“Look at the Institute you attended. Sexual slavery, murder, cannibalism of fellow Golds?” He shakes his head. “Barbaric. It’s not what the Ancestors intended. But the Coreworlders are so desensitized to violence they’ve forgotten it’s to have purpose. Violence is a tool. It is meant to shock. To change. Instead, they normalize and celebrate it. And create a culture of exploitation where they are so entitled to sex and power that when they are told no, they pull a sword and do as they like.”

“Just as they’ve done to your people,” I say.

“Just as they’ve done to my people,” he repeats. “Just as we do to yours.” He finishes peeling the tangerine, only now it feels more like a scalping. He tears the meat of it gruesomely in half and tosses one part to me. “I won’t romanticize what I am. Or excuse the subjugation of your people. What we do to them is cruel, but it is necessary.”

Mustang told me on our journey here that he uses a stone from the Roman Forum itself as a pillow. He is not a kind person. Not to his enemies at least, which I am, regardless of his hospitality.

“It’s hard for me to speak to you as if you were not a tyrant,” I say. “You sit here and think you are more civilized than Luna because you obey your creed of honor, because you show restraint.” I gesture to the simple house. “But you’re not more civilized,” I say. “You’re just more disciplined.”

“Isn’t that civilization? Order? Denying animal impulse for stability?” He eats his fruit in measured bites. I set mine on the stone.

“No, it’s not. But I’m not here to debate philosophy or politics.”

“Thank Jove. I doubt we’d agree upon much.” He watches me carefully.

“I’m here to discuss what we both know best, war.”

“Our ugly old friend.” He glances once at the door to the house to make sure we’re alone. “But before we move to that sphere, may I ask you a question of personal note?”

“If you must.”

“You are aware my father and daughter died at your Triumph on Mars?”

“I am.”

“In a way it’s what began all this. Did you see it happen?”

“I did.”

“Was it as they say?”

“I wouldn’t presume to know who they are or what they say.”

“They say that Antonia au Severus-Julii stepped on my daughter’s skull till it caved in. My wife and I wish to know if it is true. It’s what we were told by one of the few who managed to escape.”

“Yes,” I say. “It is true.”

The tangerine drips in his fingers, forgotten. “Did she suffer?”

I hardly remember seeing the girl in the moment. But I’ve dreamed of the night a hundred times, enough to wish my memory was a weaker thing. The plain-faced girl wore a gray dress with a broach of the lightning dragon. She tried to run around the fountain. But Vixus slashed the back of her hamstrings as he walked past. She crawled and wept on the ground until Antonia finished her off. “She suffered. For several minutes.”

“Did she weep?”

“Yes. But she did not beg.”

Romulus watches out the iron gate as sulfur dust devils dance across the barren plain beneath his quiet home. I know his pain, the horrible crushing sadness of loving something gentle only to see it ripped apart by the hard world. His girl grew here, loved, protected, and then she went on an adventure and learned fear.

“Truth can be cruel,” he says. “Yet it is the only thing of value. I thank you for it. And I have a truth of my own. One I do not think you will like…”

“You have another guest,” I say. He’s surprised. “There’s boots at the door. Polished for a ship, not a planet. Makes the dust stick something awful. I’m not offended. I half expected it when you didn’t meet me in the desert.”

“You understand why I will not make a decision blindly or impetuously.”

“I do.”

“Two months ago, I did not agree with Virginia’s plan to negotiate for peace. She left of her own accord with the backing of those frightened by our losses. I believe in war only insofar as it is an effective tool of policy. And I did not believe we stood in a position of strength to gain anything from our war without achieving at least one or two victories. Peace was subjugation by another word. My logic was sound, our arms were not. We never made the victories. Imperator Fabii is…effective. And the Core, as much as I despise their culture, produces very good killers with very good logistical supply and support. We are fighting uphill against a giant. Now, you are here. And I can achieve something with peace that I could not with war. So I must weigh my options.”

He means he can leverage my presence into suing the Sovereign for better terms than she would have given if the war had continued. It’s boldly self-interested. I knew it was a risk when I set this course, but I’d hoped he’d be hot-blooded after a year of war with the woman and would want to pay her back. Apparently Romulus au Raa’s blood runs a special kind of cold.

“Who did the Sovereign send?” I ask.

He leans back in amusement. “Who do you think?”

Roque au Fabii sits at a stone table in an orchard along the side of the house, finishing a dessert of elderberry cheesecake and coffee. Smoke from a brooding dwarf volcano twirls up into the twilight horizon with the same indolence as the steam from his porcelain saucer. He turns from watching the smoke to see us enter. He’s striking in his black and gold uniform—lean like a strand of golden summer wheat, with high cheekbones and warm eyes, but his face is distant and unyielding. By now he could drape a dozen battle glories across his chest. But his vanity is so deep that he thinks affectation a sign of boorish decadence. The pyramid of the Society, given flight with Imperator wings on either side, marks each shoulder; a gold skull with a crown burdens his breast, the Sigil of the Ash Lord’s warrant. Roque sets the saucer down delicately, dabs his lips with the corner of his napkin, and rises to his bare feet.

“Darrow, it’s been an age,” he says with such mannered grace that I could almost convince myself that we were old friends reuniting after a long absence. But I will not let myself feel anything for this man. I cannot let him have forgiveness. Victra almost died because of him. Fitchner did. Lorn did. And how many more would have had I not let Sevro leave the party early to seek his father?