend in formation, mowing them down with their chainguns and automatic rifles. The eastern districts fall silent but for the hiss of cooling metal and the moans of the wounded.

When it is over, the sky burns orange. The air is thick with dust and the smell of death. Three legions of Golds lie broken. The streets of Endymion are ours. I stand beside Cassius, Thraxa, and Aeneas at the mouth of the gravLoop. It runs west toward Hyperion. Behind us, the legions assemble again, their banners red with blood. My comms buzz with the voice of a Rim Chiliarchos.

“Cannons secure. Preparing the highway. Second wave in ten.”

I look back at what we have done, at the city burning. The streets are littered with bodies. The screams have faded to a low, living hum. A world will fall, and I feel the weight of it settle upon my shoulders.

Then my eyes lift to the sky, where a new armada of StarShells and HivePods begins its descent. It has only been thirty minutes since landfall. Thirty minutes, and already my mad hunger grows.

I am coming, Octavia.

Chapter Text

Darrow

Hyperion, the Jewel of Luna, is a fever dream beyond the horizon. A metropolis locked in an endless summer, shimmering with heat and arrogance. I glimpse it through the warped glass of the transport as the cabins soar along the gravLoop. My pulse beats hard in my throat, a mix of anticipation and the quiet dread that comes before history is made. For more than seven centuries, no army has dared to strike at House Lune here, in their citadel. Now my vanguard of Peerless Scarred, Stained and Lurchers rush toward its gates.

Mustang commands an even greater sea behind us. Armoured Reds and Browns. Veteran Golds. The quiet shadows of Sefi’s Obsidians. Legions from Martian and Rim Houses. Eight hundred and fifty thousand warriors pressing forward, waiting to enter the wound we will carve.

The transport, a chain of linked cabins, shivers as it grinds to an unexpected halt. Lights flutter. Power dies in a slow sigh. The silence that follows is thin and uneasy. I hear it in the soldiers around me. A rasp of whispered guesses. The faint crackle of fear masked as curiosity.

“Everyone out,” I order, my voice steady. “Octavia knows we are coming. We finish the approach on foot. Four kilometers to the station. Expect resistance the moment we breach the gravLoop.”

They nod. Hunger burns in their eyes. We disembark into the raw heat of Luna, boots striking steel. I move into a dead sprint, the vanguard falling in behind me with the relentless cadence of a marching storm. Some surge ahead on GravBoot bursts, then settle back into the rhythm of the run.

The gravLoop station rises in the distance, a massive nexus of white stone and steel. It serves the entire equatorial belt. Now it is silent. Deathly silent. The hairs along my spine prickle upright. The air tastes wrong. Empty. Expectant. A trap waits here. I can feel the shape of it like a shadow behind a door.

My Venatores spread ahead in groups of three. Fulgur Bellator Greens and Gray Lurchers flank them, their movements quick and wary. The station yawns open, empty as a tomb. No bodies. No signs of retreat. Only a stillness that presses close upon the skin.

I signal the forward two cohorts to sweep the exits.

“Break the tunnel. We advance through the forest,” I order.

Explosives crack through the quiet. The access wall collapses outward. Heat and dust rush past us into a forest of tall silver pines. We spill into the open, the station behind us like a severed artery.

The march begins. Thirty thousand in the forward column. All killers. All silent. The forest bends with our passage. Birds flee. The soil shakes beneath armoured feet.

Hyperion gleams through the trees, its towers bright as polished bone under a pale sky. The sight tightens something in my chest. This city believes itself inviolate. It believes itself eternal. Soon it will understand the truth.

We slow as we close in on the tree line. The Greens scan for signals. My Grays murmur into short range comms. Nothing. No movement. No fortifications. No patrols. That silence becomes a pressure. A warning.

A Venatore raises his fist. I hold up my own. The column halts. A faint glimmer stretches across the ground between two trees. A thread the width of a hair. Too perfect. Too straight.

Trip wire.

“Shields!” I roar as the world explodes.

Railgun slugs streak from hidden guns buried deep beneath the forest floor. A storm of metal rips into the forward most ranks before their Aegis surge to life. Men vanish in sprays of red mist. Armour caves inward like crushed stone. Half a hundred Peerless Scarred die before the shields bloom around us in a hard flash of blue.

The ground convulses. Additional charges buried in the soil detonate in a precise pattern. Trees shear apart. Smoke boils upward. A shock wave slams into me and I feel my boots skid a half stride through shredded pine needles.

“Forward!” I shout. “Clear the killing zone!”

My Obsidians surge outward, roaring like beasts. Greens scramble to enslave enemy auto targeting systems. Grays dart through broken brush to locate the hidden rail pits. Pulse fire flashes through the haze as they disable the guns one by one.

Another volley screams from the forest edge. This one slams into our shields and dissipates in showers of light. The trap burns itself out in under a minute, but the carnage is immense. Bodies lie in broken sections. Armour torn open. Soil soaked dark. The air reeks of blood and singed pine.

I breathe once, steady and cold.

“Advance,” I say.

We emerge from the shattered grove in a single measured push, our boots sinking into churned earth. Smoke coils behind us like something alive. Ahead rises Hyperion, proud in its towers and shining like the long memory of Gold power. The air tightens as we cross the final veil of trees.

Then we see them.

Lines of armour polished to a cold gleam. Standards lifted high enough to catch the harsh morning light. Rank upon rank of disciplined killers. Legio Zero Pavor Nocturnus. Legio I Serpens. Legio III Aquilae. Legio XV Taurus. Legio XX Fulminata. And others I cannot name at a glance, their heraldry unfamiliar yet unmistakably elite. The first wall of Hyperion’s defence drawn across our path.

A murmur shivers through my ranks. The distance between us feels thin, like a breath held in the throat of the city. This is the true beginning. The moment when every march, every oath, every death that brought us here finally demands its price.

The field waits for one signal. I lift my slingBlade and feel the weight of the armies gather around me.

The real battle begins.

***

Atalantia

At the western edge of Hyperion, less than a kilometre from the great gravLoop station, I watch the Reaper and his vanguard emerge. They break from the deep forest of silver pines like a shadow peeling away from the earth. Smoke trails behind them where the trees still smoulder from the first trap they survived.

Four hundred thousand hastily assembled soldiers wait in ranks to either side of me. Helms shine like a sea of hammered sunlight. Serpens hold the front lines with shields locked tight. Behind them stand Lune Cohorts, loyal and cold, their faces unreadable beneath their visors. Only two other Legates share this field with me. Lores au Trachus to my right. Scipia au Falthe to my left. All the rest are tied up across the skies of Luna where the Sovereign demands absolute vigilance.

I draw a breath that tastes of pine and hot metal.

“Fulminata!”

My voice cracks across the ranks like a whip. The reply comes at once. Thousands of boots strike the stone in a single thunderous stomp. The sound rolls across the valley and slams into the forest wall where the Reaper now stands. The other legions answer too, saluting across the open ground with raised shields and primed weapons. Our formation becomes a living barrier.

Across the clearing, I see the enemy soldiers shift into their lines. Their movements are sharp, disciplined, almost ritual. Interesting. He brings no LowColours today. Only Grays, Obsidians, and Golds. A curated spear tip. A statement of intent. Devious little man. A Gold in every way that matters, whatever he claims to be.

He lifts his curved blade. His army stills. And in the charged quiet between us, the worlds hold their breath. The air quivers before the first shot. A tension so sharp it cuts the breath in my throat.

A roar of pulse fire splits the morning. Blue streaks lash across the field. Our shields snap alive in a shimmering wall. The first volley slams into it, exploding against the curvature of the defence in showers of light. A dozen soldiers stagger under the impact. A few fall. I bark the order.

“Return fire!”

Thousands of rifles rise as one. Grays unleash a rolling storm of plasma. The recoil thrums through the ranks. The volley races toward the Reaper’s forward cohorts and crashes into their shields with a blinding burst that ripples through their formation. Bodies twist. Armour sparks. The forest behind them shudders under the stray fire.

The Reaper responds with brutal speed. His Obsidians surge forward to anchor the front. Their enlarged Aegis meet the next volley in a grinding wall of energy. His Grays pour through the gaps, firing in tight cross patterns meant to peel open our lines. They advance with dangerous precision.

“Advance by ranks,” I call.

Our legions shift. They step forward with locked shields. Cohorts behind them raise rifles over their shoulders, delivering shot after shot in a steady cadence. The ground trembles under the slow push of thousands of soldiers grinding toward the invaders.

For a moment it feels like war written in perfect script. Volley. Step. Shield. Volley. Step. The rhythm of seven centuries of doctrine.

Then the script tears.

A blast rips through the left flank. Dust rises in a violent cloud as several of my forward ranks buckle. The Reaper uses the opening at once. His Venatores crash into the gap like a falling mountain. They hit our shield wall with such force that it folds in places. Men tumble backward. Shields twist in hands slick with sweat and blood.

“Hold the line,” I shout, but I can feel the shift. Order begins to fray.

Our front tries to close the breach. Their shields lock but the press of bodies behind them breaks their formation. Pulse rifles are abandoned. Blades come out. The field narrows into a crush of bodies where rank and file mean nothing.

The Reaper is already inside the chaos. A bright figure in crimson armour. His Golds rush with him, cutting deep into the press. Our own Gold officers answer, drawing their razors with the cold resolve of sworn duellists. The clash rings out. Sparks scatter through the smoke.

Disciplined firing lines dissolve. Cohorts disintegrate into knots of fighters. The careful cadence of volleys is drowned under the screams of close combat. Shields crack. Blades carve the air. Blood spatters across the stone as two great tides collide without breath or mercy. The battle has broken its chains. The melee consumes the field.

I prepare to engage. My bodyguard gathers at my flanks, an extension of my will, a single mind in many armoured frames. I have longed to meet that creature in battle again, to measure myself against the myth. Yet as the clash thickens and the field begins to convulse, doubt creeps into me. I do not see him now. I see only the effect of him. The buckling of my lines. The sudden scatter of disciplined ranks. The screams that cut through the din. He moves somewhere inside that chaos, a storm with a centre that refuses form.

Lores edges closer from the crush of bodies. Fear pools in his eyes. We outnumber them by a hair, on paper at least, but he knows. He fought for the Reaper. He has never faced him. The doubt in his face is the doubt I feel in my chest. His Venatores carve through my Golds with brutal precision. Their targeting is uncanny, beyond the cold mastery of any Praetorian. I watch my Peerless cut down one by one, each death a collapse in the shape of my command.

“QRs,” I roar.

My voice tears across the field. Grays wheel the heavy cannons on their gravPods into position. They angle the barrels and unleash thunder. The first volley erupts in a drumbeat of pressure and light. Entire clusters of the Reaper’s back ranks vanish in sprays of blood and armour fragments. Twenty at a time fall. The advance hesitates. Not enough. They push on.

“Ten rounds then retreat,” I command through the comms. The order rolls out through the channels. The shape of the battle begins to change.

The Reaper pauses. His Golds and Stained halt with him, a tide arrested by its moon. He turns, scanning the field with slow deliberate patience, as though he has all the time in the world. Then his gaze finds me.

I feel it. A pressure behind the ribs. Involuntarily, my foot slips a half step before I can stop it. His helm retracts. His face appears, calm in the smoke. He lifts his blade to his throat. With a single clean motion, he draws the edge across the air in front of him, a silent promise. He wants my head.

My stomach knots. I turn from him and force my mind back to command. The retreat must be controlled. We are only here to stall him as the other legions gather from all around Luna. I press the orders through the chaos, fighting the urge to look back.

The storm is coming.

***

Mustang

I follow in the wake of my husband’s carnage. At the gravLoop station, I find the first hints of Octavia’s violence. Bodies are strewn on the path to the city. Scorch marks where silver pines once stood. A single survivor crawling toward me with one arm raised in silent plea. 

As I venture deeper into Hyperion, I see my husband’s reply. Shattered helmets. Burned armour. Pools of cooling blood that catch the Sol’s light. His passage is unmistakable. Bodies scatter the path toward the central districts, broken by his fury and the momentum of his army. The air trembles with the steady percussion of weapons. The battle is already in full fever.

Four hundred and fifty thousand march behind me. My descent from orbit cost lives despite the highway created by Endymion’s railguns. RipWings came at us in layered attacks, stripping entire companies from the air before our orbital guns could intercept. Even now I feel the weight of those deaths gathered at my shoulders. Every survivor at my back trusts me to carry them into victory. Or at least into meaning.

We race toward Octavia’s Citadel. For three years we have bled across multiple spheres. We often fought on her terms. Here, finally, is the strike of our choosing. Yet as we close in on her throne I feel the knife edge under my feet. Triumph or ruin. Nothing in between.

Vela au Raa keeps pace at my side. Taxiarchos of the Midnight Phalanx, her eyes sweep the ruins ahead with calm, predatory focus. There is a hardness in her shape that reminds me of Thraxa stripped of laughter. Resolute, obedient, with an unnatural appetite for violence; a soldier made for a single task.

“Your…husband is quite the warrior,” she says at last. The words are awkward. She only knows the stories. Io kept her far from the places where he forged his myth.

“He is,” I answer, breath steady as we run. The streets tremble with distant detonations. “Let us reach him before he finishes off our quarry.” A glint passes through her eyes, a flash of unfettered joy. We press on.

The city opens up around us in ruin. The clean avenues have become narrow corridors of bodies and armour. Units clash in isolated knots. No civilians remain. Only soldiers caught in the push and pull of collapsing fronts. The air vibrates with the constant percussion of Pulse rifles and the crackling roar of Razors drawn across metal.

“Took your time, wife,” Darrow says in my private channel. His voice is rough and alive.

“Didn’t want to steal your thunder, husband,” I answer. We share a brief laugh. A small island of warmth in a sea of violence.

“We need to break away soon. Ready the Lionguard.”

I move without hesitation, signalling with clear authority. The Lionguard gather around me, shields high, faces cold with discipline.

“Anippe,” I say into the general channel. “You command the field.”

Across the avenue I see her lift her fist in salute before turning back to direct her Grays into the next wave of defenders.

We pull free from the larger front and drive toward Darrow, my guard shifting into a spear around me. Ahead, through smoke and broken stone, I see the flare of his blade as he cuts a path toward the Citadel. Toward Octavia. Toward the end.

I race to join him.

***

Minutes later we draw within sight of the Citadel of Light. White stone rises behind the trees like the prow of an ancient ship cutting through a dark sea. I have not looked upon it since the day I fled Luna in the belly of a frigate. I remember the press of steel walls. The cold breath of fear. The knowledge that Octavia could shoot me down from the sky. That past feels distant now. As if it belonged to another woman.

Darrow stands beside me as we make our final preparations. The HoloMap floats between us, colours shifting across the projection as we trace the last approach. We must reach the Sovereign. We must cut through her Praetorians and her faithful legions and seize the senate before she can scatter them. They will be gathered in the Curia as the Compact commands in crisis.

“Be safe, my love,” I say.

He lifts his head from the map. That brief flicker of boyish confusion touches his face. The same look he wore when I told him I loved him for the first time. He steps close, hand resting at my waist. He kisses me with a tenderness that feels almost defiant amid the storm around us. I feel the pulse of his love in the hollow between our breaths.

“Always,” he says, and his helm slides up. We advance.

The forest surrounding the Citadel stretches for acres, its trunks tall and silvered by the sunlight. Our columns move through it in silent waves. Ahead, the villas of the Great Houses rise like ghosts of a world built on illusion. Marble facades. Hanging gardens. The trappings of dynasties that believed they would rule forever.

The Lion of Augustus still flies above our old estate. A red and gold banner against the pale sky. A soft ache twists through me. My father would have wanted to see this day.

When the first buildings of the Citadel rise before us, our pace slows. The air shifts. The smell of stone replaces pine. The terrain transitions from wild earth to the polished geometry of power. The Praetorians, ranks upon ranks in purple and onyx armour, meet us wthout ceremony.

Accompanying them, Legio Frentis with their golden plumes. To their left, Legio Gemina in mirrored masks. Behind them, the iron wall of Legio Ferrata, every soldier a pillar of forged discipline.

Darrow gives the signal and our armies fragment into fast moving cohorts even as we begin to engage them. We push forward in precise formation but never in one mass. We cannot offer them a single target. My Lionguard break apart into flanking groups. Winged Legion and Adustio follow suit.

The fight pushes into the Citadel proper. Marble columns rise around us like giant bones. Statues of Sovereigns watch from shadowed alcoves. It is not one cohesive battle but many disordered skirmishes.

My own path bends toward the Ferrata. Moira au Grimmus stands at their head. The puffy woman of old is gone. In her place stands a towering figure encased in sleek black armour that hugs her powerful frame as if forged upon her body. Her helm retracts. Her face, broad and sharp in equal measure, is framed by a wild mane of golden curls that seem to burn in the reflected light. Her eyes lock on mine with the practiced calm of a killer who has rehearsed this moment in private fantasies.

“Come then, Virginia,” she says. Her voice carries like a cold bell across the ranks. “Let us see what your slave has made of you.”

I draw my razor.

Moira steps forward. Her soldiers part to let her pass. The Lionguard mirror them. A small corridor forms between us, lined by soldiers who understand that this duel will decide the tempo of the entire front.

We move.

Her opening strike comes like a hammer blow. Heavy. Merciless. I twist aside and feel the wind of her blade skim my side. She follows with a snapping backhand meant to remove my head. I block high. Sparks spit between us. Her strength is monstrous. It drives me two steps back. She grins, that sharp smile that cuts deeper than a razor.

“You always fought soft,” she taunts.

I answer with speed. A flurry aimed at her wrists to force her guard open. She turns each cut aside with brutal efficiency, stepping forward, grinding space out of the corridor. Her size crowds me. She tries to pin me against a column. I drop low, swipe at her knee, and roll away as her heel stomps where my head had been. Marble cracks under her boot.

She comes again. No pause. No breath. She overwhelms. Her style is pressure without end. Her blade arcs overhead in a brutal cleaver swing. I meet it with both hands and feel the shock burn down my arms. Even with my GravBoots anchoring me, the blow rattles my bones.

She leans close, breath hot on my cheek. “Octavia was right,” she says. “You were always too gentle for rule.”

I twist my razor sideways, redirecting her blade along its curve. Her own momentum pulls her forward a half step. That is all I need. I slash across her chest. A shallow cut. But blood beads at the seam. Her nostrils flare with anger.

Her helm covers her face as she lunges. A straight thrust intended to impale. I sidestep, parry, and cut upward. She catches the strike on her Aegis and punches me in the throat with her off hand. Pain explodes through my neck. I stagger back, coughing.

She presses the advantage. A whirlwind of strength and heavy strikes. Her blade whistles against my left arm. I feel the armour dent. She tries to break my guard. Her voice rises in a low growl, distorted by her helm.

“Kneel.”

I force breath back into my lungs, finding my centre. My father’s voice whispers in memory. Calm. Precision. Intent. That is how a lion hunts.

Moira swings wide, overconfident. I step inside her reach. My razor ignites in the air between us. Our armour grinds together as I twist under her guard. Her eyes widen. She tries to wrench backward but I am already moving.

A single clean line.

The blade punches through armour and opens her throat. She drops her weapon. Her hands fly to her neck. Blood spills down her breastplate in a bright curtain. Her helm retracts. She stares at me with something like disbelief. Then fury. Then nothing at all. Her body falls at my feet.

For a heartbeat the Ferrata stand frozen. The sound of battle fades. The air is heavy with the scent of steel and blood. Then they break under the barrage of my soldiers.

I step over her corpse and lift her head by the curls. It is warm. Wet. Shockingly human. The Lionguard close around me as we push deeper. The Citadel breathes ahead. Waiting. Watching. And something inside it hungers for the end of all this.

A colossal gate shaped into twin crescent moons stands imperiously at the base of the tower leading to the Ocular Sphere. The alloy glitters like living stone, veined with channels of faint blue light that pulse like a heartbeat. Memories of my year here come flooding back. Mornings studying with Moira and her Politicos. Nights spent with Cassius. Afternoons day dreaming about Darrow. That is in the past now.

We approach. The clash of razors and the buzz of rifles tells me the battle still rages behind me, but here a strange quiet settles. It is the hush of deep sanctum. The air is warm. Heavy. It feels as if the Citadel itself is watching me. Moira’s severed head hangs from my grip, her golden curls dripping with blood that patters softly onto the marble. I know Octavia will be somewhere in this tower and Moira’s head will be my ticket in.

Then I hear a voice that chills blood. I can practically hear the snarl that adorns her face before I turn.

“You will pay for that head, little lion.”

Chapter Text

Darrow

The fighting in the citadel feels like a scrimmage. Pockets of legionnaires clash, their skirmishes small only in comparison to the scale of the storm beyond. A hundred knots of fighters collide and break across the grounds, a thousand local wars inside one greater one. Winged Legion and Praetorians pull toward each other as if by instinct, each eager to prove who stands higher in the hierarchy of killers. The legend of my soldiers has swollen. The Venatores especially. Their name carries ahead of them like a rumour of death.

I leave them behind, hunting for prey that matters. Thraxa and Aeneas fall in with my guard as we move through the citadel grounds. In the near distance, shapes resolve through drifting smoke. Tall. Fast. Lionguard advancing deeper into the citadel.

I angle toward them. The path tightens. Felled stone gives way to intact marble. Heartbeats later we cross the crescent gates that mark Octavia’s inner courts. The shift in atmosphere is immediate, the sound of the greater battle muffled by high walls and manicured hedges. We slip through trimmed gardens and peaceful courtyards until I see a knot of soldiers ahead. Their formation tightens around a central figure.

My wife.

Her Lionguard form a living barricade around her. In her grip hangs the severed head of Moira but it is the two figures besieging her that chill me.

Aja au Grimmus, clad in the gold and midnight blue of the Protean Knight. Her presence is a gravity well. Controlled. Patient. Deadly. To her right stands Apollonius au Valii-Rath in the armour of the Rage Knight. Dark red. Heavy. His helm, unlike the laughing wolf of his predecessors, is shaped into a bull.

The Praetorians keep distance from Apollonius and his soldiers. The two legions share ground only because the moment demands it. No affection. No unity. I tap my comms and hail Cassius, Hector and Vela, my closest blades. A sharp breath fills my lungs as I take the final steps forward.

“AJA!”

My shout rolls across the courtyard. She turns slowly, helm retracting with a hiss, revealing the shaved crown of her head and the hard architecture of her face. Apollonius mirrors her, the bull splitting open to show his manic smile. A cruel thing. His eyes spark with raw delight when he sees me.

“The Reaper of Mars,” he says. “How I have missed you, old friend. I am disappointed by your lie. Yet I remain grateful for the gift you gave me.” He motions, taking in the entirety of the battlefield. “This war. This beautiful chaos. It freed me from the dull tedium that others call life.”

His fevered praise earns a cold cut of the eyes from Aja. I do not give him a second glance. I meet Aja’s stare and let her see the simple truth. I am the one she hunts. I am the prize she crossed worlds to claim. Let her forget Mustang. Let her forget all else.

The air tightens.

The silent duel of wills breaks when Cassius bursts into the courtyard with a surge of legionnaires. Relief washes through me. Strength steadies my ribs. I turn back to face my enemies with renewed purpose. Aja remains calm as stone. She touches her comms, listens to a quiet report, then speaks flatly.

“Surrender, Reaper. Your little gambit has run its course. Units from every city of Luna are inbound. Your soldiers will break. The Ash Lord will grind your armadas to pulp.”

The sky answers her. A roar like a tearing of worlds shakes the citadel walls as RipWings and corvettes claw across the air. The deeper thrum of assault frigates follows. Then the cavernous growl of distant TorchShips. A weight drops through my chest. Cold. Heavy. Final. Even with Quicksilver and the shock of our Iron Rain, we are outmatched. Outclassed.

Yet I will not meet my end as a coward. I give Cassius a sharp signal. He surges past me toward Apollonius, a golden streak in pale light. I follow for a breath, hiding in his shadow, then cut clean toward Aja.

“You owe me a debt, Aja au Grimmus.”

My voice carries the full grief of my life. Ragnar. Lorn. Quinn. Faces that live in the marrow of my soul. The dead she took from the world. The dead who trusted me. The dead I failed. Their pain tightens my grip. It sharpens my will. It mottles my soul. This is my moment. My last shout into the wind before history folds me away. I will end her.

Cassius meets Apollonius in a crack of metal. He does not speak. His helm rises as he collides with the larger man. His smaller frame cuts through space with the brisk flow of the Willow Way. Apollonius grins as the plates of his bull helm rise to mirror him. I turn back to Aja. My world narrows to the kill.

We circle each other. My razors breathe in my hands. Metal eager for motion. Her calm is maddening. Her stance narrow and patient, her eyes moving between my feet and the flicker of my wrists. She waits for the smallest blink. Her nebula razor coils in her hand like a serpent.

I strike first, both razors shifting into the Umbra stance of Shadowfall. Aja answers with quiet precision. The first meeting of our blades sends a ringing pulse up my arms. She stirs her razor in a spiral that presses into my guard.

“Impress me,” she murmurs. “I was disappointed by our last encounter.”

My jaw tightens. Fury smoulders.

She comes again. Heavier. Tighter. The duel swallows me. She moves with a grace sharpened since Earth. Her thrusts arrive at treacherous intervals, slight angles that strain my wrists. Her feet whisper across the stone in arcs so exact they feel predestined. A memory wounds me. Ragnar kneeling. Life spilling as she closed on him with this same cruel discipline.

We fall into a compact sequence. I strike low at her knee. She folds back and meets my blade with a hard ring. She wants to dismantle me piece by piece. I will deny her every inch. She glides forward in the Winter stance, as if carrying a torch for the dead in some ancestral hall. Her sudden movement tests my guard. Small. Almost delicate. Yet the razor moves as fast as thought.

Beside us, Cassius and Apollonius drift in their own orbit. The Minotaur roars like a beast freed from a cage. Cassius answers with silence. I slip right. Cassius breaks left in the same breath. The rhythm between us is instinctive. We cross paths.

Aja’s blade meets Cassius instead of me. His aegis flashes pale blue and absorbs her strike. Where Cassius stood, my white razor now arcs toward Apollonius. He swats it, but the point of Lorn’s violet blade slips through the gap and bites deeply into his shoulder.

The swap is seamless. Aja blinks. Apollonius snarls. Cassius and I bind both their blades, twist hard, and shatter their momentum.

We release. Aja staggers one step. Apollonius half a stride. The pause that follows is the first shared breath all four of us take. A moment suspended. Each of us measuring the others. Aja now faces Cassius. Apollonius faces me. Aja recalibrates her stance without any sign of panic. Apollonius gives a delighted laugh that chills my blood.

He meets my razors with a spinning fury. His strength reverberates through my bones. Every cut is a sentence. Every parry a judgement. The air feels sacramental for razors are sacred. Every small incision a promise to the dead and the living.

The duels settle into one shared cadence. Strokes arrive in the same instant. Aja’s whip cracks. Cassius’s blade hisses. Apollonius snaps. My twin razors answer. There is a moment when all five blades strike at once. Five arcs crossing the same still centre. Four breaths drawn like prayer. The plaza becomes a sacrosanct well of violence.

Strike. Parry. Retreat. Circle. Engage.

Cassius glides along Aja’s line with the exact rhythm she drilled into him. She recognises it. Contempt oozes from her. For a breath they move like mirrors. Cassius softer and more cunning. Aja faster and far crueller. Their tempo rises. He plants himself and lets the Willow Way run through him like water over polished stone. A soft inside strike slips through and opens her flank. She nods as if approving the attempt.

Apollonius snaps a wild lateral cut. It forces my wrists back. His blade grazes my armour then sinks into my forearm. My fingers spasm. Pain brightens my vision. He follows with a brutal overhead meant to cleave both my razors. My white razor dips. My violet rises. Together they shear the arc and bend his swing aside. The shock rolls through my shoulders. He wheels back and slams into me with his full weight. The blow buckles my ribs. I taste blood.

Above, Luna reinforcements continue their assault. One targeted sweep of rail fire decimates hundreds of my soldiers. Another takes thousands. The sky becomes a scythe. Did I lead the finest sons and daughters of Mars to a slaughter of my own making?

The Minotaur bellows and drives the crown of his helm into my chest. Breath vanishes. Cassius shouts something like my name and drives Aja back with a clean thrust that staggers her. I regain my footing and snap forward with renewed violence. The blow has stolen beats but not my fight. The intensity pushes technique into raw will. Razors become instruments of survival. We strike at the same shrinking ground. Metal sings. Stone grows slick.

Cassius cries out again. I turn. Aja drives her rigid blade toward his heart. I cut across the space. My greater mass slams her strike wide. We switch again. Silent as old hunters. Aja turns her full focus on me. Apollonius charges at Cassius. Each fighter adjusts. Each reclaims cadence. The old dances resume. Harder. Smarter.

At the edges of my vision the greater clash continues. Aeneas and Thraxa lead the Winged Legion against Aja’s Praetorians. Mustang and the Lionguard slip deeper into the citadel, cold and precise.

Aja drags me back with a sudden drive that nearly takes my head. Her whip lashes low for my ankle then climbs for my throat in the same blurred instant. I step deeper into the flow. My blade catches the angles that pull her whip wide. Her tempo settles into water. Mine into flame.

Cassius and Apollonius remain locked in their storm. Cassius moves with perfect form, each strike crisp. Apollonius answers with uninhibited lunacy. He seems to delight in each blow Cassius lands.

A targeted hail of slugs tears through the back ranks of my legionnaires. Shock reverberates through me. We are naked without orbital support.

Then we are on the back foot. Aja pushes me back one measured step after another. Her precision is suffocating. Cassius shifts into desperate withdrawal. His shoulders shudder under Apollonius’s hammering weight. We are surviving, not fighting. The air tastes of despair. My arms burn. My breath rasps. Aja closes the distance. Apollonius hunts Cassius down.

We are running out of time.

Then the sky splits open.

A deafening shriek descends as ThunderWings tear through the clouds. The sound barrier snaps with a rattling shock. Sleek shapes plunge toward the citadel in predatory formation. Their wings gleam with the heel of Sun Industries on one side and my slingBlade on the other.

For one suspended heartbeat every fighter freezes.

The spider shaped craft, native only to Deimos, unleash a hail of light that scours men and metal. Praetorians vanish in the opening strike. The air shimmers. The stone steams. These craft are heavier than their RipWing cousins and built for slaughter. Aja moves first. Her gaze sweeps the battlefield. She hunts for what is missing. She sees that Mustang is gone. She calculates the meaning instantly, surging toward the citadel interior. Focus absolute. Apollonius slips into the smoke with a grin carved into his face. Here one moment. Gone the next.

Two ThunderWings descend as the rest continue their run. Their hatches snap open. Two pilots step out in PulseArmour. One tall. One small and agile. Not Blues. Their helms retract.

Sevro. Victra.

My best friend grins as if he has been waiting his whole life for this moment. The Goblin is back. And he brings the fury of the Julii with him.

For a single heartbeat, everything in the world feels right.

“How?” I rasp.

The word barely clears my throat. The sky still burns with the pitched fight above us, the ground trembling beneath the guns of unseen ships. Yet, none of it reaches me. I stagger forward through the din and seize Sevro in a brutal embrace. He snarls at first, all elbows and profanity, but then I feel him soften for a spell. His arms cinch tight around me. A single anchored heartbeat. He is back.

I pull away only to catch Victra around the waist and lift her clear off the ground. Surprisingly, she laughs as I spin her, bright and fierce even now. When her boots touch stone again a hush settles in me. She has not seen me since I was unmasked as a Red. The uncertainty creeps in before I can stop it. She sees it in an instant and rests her hand on my shoulder with a gentleness at odds with the storm behind her.

“I do not care,” she says. “You are my friend, Darrow. You are my family.” Her eyes flick toward Sevro with a warmth I do not miss.

I turn to him fully and freeze. His eyes are Red. Not contacts. Not artifice. Real. Lived. My shock widens into silent disbelief.

“A gift,” he says, tapping beneath his eye. “From Mickey. Came with the return of my wits.”

“Are those mine?” I ask incredulously. His grin is pure mischief. Before he can answer, Cassius arrives just in time to grasp Sevro and pull him into a fierce embrace of his own.

“Get off me you curly haired cunt,” Sevro croaks, shoving him feebly. Still, he lets Cassius hold him all the same.

“How,” I manage when Cassius sets him down, my voice cracking. “How are you here? How can you…” The question collapses under the weight of too many impossible answers.

Sevro jerks a thumb toward the ThunderWings cooling behind them.

“Well,” he begins. I let out a short bark of a laugh and smack his back harder than I mean to.

“Ouch,” he squeals, rubbing the spot.

“Horsey said you really needed my help,” he continues. “I was still swimming in tangled consciousness but I caught the message. For the rest, Mickey and the Yellows did something…” His voice softens as his eyes drift to Victra. “And I was reminded of what I was leaving behind.”

The tenderness of the moment breaks something open in me. I pull him into another embrace, this one slower, deeper. Fitchner rises in my memory like a ghost pulled forward by grief.

“I am sorry, Goblin,” I whisper. “For your father. For everything. It was all my fault.”

He stiffens only for a second before rubbing my back in that awkward, almost parental way of his. As if comforting the one whose father died.

“It is all right, Reap. He died for a good cause. And I know he loved me.”

The memory crashes over me. Fitchner fighting Atlas over Victra’s still form. His body folding over hers. His courage. His loss. His dying smile that assured me everything would be alright. And now Sevro stands in front of me again. Alive. Clear eyed. Red eyed. My brother returned from the brink.

“We do not have time to waste,” Cassius cuts in, voice sharp, eyes darting to the streaking ThunderWings. “Those,” he says, gesturing to the squadrons, “will only buy us a few minutes. Octavia is still alive and kicking, and her Protean Knight is hunting Virginia.”

The words hit like a jolt of cold through my veins. Reality crashes back. The smell of scorched stone and ozone clings to my senses. The sound of metal on metal, distant and immediate, threads through the roar of engines and gunfire. I bark orders at the men around me, my voice cutting through the racket, a whip of sound that carries authority. GravBoots ignite beneath my feet with a hiss of charged air. I surge forward, blades at the ready, mind snapping into the rhythm of pursuit.

The citadel stretches before me. Inside me, the need to act, to strike, to seize the moment, drives me faster than thought.

Chapter Text

Lysander

The Iron Rain has fallen. Hyperion heaves beneath the weight of it. I feel the tremor of the world beneath my soles as Ajax pulls me deeper into the corridors of the Citadel of Light. The air tastes of dust and metal and smoke. A full ring of Praetorians moves with us in a tight formation, shields high. The Cloud Knight holds the rear. Joy and Storm flank us on the outer edges, young and watchful.

I am at the centre, one step behind Ajax. Kalindora keeps pace beside her father, the Love Knight, who scans the corridors with an eerie calm. The noise above us grows dim as the Citadel halls swallow the sounds of war. The ground rattles. The ceiling shakes. My home is being torn apart.

Ajax leans close, voice low. "Faster, Lys."

I obey, though each stride stings my legs. The usurpers have broken through the inner ring of the Citadel. The banners of House Lune still hang overhead, but in this trembling half-light they look false. I feel a sliver of shame at how my body quivers. I try to straighten my spine.

We take a sharp turn. The air grows colder. The last Sovereign who fled through these halls ran from his daughter. Now I run from the Reaper.

A distant roar echoes through the stone. Not human. Not machine. Something between. Joy’s helm retracts.

"Venatores," he murmurs.

Then they appear. Two titans of Winged Legion. Their PulseArmour, anathema for Obsidians, is engraved with two symbols: the winged sigil of Andromedus and the slingBlade of the Reaper. Below them, I see a commander’s fist on one and a subCommander’s on the other. I shiver. The slits of their armour glow red with the feral calm of killers. The Praetorians tense.

Valdir the Unshorn and Wulfgar the Whitetooth.

They stride into our path, Darrow’s greatest Obsidians

Storm speaks first, voice like grinding stone.

"We’ll kill these dogs."

Joy steps to his side. Six Praetorians peel from the formation to join them. The rest close tighter around me. Ajax pulls me forward.

"Do not look back. They can handle it."

I want to look. I do not. We push on.

The corridor opens into an old gallery of busts. Half the marble heads lie shattered across the floor. A fresh concussion rattles dust from the ceiling. Ahead, four figures appear through the haze. For a heartbeat I think they are statues.

Then my grandmother steps into the light.

Octavia au Lune is a bulwark against the raging storm. Her eyes reflect the fires above us. Her presence halts the Praetorians for the smallest moment before they bow. She carries herself like a monument to serenity.

At her right stands Aja. Armour scorched. Eyes cold enough to cut. At her left is Atalantia, singed and grim but still unbowed. Behind them, the Death Knight stands guard.

"Moira?" I whisper before I can think.

Aja answers without looking at me.

"She fell to Virginia’s razor."

A shiver passes through me. I see Virginia as I knew her. A young woman in my grandmother’s court. Her hair shining a lustrous gold, catching the light of the sunny Lunese afternoons. How she would ask what poems I had written for her and give me soft little kisses on the cheek. Oh, how I wished I were as tall as Cassius so I could impress her.

To imagine her leading this destruction confuses me. Yet she was always as sharp as Grandmother. The gens Augustii are known for their cruelty when need be. The Sovereign studies me only long enough to confirm that I still breathe.

"Maw," she says.

The Praetorians tighten around us. We rush toward the Dragon Maw. Halfway through the next junction, a voice crackles through one of the Praetorian comms.

"Eyes on Reaper. Units converge."

Corvus au Sejanus. His tone is clipped. Controlled. The message hits like a blow. Octavia lifts her chin, cold and imperial.

"Death. Love."

The Death Knight steps forward without hesitation. The Love Knight glances once at Kalindora. No final words. No plea. Only a brief touch of foreheads. A silent exchange I cannot hear. Then he is gone, razor in hand, running into fire. Kalindora does not cry. Her breath shakes once, barely. Ajax places a hand on her back before she steels herself again.

I watch the Love Knight vanish past a corridor. Something twists in me. One of the last pillars of my world peeling away into war. I think of my father and mother. I think of how I never told them I loved them. How their faces blur more each year, even though it has not been so long. Shame mixes with longing in a slow cold tide.

Ajax nudges me forward.

"Come on. Stay with us."

I run. Not with the grace of a prince but with the desperation of a child who realises he is almost alone.

***

Darrow

I carve through Praetorians with a god-like fury. Their armour splits beneath my razors as if the metal itself fears to test my will. Sevro, Cassius and Victra break away, vanishing into the depths of the Citadel in search of Virginia. Their absence leaves the air colder. Aeneas and Thraxa engage the Love Knight in a deadly weave of three. Luba au San is an elegant blade, swift and polished, yet elegance cannot match the weight of purpose. In less than a minute he falls. My lancer carves through his guard while Thraxa crashes into his flank and sends him reeling to his death.

The Death Knight meets me next. His stance is perfect. His footwork measured. It does not matter. His head leaves his shoulders before he understands he has lost.

Hector’s voice cuts through the comms. He has eyes on Octavia. A spark flares in my chest. Triumph. Rage. The final step of a three-year hunt. It drives me forward with violent haste. Aeneas and Thraxa alone can match my pace. We race through shattered halls and rubble strewn floors. The Citadel trembles with every distant barrage. Dust falls like grey snow.

The noise fades as we close on the coordinates Hector sent. The corridors narrow. The silence grows heavier. Hector au Norvo has been a constant shadow at my side. The heir of a Moon Lord. A man who should have turned from me long ago but did not. He championed my cause at the expense of his birth right. Even when his own kin cast him aside. I feel the old warmth of comradeship rise, foolish and human.

I open my comms, my pulse climbing at the thought of the Sovereign cornered at last.

"Is she alone" I ask.

"Negative, boss. Protean and her Praetorians. Cloud too."

My breath tightens. So be it.

I fly the last stretch, through a set of vast ornamented doors and into a chamber the size of a cathedral. Sunlight pours through the broken panes above in long golden shafts. Dust dances within them like drifting spirits. I slow, settling on the ruined floor. I do not enter deeper. Not yet. The Sovereign is here. I can feel it in the cold pressure of the air.

But I will not rush the kill. Not alone. Not without my blades beside me.

The others rush behind me. The chamber waits. Quiet. Expectant. As if holding its breath for what comes next.

I know it for a trap the moment Aeneas slips through the doors. They seal behind him with a clean finality that rings louder than any explosion. The vast chamber swallows the echoes of our arrival. Sunlight slips through the shattered ceiling in calm golden spears, painting the rubble in false peace. Instinct pulls my razors free. Their twin song fills the room. The Hydra stance comes as naturally as breath. Four blades in a slow revolving guard, eyes hunting the far entrance.

“Trap. Sharp eyes.”

A jamfield smothers the comms. Bloodydamn. Someone wanted us here. Someone who is not the Sovereign.

Footsteps. Then a procession of figures enters with a calm that does not suit battle. They are all in PulseArmour, each of a different colour.

Antonia au Severus. Lilath au Faran. Cyriana au Tanus. Vixus au Sarna. Tharsus au Valii-Rath. Boneriders.

Familiar faces twisted by choices long past. Then the Jackal. His smile is a thin, pale thing, almost absent of life. Hector follows behind him with the gait of a guilty man. He shrinks as if ashamed simply to exist in my sight.

My helm retracts. The air in the chamber is cold and dead. My eyes find Hector and something in my chest tears. A soft part of me that still remembers trust.

Before I can speak, another figure enters. Julia au Bellona walks with the fluid grace of a hunter. Her PulseArmour is a calm sky blue, her Scarred face as cold and unmoving as it was when I first saw her on Olympus. Six Gold knights of her Eagle Legion take their place behind her. Ready.

Silence stretches. Then the Jackal tilts his head with that familiar air of mild amusement.

"Brother, are you not happy to see me?"

His voice is not mocking. It is tired. Bitter. As if the universe has disappointed him once again and he intends to return the favour. Aeneas inches closer to me. Thraxa shifts her footing.

"Why?"

The word rips from me before I can temper it. It goes to Hector, not to the Jackal. The shame on the man's face deepens. The memory of Roque at my Triumph pulses through me like an old bruise.

"I am sorry, Darrow." Hector speaks as if the words twist his insides. His eyes remain fixed on the floor. "We cannot let you near the Morning Chair.” He pauses. “Octavia will die. This age will end. A new order will rise. But I cannot allow you to shape it. You would pull the worlds apart. You are a slave. It is not right. It cannot be right." He still cannot meet my eyes.

Coward.

He sounds like a child trying to explain away a broken vase. The Jackal and his allies cackle. It is a wild sound. Aeneas bristles. My own teeth clench.

"You spoke for me before the Moon Lords." My voice grows quieter, not louder. The quiet carries deep emotion. "You defended me. You risked yourself for me. From Earth. To the Ilium. To Mars. I trusted you."

The bitterness in my throat could drown me.

"We?" My gaze flicks to Julia and the others. The room feels smaller. Hector trembles, caught between them and me.

"Dido." He says the name like it is a confession.

Aeneas stiffens beside me as if struck.

The Jackal picks up the thread with a soft, cold smile.

"Dido au Raa. Or Dido Saud.” He shuffles forward. “She holds you responsible for all that befell her blood. Her family shattered. Her daughter dead. Her son taken by your cause. You really have made enemies of your own creation."

He steps forward, hands clasped behind his back like a scholar addressing a class.

"Octavia is a blight. None deny that. But allowing you to replace her would be far worse. Your birth. Your heritage. Your legend with the LowColours. Chaos without end. With Octavia’s death, with your death…”

He huffs, feigning a pained expression.

“The armadas above will fizzle away. The Houses will be forced into a tenuous balance. And the LowColours will return to their place. Better for the Society to survive with its power split among the Houses than fall beneath your dream.”

I see the sinister logic. That is what twists the knife. There is no madness here. Only cold arithmetic.

Eo’s dream. Fitchner’s. All of it teeters on the edge of ruin. Without my shadow at their back, the Rising will falter. A generation of Gold heirs will grow into creatures shaped by fear. Ajax. Lysander. Others yet unborn. My children will be hunted. My friends butchered. My people chained again.

The Jackal studies my face with a trace of satisfaction.

"You see it. You always were sharper than they believed."

Julia au Bellona watches with a stillness that reveals nothing. She carries her grief like a crown. And I stand in the heart of their trap, surrounded by the consequences of every choice I ever made.

“Aja still lives.”

I say it slowly. The air changes. A minute tremor runs through Julia’s jaw. It is the only sign she has heard me.

Aja. Fury of the Sovereign. Master of the Willow Way. The apex killer of the Society. The name settles like a stone dropped into deep water. No one speaks. Even the Jackal pauses.

Julia lifts her eyes to mine. They are winter pale. There is no forgiveness in them. Only the clear and terrible measure of a woman who has endured loss and made a kilt from its suffocating embrace. What passes between us is brief. A weighing. A knowledge that Aja alive means the battle above is not yet settled.

She turns to her knights.

“Withdraw.”

Her voice is quiet. The command strikes the chamber like a knell.

The Jackal snaps forward. His composure breaks.

“No! You do not get to leave. Not now. Not when he is here.”

Julia does not look at him. She saunters away from him. Her knights fall in at her back. The sound of their footsteps recedes with steady, implacable calm. It is like watching the tide pull away from a shore already broken by storm.

And as she leaves, I see it.  A cold acknowledgement.  A silent promise that we will meet again. That our final reckoning is yet to come. It is not trust. It is not alliance. It is only the bleak arithmetic of war. Then she is gone.

The Jackal stares after her, breathing hard. When he turns back to me, his restraint has vanished. His face is white with fury.

“You think you have won” he whispers. The whisper cracks. “You think you can take everything. My father. My sister. My world. And now you will stand there and watch her walk away from me. From justice. From you.”

His voice rises until it frays.

“No. No more. Kill them. Tear them apart.”

The Boneriders surge like a pack unleashed. Tharsus barrels forward with a snarl. Vixus hoots with wild delight. Thistle glides with a dancer’s poise. Lilath moves low, searching for an opening. Antonia circles at the edge, her smile small and cruel.

The Hydra stance tightens around us. Aeneas on my right, fervent and focused. Thraxa on my left, her breath steady as a drum before battle. There is no time for thought. Only will.

Tharsus reaches Thraxa first. Their blades meet with a blunt concussion that shivers dust from the rafters. She drives him back step by step, relentless as a storm tide.

Vixus vaults at me with a howl. His razor darts like a thrown snake. I parry. He laughs. He lunges again. I cut through the sound. His body folds to the floor with a look of surprise that never leaves his eyes.

Aeneas meets Cyriana in a precise whirl of steel. She is elegant. He is force given purpose. He pushes. She yields. One misstep. One slip of weight. Then a clean end. Her body sinks to its knees before it falls.

Lilath slides behind me with the silence of a shadow. Her razor flashes. I twist, but not fast enough.

A shout cracks across the chamber.

Hector.

He throws himself between us with no thought of survival. Lilath’s blade sinks into him. His breath leaves him in a ragged grunt. He collapses into my arms. His eyes are wide with shock, then soft with some quiet relief.

“Why” I breathe.

His lips move. The faintest smile. “She was wrong” he whispers. “About you.”

The light leaves him.

Thraxa glides silently and tears into Lilath from the side. Bone splits. Armour buckles. Lilath shrieks and drags herself backwards across the floor, one arm useless, her blood pooling behind her in slow dark trails.

Antonia has been watching with cold calculation. The moment the balance turns she is already moving. She slips through the far doorway like smoke, untouched.

The Jackal hesitates only a moment before following. His rage pulls him forward. He does not spare a glance for Lilath thrashing on the floor. His voice echoes from the passage.

Only Tharsus remains. His duel with Thraxa ends abruptly as he pulls away with a brutal twist of his body and races after Antonia and the Jackal.

Silence settles again. Thick. Dust laden. Heavy with everything lost.

I lower Hector to the ground. Aeneas stands with his chest heaving. Thraxa wipes a smear of blood from her visor with the back of her gauntlet.

The doorway where the Jackal disappeared stands open. Beyond it lies the path to the Sovereign. To Aja. To the heart of the ending.

The chamber feels like a grave behind us.

I step forward.

Chapter Text

Mustang

The Lionguard tightens around me as we move through the Citadel. Every bootfall is a drum beat inside my chest. My pulse hammers in my ears. The comms crackle with overlapping calls. The Sovereign spotted. Olympic Knights. My brother. The Bellona matriarch. Dozens of marks in a constellation of threats, yet only one matters.

We sweep around a corner and collide with an unexpected cadre, three figures at their head. A woman in jade armour glowing with a brilliant orange sunburst on her chest. A man in gleaming pale white plate crowned with the rising golden sun. And the last a short man in crimson armour alive with black howling wolves.

Their helms peel back in the same instant. The sight slams into me.

Sevro bares his teeth. He looks wild with his red eyes and freshly shaved warhawk. Victra inclines her head, a single elegant acknowledgement that belies the ruin all around us. Cassius stands silent, pale and severe, eyes flicking past me to gauge the threats converging on the Citadel. For a moment I forget the battle. Breath catches in my throat. Before I can solicit an explanation, rapid footfalls echo through the corridor and I turn just as Darrow, Thraxa, and Aeneas sprint toward us, faces streaked with dust and blood. Our reunion lasts the space of a heartbeat. The storm drags us onward.

We pivot down a broad hallway toward a courtyard framed by a peristyle. As we emerge, an answering surge of soldiers charges down the adjacent passage. A ring of Praetorians. Purple cloaks lashing behind them like banners caught in a gale. At their heart, four central figures stand imperiously. I see them clearly. Octavia in pale silver-white armour that gleams like bone. Aja in gold and deep cobalt, every edge honed to lethal purpose. Beside them two boys. One fierce faced with bright golden eyes. The other long haired and delicate with irises almost icterine. Both shielded like priceless relics.

At the far end of the courtyard, drawn to the commotion, two more shapes step into view. Atalantia in radiant gold. Bria au Severus in shimmering storm-coloured armour. Their presence tightens the air like a breath held by the entire Citadel.

I glance at my Lionguard. Fewer now. Too few.

There is no pause. The Praetorians rush and the Lionguard meet them. The clash erupts in a roar of metal and shouts. Razors bared. Spears thrust. Armour splits. Aja storms through my soldiers with impossible grace, each movement a blur of death. She shears through bodies, painting the stone in arcs of red before veering after Octavia who darts along the peristyle toward the opposite passage. I freeze for a moment. Not in fear. In that treacherous mix of fury and sorrow that comes whenever I see Aja in motion. Darrow snaps me back.

“Mustang. Victra. Take Octavia. Leave Aja to me.”

Cassius and Sevro are already deep in the melee, holding off multiple Golds in a dance of violent precision. Atalantia and Bria hold back near the mouth of the corridor, waiting for an opening.

We sprint the length of the courtyard. Octavia races ahead of us on the opposite side, her pale armour flickering between the columns. The air whistles as we skim past the fighting. The chase spills into a grand plaza dominated by a towering statue of Silenius au Lune. The eerie silence here has weight. Each footstep echoes like a drumbeat. I hear only my breath and the metallic patter of footsteps ringing on stone.

Darrow rockets ahead, GravBoots whining, catching the rear-guard of Praetorians. Heads fall before their bodies even register his arrival. Aja pivots with unnatural speed and impossible agility. Her helm seals as she whirls toward him. A vicious snarl echoes through the air. She means to kill him quickly. Beyond them, Octavia drives Lysander and Ajax to the base of the statue. The marble plinth looms ten feet high. Octavia presses her palm against a smooth panel. The stone parts inward, revealing descending steps swallowed in darkness.

Victra and I slip past Darrow and Aja as their blades meet with a concussion of sparks that flashes across the marble. Our boots cross the threshold just as Octavia vanishes down the steps. Aja lunges as if to intercept but the clash of Darrow’s twin razors pulls her back.  She twists toward him, every line of her body vibrating with lethal purpose.

We dive into the passage as Octavia and the boys vanish below. I feel Aja’s fury follow us like a living thing even as the stone seals behind us, muffling the world above.

***

Darrow

I feel a slight tremor pass through me, watching Mustang and Victra disappear down the dark passageway. My heart aches, hoping to see them again. I raise my razor in defence as Aja barrels forward with a malevolent grace.

She strikes. A blur of blue and gold that splits the air. Her razor snaps into whip form and comes singing for my throat. I step into Summer Hold and catch it with both blades, feeling it curl around steel with a hungry hiss. She yanks and I slide to the side instead of giving ground. She snarls as I spin out of her angle and answer with a cut meant for her ribs. She meets it with the Winter Stance, razor upright like a torch.

We circle. Her breath steady. Mine thick and ragged. She is the Protean Knight who slaughtered Lorn. She is the spectre who chopped down Ragnar with a smile. She is the Fury that caved in Quinn’s skull before my eyes. I feel those ghosts press close. Not to weigh me down but to steady my arms as she rushes me again. Her blade darts with impossible economy. A root cutter strike aimed for my femoral. I parry with Lorn’s blade angled low. The impact numbs my entire arm. She presses the advantage.

Twelve moves in six seconds. Then twelve more in seven. She is faster than any mortal has a right to be. The pattern drills into me. The Willow Way. Lorn’s voice whispers along the nerve lines of my memory. Do not retreat. Never back. Always the side. Always circle. Roots. Never branches. Never leaves.

But she is faster. Her mastery is colder. I answer with the branch that cannot snap. My razor flows like water. Whip. Blade. Whip again. I coil it around her wrist and try the snapping branch gambit. She anticipates it. She always was Lorn’s greatest student. Her free hand lashes out. A gauntleted back fist to my helm. My vision swims but I hold. Aja lunges and I meet her. Blade to blade. Rage to rage.

I block. I turn. I give ground in angles instead of distance, but she sees the ghost of every move before I make it. She punishes hesitation. She punishes confidence. Her whip form snaps past my cheek, through armour and peels a strip of skin free. Blood warms my jaw.

The air between us becomes a hot shimmer. My lungs burn. Her boots screech across the marble as she pivots for the Falling Leaf. A downward spiral of death meant to split my skull. I drop my weight and slide inside her guard. My two blades cross and catch her descent. She grits her teeth behind her helm. The pressure in my wrists feels like it will shatter bone. She pushes harder. I can smell her sweat inside the helm. I can hear her breath hitch.

She breaks the bind first with raw strength. Another barrage slams into me. A twist. My ribs crack. A snap. My pulse roars. Pain narrows the world into the tiny circles of our footwork. My left shoulder screams as Lorn’s blade flies free. I catch it again a heartbeat before it hits the ground. She laughs. A low terrible sound.

She sees me falter and comes with the Whirlwind. A storm of cuts. A modern myth of death in motion. Steel bites my sides. Steel scrapes my forearm. Steel opens my thigh. I taste iron. I taste the long war. I taste the ashes of everything I have lost.

Uner that assault, I shift. Not into the Willow Way alone. Not into Shadowfall alone. Into the strange middle place where both schools blur. I release the calculation Lorn drilled into me. I allow the looseness his old age learned to fear. My blades drift, then sharpen. Soften, then strike. A small change. Yet it ripples through our duel like a secret note struck in a familiar song.

Aja pauses for half a breath.

Then I hear her voice through the helm. Mechanical. Cold. Almost pleased.

“Good. You understand that you will die.”

Her next assault would break a lesser soul. She crashes against me with a virulence that feels righteous. My vision blurs. My breath stutters. My heart thrums like a drum calling me to the Vale. And in that trembling edge between fear and surrender, I remember.

The first understanding.

The path to the Vale is inscrutable, eternal, and perfect.
It cannot be seen with the eye,
nor felt underfoot.

A calm moves through me like cool water poured over fire. My fear loosens. The noise quiets. My blades move without conscious thought, answering Aja with instinct older than skill. She frowns behind her helm. Her steps quicken. She tries to break the rhythm I fall into as naturally as breathing.

We clash again. Aja channels the winter stance. Her razor held high. She comes at me with twelve moves in a single breath. I parry nine. I let three slide close enough to kiss me. It is not courage. It is clarity. The kind that comes only when there is nothing left to fear. I do not fall. I move with her. Side to side. Never back. I let her think I am fading. I give her the illusion that her storm is working. She takes it. She always trusted force more than subtlety. When her weight shifts forward just a breath too far I strike. My razor whips around her ankle. I pull. She stumbles. Not far. Not enough for anyone else to notice. But enough. I flick the shape sensor and the razor hardens. Aja jerks away an instant too late. The rigid edge slices deep across the tendon.

Her snarl becomes something primal. She lunges with murder in every fibre. I meet her with Lorn’s blade. His weight. His legacy. His final wish that I survive. Our blades clash in a shower of sparks. She tries to overpower me again. She almost does. My knees shake. My arms tremble. My vision dims at the edges. But a memory flares bright. Lorn falling. Lorn bleeding. Lorn holding Aja at bay with the last of his life so I could flee. So I could become something more than a blade.

Her whip form wraps around my wrist. She jerks. My razor almost flies free. Pain explodes through my shoulder. She pulls again. This time I lean into it, twisting with the motion rather than against it. She slackens for correction. I tear free and rise into the bough splitter.

The fight tilts. Not in my favour. Not yet. But into balance.

A memory rises. The fourth understanding.

The supreme good is the wind in the deepmines,
It flows through rock, around people, and over land.
The wind is oblivious to these obstacles,
though her path would not be the same in their absence.

I move like that wind. Around her. Along her. Through her openings with the ease of breath. She strikes. I slip. She lunges. I pivot. For the first time in her long, merciless life, Aja does not dictate the tempo. She doubles her pace. Her nebula blade becomes a streak of colours that screams across the air. She tries to corner me. She tries to shatter the pattern.

But the rest of the understanding surfaces.

When you smell rust on the breeze,
hear the echo of tools in the darkness.
Smile, and be glad.
The path is upon you,
and you upon it.
All you must do is walk.

I walk the path.

I step into a hybrid stance. Part Willow, part Shadow. She recognizes it. She tries to withdraw but I edge closer. She waves her razor toward me. I catch her whip length with Lorn’s razor. Her stance falters by a fraction, injured leg giving way. The shadow of doubt crosses her. I feel it. We part briefly then I surge forward with every last shred of strength; this time using both blades. Mine pierces her abdomen. Lorn’s pierces her heart. The impact drives us both to our knees. For a moment we are face to face. Two students of the same master. Two soldiers shaped by the same ancient scar.

Her helm retracts. Her eyes burn with hatred. And then with something like understanding. Her lips part. No words come. She tries to lift her razor for one last strike. It falls from her fingers. She tilts as if listening for something she expected to hear in the moment of death. Maybe Lorn. Maybe nothing. She exhales once then collapses onto to the stone. The duel is finished.

I slump beside her, barely able to breathe. Blood pools warm under my palms. My vision flickers. The world grows thin. I release both razors. They clatter against the stone. My knees weaken next. I try to rise. I fail. My body shakes from the toll of the duel. The flow state recedes and leaves only agony behind.

I breathe. One breath. Then another.

Then everything goes dim.

Chapter Text

“Here lies the head of a tyrant.”

The woman spoke with a measured calm that stilled the Senate Chamber, golden hair framing a face marked by a single crescent Scar. Her eyes swept the cascading tiers of the room without haste, calculating.

At her side, the young ArchGovernor of Mars surveyed the room with an unblinking and territorial gaze. His long hair brushed the roaring lions etched on his armour. Behind them stood the Rage Knight, silent and immovable, and Magnus au Grimmus, the new Primus of the ancient Terran house.

“I have done my duty to our people. I have upheld the Compact. The Society has chosen strength. I reclaim the state from corruption. I have brought light from darkness.”

She ended her declaration without flourish and the chamber answered with applause, sharp and uncharacteristic, from the Politicos who usually guarded their sentiments. She continued her appraisal of the Senate, cool and satisfied. She had long envisioned this day.

“Hail, Sovereign,” the ArchGovernor declared on bended knee.

“Hail, Sovereign,” the chamber answered, the sound rising in a tide that filled the marble hall.

An elderly White stepped forward, guided by two Chances whose movements followed the precise rhythm of ancient custom. She began the formal litany, words spoken at each investiture.

“…from the age of Silenius the Lightbringer to Oceanus and his heirs…” Her voice continued as the laurel of gold was placed upon the new Sovereign’s brow and the Dawn Sceptre rested in her hand. Across the worlds the transmission spread and countless celebrations followed.

In the distant Rim, the Moon Lords gathered on Rhea beneath the cold radiance of Saturn and his rings. Reports from the Core arrived in steady succession. As the new Sovereign proclaimed her reign, the Lords debated the future of their Dominion, each measure weighed in the long shadow of the Core’s yoke. Helios au Lux, speaking for Ganymede, was the first to answer the news. His voice carried through the hall, clear and committed, as he declared his support for the rebellion.

And while the Moon Lords debated the path ahead, Gaia au Raa assembled her trusted agents. Each bore the onyx Ouroboros of the Krypteia. They departed without spectacle, pervading the outer worlds with quiet intent, placing the first hidden seeds of a revolt that would grow in silence until its arrival could no longer be denied.

 ***

Lysander

We flee down the stairs beneath the statue of Silenius and toward the Dragon Maw. The GravLift stands alone in the cavernous dark, its circular frame engraved with the phases of the moon. The Lune crescent gleams at its apex like a frozen scythe. Relief trickles into me. A simple human thing. Safety within reach. Footsteps echo down the narrow passage behind us. Sharp. Close. I think Aja has come and slacken my pace out of instinct, but Ajax seizes my arm with fury. “Do not stop till we are safe,” he hisses. My grandmother is already sweeping ahead of us to the lift.

A sudden wrench pulls at my cloak. The fabric snaps taught, and I fall. My shoulder cracks against the cold stone. Ajax snarls, a sound far too similar to his mother’s. He raises his razor, ready to cut whoever dared touch me.

I look up and meet the gaze of a tall woman whose golden eyes hold an audacious curiosity. There is a strange, wild beauty about her. Savage almost. Victra au Julii. Confusion claws through me. She should be on Mars. She should be incapacitated. She should not be here at the heart of my grandmother’s sanctum.

“Get away from him, whore,” Ajax bellows. He springs at her, a blur of rage. Still holding my cloak with one hand, Victra meets his razor with idle contempt. She parries with one flick of her wrist, and kicks him off his feet with a booted leg to his chest. He goes flying and crashes to the far wall in a breathless heap. Such casual dominance. I shiver.

Another voice rises in the stillness. Light. Familiar. Articulate. Laced with a familiar music that pierces straight through me. For a heartbeat I am eight years old, holding her hand in the Imperial Gardens as we feed songbirds among the colonnades.

“Yield, Octavia,” Virginia au Augustus calls.

She is in PulseArmour of red and gold. Her helm retracts to reveal a face sculpted by the gods. Beautiful in an alluring way, she is a head shorter than her companion but fierce all the same. The left side of her face bears a red handprint. A Martian tradition. My grandmother turns, fury kindling in her pale eyes. Victra hauls me upright with a single hand. I feel like a child before her. She rips my razor from my belt and tosses it aside. The gesture is not cruel. Only dismissive. I stand trapped between these three giants, balanced on the edge of annihilation. My breath comes shallow. My heart pounds so hard I feel it in my teeth.

Octavia steps closer. Victra’s razor hums and presses cold against my neck.

“Any closer and he loses his pretty head,” she says. Her tone has the coarse swagger common to her home sphere. The words are crude, but the threat is crystalline.

Virginia locks eyes with my grandmother. They do not speak, but the air between them thickens. They are two of the most formidable minds ever forged by the Society. Their thoughts move like pieces upon a board only they can see. Rivals in the intellectual arena, I can almost feel their calculations shaping the contours of the chamber. Yet my grandmother carries a secret. A truth buried so deep that even her most loyal confidantes remain ignorant. I feel it stir inside her before she speaks.

“Taper.”

The word reaches me like a lash. I drop, seize my discarded razor from the floor, and slice my cloak free. The fabric peels from Victra’s hand. I spring back a few paces, out of the woman’s reach, breathing hard. Victra clicks her tongue, annoyed but does not pursue.

My grandmother glides forward. Her razor unfurls. Her Aegis whirs to life along her forearm like a dark promise.

“I did not expect your Iron Rain, Virginia,” she says. “But your Red is a devious creature. Even now I remain impressed that you breached the hallowed walls of my Citadel. Yet it will not last. Your gambit is one of speed. And the longer you remain here, the faster your forces in orbit die.”

The words are delivered without anger, only truth. A calm diagnostic assessment. Virginia simply tilts her head, sharing a silent, amused look with Victra. The casual arrogance is almost insulting. The audacity of it burns. But they have no idea who stands before them. My grandmother lifts her chin, every movement steeped in Imperial ritual.

“If we must duel, let us be done with it,” she says. “Know that I am of gens Lune. The blood of the greatest Conqueror flows within me. I am the trueblade of Light, Sovereign of the Society, Dictator in this time of war. This ends flesh to flesh. Bone to bone. Blood to blood. Our vendetta dies here.” She pauses, “Virtute et armis. Res non verba.” A final proclamation.

She settles into the foundational form of Kravat, feet rooted, blade upright. Across from her, Victra and Mustang raise their razors in perfect accord. In the silence before the clash, the air quivers. A faint, familiar vibration. The sign of one entering the Mind’s Eye. A delicate thing. Subtle, nearly imperceptible. But she raised me. Taught me. I know the sound of that awakening. Felt only by the discerning mind trained in that esoteric art.

They lunge. Three blurs of flesh and metal. And the dance of razors fills the dark.

I have never seen my grandmother fight. I have never even seen her lift a razor. She has always been a voice, a presence, a mind that bends rooms. Yet here, in the stale cold beneath the Citadel, she moves with a clarity that borders on the unreal. Her age vanishes. The decades unwind. Her limbs are fluid. Her precision frightening. Her silver armour glimmers in the chamber’s dim glow as she meets two younger women without hesitation.

Victra probes wide, her jade armour flashing as she tests the perimeter of my grandmother’s guard. Virginia moves with tighter control, every motion spare, angled, economical. They do not fight like rivals. They fight like two hands of the same mind. Mustang closes. Victra threatens the flanks. Octavia shifts between them, razor flickering from form to form, her Aegis shivering with the impact of each glancing strike.

The clash feeds into itself. It grows. It sharpens. And still she holds them. I feel something twist inside me as I watch. Awe. Fear. A faint, childish pride. Octavia au Lune, more than eighty years Virginia’s senior, moves as though she has trained every day of her long life for this single encounter. Her feet skim the stone. Her guard adapts before the threat exists. Her razor bends space around it.

Yet something else emerges. A pattern. A pressure. A pulse. The air itself vibrates as my grandmother sinks deeper into the ancient discipline. For a moment the field around her stabilises, the chaos forming a lattice only she can see. Virginia and Victra press her, but she remains ascendant. Her flow is water over stone. I sense her advantage. I sense the inevitable outcome.

Then something shifts.

Virginia.

Her footwork changes. Her rhythm alters, almost imperceptibly. It breaks the cadence of Kravat. It is not Willow either. It is something between. Something borrowed from the deepest parts of herself. Something I cannot decipher even as I slip into the Mind’s Eye to see it better. I try to follow her intention. I fail. It is too subtle. Too organic. It is not a pattern. It is an instinct that feels like memory. Octavia neglects it for half a second. A half second is a lifetime here. Virginia presses in. Victra circles. The razor duel condenses into a single volatile knot of motion. My grandmother severs Victra’s line of attack, pivots, drives Virginia back with a burst of strength that ripples the dust at their feet. She absorbs it. She adjusts. She moves again with that uncanny alignment. I deepen my probe around all three. The chamber breathes with them.

Victra breaks the orbit. She lashes her razor into whip form and snaps it toward me. The strike will never reach, but it is not meant to. My grandmother sees the flash of green polyene fibre. She turns. Reflex. Survival. She moves to deflect. And in that instant, Virginia slides into the opening. Her blade drives beneath the Sovereign’s ribs, piercing the silver, finding the heart. Victra wheels about with a vicious economy and severs the hand that still grips the razor. The weapon clatters down uselessly as the chamber falls into a sudden, awful quiet.

My grandmother does not scream. Her breath leaves her in a soft exhale, no louder than a sigh. She sways then her legs fold. Virginia steps back. Victra holds position, watching for treachery even now. I do not think. I rush forward as she drops to her knees. Her eyes find mine. Clear. A little distant. Yet alert. She is not gone. Not yet. The Mind’s Eye holds her here. I feel it in the air around us, thinning like smoke. She slows her failing pulse. She slows the collapse of the body. She holds the last moments the way she has held the worlds for more than a century. With absolute control.

I kneel before her and she leans against me, as regal in death as she was in life. Her gaze does not leave mine. Her breath trembles. Her hand, severed at the wrist, does not reach for me. Only her eyes do.

“Have no master but your conscience, Lysander.” She rasps those words like a final command. “Lux ex tenebris.”

Light from Darkness.

The words of our House. Spoken first by Silenius the Lightbringer. They land with the weight of a dynasty. They are the last gift she gives me. I feel her strength fold inward. The bastion of Gold. The Sovereign. The Dictator. My grandmother. She slips away like a summer sunset on the Venusian isles. Slow and bright even to the last. A single sob racks my frame. I do not wail. I simply bow over her cooling form and let grief take the shape of quiet tears.

A voice cuts through the stillness.

“Don’t, Victra. He is only a boy.”

Virginia. I hear the mercy in her tone and loathe it. Mercy means the war is finished. Mercy means my grandmother is gone. And the world she carried on her shoulders. The chaos I expect to ensue will be insurmountable. I shudder.

Her hand rests gently upon my shoulder. Light. Familiar. I want to lean into it. To cry. To let myself be a child again. Her touch has not changed in four years. Gentle. Warm. Almost maternal.

“I am sorry, Lysander.” She says the words with disarming simplicity.

I nod but I do not turn to her. I do not trust my composure. She lifts me from the corpse with quiet care and guides me toward the stairs that rise out of the Dragon Maw. Step by step, she leads me away from the only world I ever knew. Away from what is left of House Lune. Would anything have been different if I had acted faster? If I had run sooner? If I had warned her? If I had begged her to retreat? Perhaps we would be deep in the bunkers beneath the Maw, safe for weeks, holding the reins of war.

But those thoughts are the idle musings of a teetering mind. I know it. Still, I let myself wander to that place. To a world where Anastasia au Lune and Brutus au Arcos still live. Where the Reaper is a fable of the Vale, whispered by LowReds in the mines. Where Gold is noble. Where my grandmother still sits upon the Morning Chair.

A wet slosh echoes behind me. Victra has taken her head. I feel the shame burn hot on my cheeks. I should look. I should honour her. But my body refuses. I walk forward in a daze, led by Virginia. Victra follows with my grandmother’s head held at her side as casually as if it were a helm. We ascend from the cavern into the plaza, light spilling across the stone. Two bodies lie crumpled in the open. Darrow and Aja. Their razors rest beside them like discarded relics. Mustang dashes for Darrow. Victra strides after her, the head still in her grip.

I watch the Reaper and hope, silently, viciously, that he is dead. Then I drift toward Aja. I know she is gone. I fear that truth all the same. I kneel beside her massive frame. Mustang murmurs something to Darrow. Victra hovers over them protectively. Envy coils in my throat.

I touch Aja’s cheek. Her skin is cooling. She seems smaller now, shorn of the terrible life that filled her. She was the moon to my grandmother’s sun. A constant. A force. A presence so towering I believed she could never fall. And now she lies in silence at my feet. Seeing her this way leaves something hollow and wrong inside me. My hand trembles as I close her eyes.

A harsh breath carries across the plaza. Darrow is now on his knees. His gaze filters toward me. Those gold irises churn with something sharp and inevitable. His purpose is unfinished. His story demands one more death.

Mine.

I look at him and see the echoes of those who shaped my youth. The ruthless precision of my godfather. The cunning of my grandmother. The cold ferocity of Aja. All gathered behind those terrible eyes. How simple life might have been had he chosen us the night of the gala.

Footsteps ring on stone. Quick. Hard. Familiar. Cassius au Bellona bursts into the plaza, bloodied but unbowed, with Sevro au Barca at his side. I am too stunned to be shocked by the Goblin’s presence. Their voices rise around the Reaper, circling him like fallen stars pulled back into his orbit.

Always him. Always the Reaper.

“…Atalantia and the Love Knight’s daughter escaped. The Minotaur...”

Kalindora. Relief flickers through me. One ember in the ruin. She will live. She will fight again. And the world moves on without my grandmother’s light.

***

Darrow

I watch the boy, Lysander, with a noxious gaze I cannot temper. My old master’s lessons rise like a tide that does not break. True victory demands the complete annihilation of an enemy’s House. That is the way of Gold. ArchGovernor Cylus learned that truth when he allowed Nero to live. He paid for it with his life and legacy. I fear I cannot let the boy live. And I fear how easily my conscience accedes.

My thoughts break when Cassius and Sevro burst into the plaza. Cassius delivers word of Atalantia’s escape with the Minotaur. I shrug. Without Octavia, the remaining Golds will descend upon the remnants of the Society like vultures upon a carcass. They simply do not yet know she is dead.

“We must go to the Curia,” Mustang tells us. “We have not won. Not yet. We must seize the Senate.” My friends nod as the last survivors from the courtyard gather behind us. We form a tight ring around Mustang and begin the slow advance through the Citadel of Light toward the Pyramid Forum.

“I really need to take a shit,” Sevro mutters. Laughter breaks from all sides. Victra slaps his back, Cassius fans his nose chortling. Mustang looks at Sevro, disconcerted but a quiet chuckle escapes her. For a heartbeat I remember that we were once only boys and girls who dared to change the worlds. I look at each of them in turn, committing this fragile memory to the deep recesses of my mind. We did it.

Yet my spirit churns. Relief that the war nears its end. Joy at the promise of freedom for my people. Hope for my children and the paths they can now tread. Dread for the future and the unknown hand it will extend. Mustang slips her hand into mine and steadies me. I smile at her, weary and grateful. Her clear eyes give strength. It is over, my love. They say. The worst has passed.

As we approach the Senate, we pass pockets of fighting. Lunese legions. Soldiers of my Alliance. LowColours of the Sons of Ares. Sefi’s Obsidians. Each clash falters and dies as they see us. Victra lifts Octavia’s head high. The Sovereign is dead.

A cohort of Praetorians blocks the approach to the Senate doors. Grays raise plasma rifles. Obsidians set their PulseAxes. Golds hold their razors with rigid discipline. The Dawn Sceptre floats above a GravMixer in stark command. Tension rises. Several of my friends reach for their razors. Mustang takes Octavia’s head from Victra and steps forward, parting our line with calm authority. I move to stop her but her look arrests me.

“Praetorians,” she calls, her voice carrying through the Forum, her stride unbroken. “You serve the Sovereign. The Sovereign is dead.” She raises the head and lets the silence settle. “A new star rises. A new age begins. The enemy of concord has fallen. Order rises anew.”

Her final words fall as she reaches their line. None fire. None lift a hand. She takes the sceptre from its cradle with a firm pull. The helm of the Gold captain retracts and reveals an angular face caught between duty and uncertainty. Hesitation flickers. Then he salutes. The rest follow, parting to open the path to the Senate.

“Captain. There are hostile men and women in the Citadel. Find them. Arrest them. Kill those who resist.”

“As you say, my Sovereign.”

We reach the vast ivory doors of the Senate Chamber. Senators hide within. Two Obsidians push the doors wide and Mustang strides into the hall. The chamber opens before us in ten descending tiers of white marble, all turning toward the central podium from which Sovereigns have presided for centuries. We enter from the northern side and a tremor passes through the Politicos as hundreds of eyes fix upon us.

Sevro and Victra take position beside Mustang. Lysander walks behind Cassius. I follow with Aeneas and Thraxa close at my back. Mustang ascends to the podium. She glances at me. She never desired this burden, yet she accepts it as I accepted mine. I see the weight upon her. I know she will need me as I have needed her.

But I could never stand where she stands or hold what she now holds. Not without destroying  all who are present. They would not accept it. If I am the bridge to the LowColours then she is the bridge to the High. Only together can we bind these people. Only together can we make peace.

“Senators of the Society,” Mustang declares. “I stand before you, Virginia au Augustus. Daughter of Nero au Augustus of the Lion House of Mars. You know my name. Sixty years ago Octavia au Lune stood before you with the head of her father and claimed the Sovereignty of this Society.”

Her gaze sweeps the chamber.

“I stand before you now with the head of a tyrant.” She lifts Octavia’s head. Gold respects only one language. They must be addressed in that language if they are to change. “The Old Age brought nuclear holocaust to the heart of the Society. Millions burned for Octavia’s greed. Earth still smoulders in her wake. We must save ourselves before the inheritance of humanity becomes ash. Today we begin a new age.”

She turns to me for a moment. “With new allies. New ways. Behind me stands the Rising. Above us, a navy of great Gold Houses that holds the Obsidian Horde in orbit. You stand before a choice.” She casts the head upon the stone podium and raises the Dawn Sceptre. “Bend. Or break.”

A silence claims the chamber. Deep and vast. No Gold will bend first. I could force them. But the better path is to kneel for them. So I do.

I drop to one knee before Mustang. I place my stump over my heart and feel a joy that is almost too great to bear. “Hail, Sovereign.”

Cassius kneels. Then Sevro. Then Victra. Aeneas. Thraxa. Lysander and the Praetorians. Then the Senators. All but fifty fall to their knees and answer in a single thunderous cry.

“Hail, Sovereign. Hail, Sovereign.”

The broadcast of the proceedings spreads through the system in minutes. At the centre of the chamber a Holo projection resolves into a live feed of the ships in orbit. Hulls and command bridges appear in sober stillness. A single signal flashes across the display as the first Praetor breaks formation and swears loyalty to Mustang. That single oath becomes a fault line.

Ships respond in uneven surges. Some repeat the oath. Most cut engines and drift away without a word. Others prime their weapons, as if prepared for one last exchange, then power down when no command follows. The display fills with brief transmissions, simple and human. The Armada does not fall to violence. It comes apart through exhaustion and the cold recognition that its purpose has ended.

A column of dreadnoughts and destroyers turns toward Venus. Escorts rally behind them. The Ash Lord appears briefly on the feed, face carved into impassivity. He issues one command to collect the remnants and withdraw. That single instruction spreads through the fleet and removes the last spine of resistance. Without a centre to bind them the larger formations drift toward the inner worlds.

The chamber does not cheer. It does not exhale. It considers the work that remains.