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"I’" I did not put my faith in Tactus once, and I lost him Noill I’ll take the saood in you I saw your face when those children were killed at the gala You’re not a monster Coain, Tactus I would give you a legion to lead e take Mars You’ll carry one of ly arht smile "But Sevro, Roque, Victra …"

"They miss you," I lie "Drop your razor and come back to my army I promise you will be safe" The razor dips in his hand One of the children spares a ss, a hopeful siven"

I mean it Deep in my heart, I mean it

"We all make mistakes," he says

"We all make mistakes Just come back I won’t hurt you" I drop my own razor "Neither will Arcos" I stare at Arcos till he nods his weathered head in complicity

"I want to come home," Tactus murmurs quietly, pain in his voice "I want to come home"

"Then come home"

Tactus’s razor clatters to the floor and he falls to a knee in front offroain fro their charges, their tears o forward to Tactus and motion hi and sobs intohard into ht His face is such a ruin And I hug hiht that nearly driveshi knowing soh they’ve betrayed you, they wish for nothing but absolution And as he clenches my back, I wrap my arms around his armor and try not to cry e I hope this changes him He could do so much, if only he would learn

In so many ways, he is the ee, Gold can change They iven a chance I think that’s what Eo would have wanted in the end

When at last his sobs are done and we part, he stands at ns of affection His hands tremble from the pain of his wounds, yet he watches in silence with Arcos and h and low alike, file upward out of the hidden bunker with their caretakers Pebble coage Tactus’s wounds, she pales I tell her to fetch a Yellow

Soon Lorn, Tactus, and I are left alone in the baseone, consequences" His hands flash faster than a huer appears, lurches forward four times into Tactus’s armpit, where the armor is the weakest I rush to stop Lorn, but it’s already done He twists like he’s wringing a towel, severing the artery, an oldone Tactus’s ruined face wrenches with pain; and he gasps, as though he knew justice would finally find him in the end

Lorn leaves And I holdto some distant place, where perhaps he’ll find that peace Roque alished for hi till we reach the rendezvous?" I ask Orion on the command deck Except for our attendants, we are alone in front of the viewports of the Pax, watching h space The newest additions to our fledgling arriffin With them fly the black and blue and silver warships captured froes and Reds crawl over the exteriors of thethe holes e of Mars