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“No,” she whispers. “It’s bullshit. Virginia would have protected him. I know it. He fed you a line.”

“Society fleet ripWings are eight minutes out,” Pebble says. “We’ll have to burn like hell to escape. At current orbit, we can be back on Luna in four weeks.”

I barely hear her. My mind is apart from them, from this place. If only I could go back in time and never come to this hope-forsaken planet. I just want to hold my boy again in my arms. I would protect him from the worlds. I would never leave him. Is he even alive? Would I feel it? The horror grips me again. The world swims and I feel the tears of anger itch behind my eyes. Sevro is locked in his own rage. He storms up the ramp, shouting for the Howlers to load up.

But my feet do not follow. They cannot.

“Darrow?” Pebble murmurs. “What are you doing?”

Sevro turns at the top of the ramp to look down at me.

“I’m not coming,” I say, and as I say it, I feel the last of my soul empty itself from the vessel of my body. Sevro watches me with contempt. “I’m not going back to Luna.”

“Boss,” Colloway says. “What are you talking about? They have your kid. We have to go back.”

Pebble comes back to touch my shoulder. Her hands are coated with dried blood, likely her husband’s. “You’re in shock. You need to get on the ship.”

“Whatever happened, it’s over,” I say. “If he was taken, Mustang will get him back as well as I can. If he is dead…there is nothing to be done.” Even to myself, my voice is like that of a condemned man. Pax. I see his eyes as he watches me rise from Wulfgar’s body. The key is so heavy on its chain against my sternum it’s all I can do to remain standing.

“Don’t say that, Darrow,” Pebble says.

“Mustang needs you,” Thraxa says; her own love for my son runs deep, just as it does in her whole family. Where were they? Why didn’t they protect him? “Your family needs you.”

I think of my wife. She won’t survive this with the Senate. They’ll say she’s unfit to rule. Compromised. She might already be deposed. The life I left behind is shattered, and my fist put the first cracks in it. Whoever took my child did it to wound me and my wife. Our sins passed down to that perfect, innocent boy.

Death begets death begets death.

How many sons did Lorn bury? Four?

I have made my choice and it kills me to know I chose not to be a father. Not to be a husband. I failed at both when I chose the Rising over my family. And now it teeters on the razor’s edge. Orion might already be lost. Our fleet, cobbled together, the product of ten years, might already be debris.

The Red boy inside me would run home to his family.

But I cannot.

The Ash Lord was right. Nothing of the Red remains. I am trapped in my duty. Like Lorn. Like Magnus himself. Like Octavia. Sevro and I did not understand them when we were boys. But now that we are men, we become them.

“My army needs me,” I say. “Atalantia might already have destroyed the fleet. That means our men on Mercury are trapped. Fathers, wives. Nine million of them marooned under the city shields. They’ll be exterminated like the Sons in the Rim. Like the Reds in the mines. I took them there. I will not abandon them.”

“So you abandon your child instead?” Sevro asks, finally coming back down the ramp to face me. The Howlers back out of the way. “And steal me from mine?”

“We don’t even know if they are alive.”

“Shut up.” His sorrow finds a home in his fist. It trembles at his side. “Slag you. How many times have I followed you? How many times have I trusted you? You were wrong! You didn’t listen. But I followed. Like a good little dog. And now my daughter…” His voice falters. “My baby…”

“I’m sorry, Sevro. I am.”

“You’re a father!”

“I’m not asking you to come with me.”

“Oh, trust me, I won’t be.”

“Take the Nessus. Reach Victra and Mustang and bring our children back to us.”

“How will you get off-planet?” Pebble asks.

I turn to look at the Ash Lord’s shuttle. “If I can’t turn the tide on Venus and Mercury, they’ll be coming for Luna or Mars next. You have to prepare the defenses.” Done with me, Sevro turns to walk up the ramp into the Nessus. “Sevro…” He doesn’t turn around. “Sevro…” He disappears inside and his name lingers in the air.