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She moves. Inside the cell, the Fear Knight is being woken up by a medicus and scanned by a team of techs.

“Get out,” I tell the medicus. “But don’t go far. He’ll need you soon.”

The Fear Knight sits up on the foam mattress and looks at me with a start as the vebrine they’ve given him kicks in. I inject his neck with the coagulant and take the cuffs off his hands. His arms bend unnaturally from Thraxa’s rough handling. I survey the monster. The Rim Gold is skinny from his time in the desert, like a piece of dehydrated beef. Pensive, intelligent eyes stare back at me from under the chalk without even a trace of fear. It isn’t like the Jackal, whose eyes were like empty bowls. Neither are they animalistic like Atalantia’s. These are soulful eyes of a man who knows he’s chewing on human flesh and swallows because he can.

I lean forward. “If I came to you laid out like a suckling pig, would you accept the boon without suspicion?”

“Highly doubtful.”

I look at his hands. “How many of my men have those hands impaled?”

“Enough, so it seems.”

“Did those hands cut my Howler’s ears off?”

“They did.”

I pull my razor off my arm and let it hang loose. “Do you think you deserve to keep them?” My slingBlade forms slowly at my side.

He turns his hands over as if viewing them for the first time and speaks to me in Latin before translating to Common. “Caesar was a clod. But he got one thing right: war gives the right to the conquerors to impose any condition they please upon the vanquished.” He presents his hands to me.

I prepare to cut them off.

Yet my hand stays still at my side. A week ago, I would have. Throughout the war, I’ve done worse. But it would not be for my army. It would be for me. Was this the compromise that poisoned our Republic? Was this rage what made us forget that our hope is founded in our virtue? Virtue that has been sorely lacking, and which led to Orion’s genocide?

“All of a man’s affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by ev

ils,” Atlas recites. “For order, I impaled soldiers. For liberty, you drowned cities. The victor writes history with the blood of the vanquished. I wonder, in the end, which of us will turn out the hero? Don’t you?”

I leave the Fear Knight without a word. Outside, I find Thraxa waiting for me with several dozen of Rat Legion. “Get information from him,” I order.

“I’ll lead the torture personally,” Thraxa says.

I look back at the man. I know better than most how any man will cave to torture in the end, but I also fear false information. “He’ll just lead us astray. My wife will crack him.”

Thraxa looks concerned. “Darrow, Virginia is—”

“And so was Alexandar until today.” I survey the legionnaires with Thraxa, and make it a moral victory. “Use all means within the bounds of the New Compact. If the Vox won’t obey it, we will. The information he has in his head could win this war. The men will want to cut that head off. If he dies, I will hold Rat Legion accountable.”

They salute.

“What about Cato?” Thraxa asks.

“Who?”

“The fourth Gold. He says he helped them escape. No confirmation yet from Alexandar.”

I look back at the Fear Knight. He’s a man of too many layers. Was this planned to get him inside? Cato inside? Would Atlas risk that? “I don’t need another variable here. If Alexandar survives, we’ll ask him ourselves about this Cato. Until then, isolate him, check his story, and order a full analysis.”

A vigil waits outside the medical bay. Alexandar’s cult of young Gold acolytes has swollen to include men and women from all branches. Colloway exits as I reach the door. I frown, wondering if I have the wrong room. He holds little love for Alex but now he just shrugs at my expression and claps my shoulder. “Chin up. Your boy’s a Stoneside, ain’t he?”

I join Rhonna and sit in the chair beside her. She looks at my razor for traces of blood. I shake my head. With a nod for herself, she puts her small hand over mine and together we wait.

We’re woken some time in the night by the medicus. The cold woman has not even the faint trace of a smile as she tells us that Alexandar survived and we can see him in the morning.

When the medicus returns I let Rhonna go in first. After several minutes she reappears with red-rimmed eyes. She smiles. “He’s asking for the boss.”

Alexandar lies shirtless in the bed, perforated with IVs. His face is still swollen, and bandages cover the empty ear sockets. He reaches a hand out to clasp Rhonna’s as I loom over him. “?’Lo, boss,” he says with a childish smile.