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I linger to witness the last of the rocks settle Knowing that Alexandar is dead, that those people he saved will soon forget hie, I wish for one se forward nourished by his own righteousness That er and search for Alexandar as Colloway searched for Orion But that man would have died in the desert and taken all his men with him That man isn’t what my arm

y needs Hell, I don’t knohat they need except for a ed forward by the weight of the day

—

West of the city, between the Bay of Sirens and the old city, squats the four-century-old Votuovernment complex known as the Mound It is a heavy basilica straddled by a half-kilood, Helios Each of the fourteen spikes on his sun crown stretch the length of ten men to puncture the blue sky His left hand holds a scepter, and the rightto the path of the sun, so that at sunset he will cup it in his palm as it sinks beyond the horizon As if any man had such control

“The rain is radioactive,” Harnassus says, du a box of dead cats on the table of the old Votu the arched s,than the inconvenient report We are all bald by now

“We eat here, thank you very much for the drama,” Thraxa says

Harnassus grumbles on “…fallout fro the stratosphere so there’s lilobal contamination But we’re in trouble Orion drowned half our anti-rads in Tyche before we could evac the before we rounded them up” Sweat soaks Harnassus’s dirty uniform He looks even more exhausted than I feel Like me, he put on a brave face for the ons who snuck in before we locked down Heliopolis are giving us hell, and native insurgencies have sprung up faster than Screwface can put theh for our men and the civilians”

“Why are you always bringing me bad news?” I ask him Harnassus’s bitterness has increased exponentially since Orion summoned the storms I sympathize with the man, even if I find him a damn thorn in my side Hate the storms all he likes, the only reason we have an army at all is because of its cloud and electrical cover

“Because I’ your balls”

“Oh, do say it ravitas…”

I rub my shoulder as I receive an anti-rad shot from the Yellow medicus The nausea has coht it would be starvation that ended us, not fallout On my way to the Mound, I sawin the shade with their heads in their hands as they queued for the latrines

Harnassus plods on “Engineering corps believes the sy weakness, nausea, and headaches It will progress to voot The civilians will soon figure it out We’ll have full-on riots soon as the deaths start”

“There’ve already been riots,” Thraxa says, turning her eyes froee-choked streets of Heliopolis “If we share our supplies, on’tit to five hundred thousand one These people are not our allies”

She’s not wrong We are not wanted here Tyche was a fine enough home But of the Mercurian breed, Heliopolitans are the most cantankerous, cruel, and noisy Save Glirastes, it is hard to remember even one elcomed us e took the planet And with Orion’s storn, the teeth have coht Mobs have already tried stor the food centers I set up Even Glirastes has spurned uingmy oath not to raise the storue

I findabout Pax, and if I would have sent him into Tyche like Alexandar Would I spend my boy as I’ve spent sohome? It all seems so transactional, war Did I spend my boy the day he was born by the virtue of ? I can only hope that ether and that the fleet is co back Orion orelse, I ath