“Do you think it will last?” Mustang asks me, watching the water from our place in the sand. “The peace.”

“It would be the first time,” I say.

She grimaces and leans into me, closing her eyes. “At least we have this.”

I smile, reminded of Cassius as an eagle skims low over the water before rising up through the mist and disappearing in the trees that jut from the top of a sea stack. “Have I passed your test?”

“My test?” she asks.

“Ever since you blocked my ship from leaving Phobos, you’ve been testing me. I thought I passed on the ice, but it didn’t stop there.”

“You noticed,” she says with a mischievous little grin. It fades and she brushes hair from her eyes. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t just follow you. I needed to see if you could build. I needed to see if my people could live in your world.”

“No, I understand that,” I say. “But there’s more to it. Something changed when you saw my mother. My brother. Something opened up in you.”

She nods, eyes still on the water. “There’s something I have to tell you.” I look over at her. “You lied to me for nearly six years. Since the moment we met. In the Lykos tunnel you broke what we had. That trust. That feeling of closeness we built. Piecing that together takes time. I needed to see if we could find what we lost. I needed to see if I could trust you.”

“You know you can.”

“I do, now,” she says. “But…”

I frown. “Mustang, you’re shaking.”

“Just let me finish. I didn’t want to lie to you. But I didn’t know how you would react. What you would do. I needed you to make the choice to be more than a killer not just for me, but for someone else too.” She looks past me to the blue sky where a ship coasts lazily down. I hold my hand up against the autumn sun to watch it approach.

“Are we expecting company?” I ask warily.

“Of a sort.” She stands. I join her. And she goes to her tiptoes to kiss me. It is a gentle, long kiss that makes me forget the sand under our boots, the smell of pine and salt in the breeze. Her nose is cold against mine. Her cheeks ruddy. All the sadness, all the hurt in the past making this moment all the sweeter. If pain is the weight of being, love is the purpose. “I want you to know that I love you. More than anything.” She backs away from me, pulling me along. “Almost.”

The ship skims over the evergreen forest and sets down on the beach. Its wings fold backward like a settling pigeon. Sand and salt spray kicked up by its engines. Mustang’s fingers twine through mine as we trudge through the sand. The ramp unfurls. Sophocles sprints out onto the beach, running toward a group of seagulls. Behind him comes the voice of Kavax and the sweet sound of a child laughing. My feet falter. I look over at Mustang in confusion. She pulls me on, a nervous smile on her face. Kavax exits the ship with Dancer. Victra and Sevro come with, waving over to me before looking expectantly back up the ramp.

I used to think the life strands of my friends frayed around me, because mine was too strong. Now I realize that when we are wound together, we make something unbreakable. Something that lasts long after this life ends. My friends have filled the hollow carved in me by my wife’s death. They’ve made me whole again. My mother joins them now on the ramp, walking with Kieran to set foot on Earth for the first time. She smiles like I did when she smells the salt. The wind kicks her gray hair. Her eyes are glassy and full of the joy my father always wanted for her. And in her arms she carries a laughing child with golden hair.

“Mustang?” I ask. My voice trembling. “Who is that?”

“Darrow…” Mustang smiles over at me. “That is our son. His name is Pax.”

Pax was born nine months after the Lion’s Rain, as I lay in the Jackal’s stone table. Fearing that our enemies would seek the boy out if they knew of his existence, Mustang kept her pregnancy a secret on the Dejah Thoris until she was able to give birth. Then, leaving the child to be guarded by Kavax’s wife in the asteroid belt, she returned to war.

That peace she intended to make with the Sovereign was not just for her and her people, but for her son. She wanted a world without war for him. I can’t hate her for that. For keeping this secret from me. She was afraid. Not just that she could not trust me, but that I was not prepared to be the father my son deserves. That was her test, all this time. She almost told me in Tinos, but after conferring with my mother, she decided against it. Mother knew if I realized I had a son, I would not be able to do what needed to be done.

My people needed a sword, not a father.

But now, for the first time in my life, I can be both.

This war is not over. The sacrifices we made to take Luna will haunt our new world. I know that. But I am no longer alone in the dark. When I first stepped through the gates of the Institute, I wore the weight of the world on my shoulders. It crushed me. Broke me, but my friends have pieced me together. Now they each carry a part of Eo’s dream. Together we can make a world fit for my son. For the generations to come.

I can be a builder, not just a destroyer. Eo and Fitchner saw that when I could not. They believed in me. So whether they wait for me in the Vale or not, I feel them in my heart, I hear their echo beating across the worlds. I see them in my son, and, when he is old enough, I will take him on my knee and his mother and I will tell him of the rage of Ares, the strength of Ragnar, the honor of Cassius, the love of Sevro, the loyalty of Victra, and the dream of Eo, the girl who inspired me to live for more.