“Call my godfather,” Lysander says bravely. “Call the Ash Lord. He will see reason.”

“Oh, like hell…” Sevro says.

“We just killed the Sovereign and his daughter,” I say. “The Ash Lord…”

“Destroyed Rhea,” Lysander interrupts. “Yes. And it haunts him. Call him and he will help you. My grandmother would have wanted him to. Luna is our home.”

“He’s right,” Mustang says, pushing me from the console. “Darrow, move.” She’s in that locked zone of concentration. Unable to relate her own thoughts as she starts opening direct com channels to the Gold Praetors in the fleet. The towering men and women appear around us like silvery ghosts, standing among the corpses they watched us make. Last to appear is the Ash Lord. His face stricken with rage. His daughter and master both dead by our hands.

“Bellona, Augustus,” he growls, seeing Lysander among us. “Is it not enough…”

“Godfather, we have no time for recrimination,” Lysander says.

“Lysander…”

“Please listen to them. Our world depends on it.”

Mustang steps forward and raises her voice. “Praetors of the fleet, Ash Lord. The Sovereign is dead. The nuclear blasts you see destroying your home are not Red weapons. They come from your own arsenal which was stolen by my brother. His Praetor, Lilath, is overseeing the detonation of more than four hundred nuclear warheads from the bridge of The Lion of Mars. They will continue until Lilath is dead. My fellow Aureate, embrace change or embrace oblivion. The choice is yours.”

“You are a traitor….” one of the Praetors hisses.

Lysander walks off the holopad to the table where he sat earlier. He picks up his grandmother’s scepter and returns as the Praetors are issuing threats to Mustang.

“She is no traitor,” Lysander says, handing her the scepter. The blood of his grandmother staining his hands. “She is our conqueror.”

The Lion of Mars dies an ignoble death, fired upon from all sides by loyalist and rebel alike. Watching Luna crackle with nuclear explosions did more to kill the bloodlust between the two navies than any peace or truce ever did. Few men truly like seeing beauty burn. But burn it does. Before the Lion is put to rest, more than twelve bombs detonate, carving new cities of fire and ash among those of steel and concrete. The moon is in turmoil.

As is the Gold Armada. With news of the Sovereign’s death and the detonation of the bombs, the Society shudders beneath our feet. Wealthy Praetors are taking their personal ships and fracturing away, heading home to Venus, Mercury, or Mars. They do not stand together, because they do not know where to stand.

For sixty years Octavia has ruled. For most living, she is the only Sovereign they have ever known. Our civilization teeters on the brink. Electrical grids are down across the moon. Riots and panic spread as we prepare to leave the Sovereign’s sanctum. There is an escape ship, but there is no escaping what we’ve done. We’ve carved the heart out of the Society. If we leave, what takes its place?

We knew we could never win Luna by force of arms. But that was never the goal. Just as it was not Ragnar’s desire to fight until all Golds perished. He knew Mustang was the key. She always has been. That’s why he risked our lives to let Kavax go. Now Mustang stands beneath the holo of the wounded moon, hearing the silent screams of the city as keenly as I. I step close to her.

“Are you ready?” I ask.

“What?” She shakes her head. “How could he do this?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “But we can fix it.”

“How? This moon will be pandemonium,” she says. “Tens of millions dead. The devastation…”

“And we can rebuild it, together.”

The words flood her with hope, as if she’s only just remembered where we are. What we’ve done. That we’re together, alive. She blinks quickly and smiles at me. Then she looks at my arm, where my right hand used to be and touches my stomach where Aja stabbed me. “How are you still standing?”

“Because we’re not yet done.”

Battered and bloody, we join Cassius, Lysander, and Sevro before the door leading out of the Sovereign’s inner sanctum as Cassius types in the Olympic code to open the doors. He pauses to sniff the air. “What’s that smell?”

“Smells like a sewer,” I say.

Sevro stares intensely at the razors he’s taken from Aja, including the one belonging to Lorn. “I think it smells like victory.”

“Did you shit your pants?” Cassius squints at him. “You did.”

“Sevro…” Mustang says.

“It’s an involuntary muscle reaction when you’re fake executed and swallow massive amounts of haemanthus oil,” Sevro snaps. “You think I would do that on purpose?”

Cassius and I look at each other.

I shrug. “Well, maybe.”

“Yeah, actually.”

He flips us the crux and makes a face, twisting his lips till it looks like he’s going to explode. “What’s happening?” I ask. “Are you…still…”

“No!” He throws his water bottle at me. “You stuck a needle full of adrenaline into my chest, asshole. I’m having a heart attack.” He swats our hands as we try to help him. “I’m good. I’m good.” He wheezes for a moment before straightening with a grimace.

“Are you sure you’re prime?” Mustang asks.

“Left arm’s numb. Probably need a Yellow.”

We snort laughs. We look like walking corpses. Only thing keeping me up are the stim packs we found on the Praetorians. Cassius hobbles like an old man, but he’s kept Lysander close to him, vetoing Sevro’s offers to end the Lune bloodline here and now by drawing his razor. “The boy is under my protection,” Cassius sneered. And now he walks with us as a sign of our legitimacy.

“I love you all,” I say as the door begins to groan open. I adjust the unconscious Jackal, who I carry on my shoulder as a prize. “No matter what happens.”

“Even Cassius?” Sevro asks.

“Especially me, today,” Cassius says.

“Stay close,” Mustang says to us, clutching the scepter tight.

The first great door parts. Mustang squeezes my hand. Sevro vibrates with fear. Then the second rumbles and dilates open to reveal a hall filled with Praetorians, their weapons drawn and pointed into the mouth of the bunker. Mustang steps forward bearing two symbols of power, one in each hand.