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Old and young look atthe alpha, the Priuidance They can se doesn’t matter Experience doesn’t matter All that matters is that I provide these sick sons of bitches with fresh kills

Children cry around us, startling ht like this The sons and daughters of Augustus’s youngest sister Their father strokes their hair to cal, his wife bends and slaps each child across the face till they cease their whining "Be brave"

Our Obsidians and Grays are not waiting for us on the ground They’ve been taken son’s Obsidians or her Golds coh the air Which ht She can’t slaughter us For a house to wipe out another house is one thing, but for the great leader to do it with the power and funds entrusted to her by the Senate? It’s happened before, and that Sovereign was beheaded by his daughter The daughter who now sits on the throne

Oh, shethe cobbled paths that cut through the huge forest of flower trees The er play Instead, we hear shouts and screa silence Golds run beneath Fleeing to the stone halls past the forest, where they can access their ships, fly ho has happened I did not expect Other faht It felt the same at the Institute when the other students realized it wasn’t a ga, a notion that devils roarounds instead of one?

There are four hunters in the distance A pack of three h the forest They hop a brook Running with all the vigor of the hungry All the anize raisin-eyed Lilath, the girl the Jackal sent to deliver the holo ofJulian to Cassius With her is Cipio, the stout young man who once aided Antonia in and out of the bedroo death, the lean pack streaks through the trees toward an unsuspecting line of House Thorne family members, all in dresses and suits of red and white; too late they head frantically for the stone halls Their standard is the rose It falls as the killers burst from the trees A family dies Scary how quiet and fast it is with razors Different from my duel I took my time They don’t I see a boy of ten cut apart There’s no mercy for Gold children They are not seen as innocent They’re eneht thees to kill one of the Falthes before being cut doo children run One is caught The other escapes She’s the only one

Then the Falthe lancers dance Taking large, exaggerated sto their toes into the dark ground They aren’t dancing

"Goryhell," Tactus curses, and rubs his face

"The children …," Victra whispers

Augustus says nothing, his face as resolute as stone

"The Thornes have fifteen children" Tears bead in Victra’s eyes, surprisingchills up ive a piss

Children Would Eo have sung if she’d known this was the chorus? We all carry burdens And as the killers slip away from the ht one day Just not today