A decade ago Darrow, a Red remade as a Gold, toppled the Sovereign Octavia and built the Solar Republic he serves beside his wife, Sovereign Mustang — a liberation soured into a ten-year war. Four lives have run in parallel. On Io, the grieving Lysander au Lune, charged by the dying Romulus to save the worlds, pledged himself to Dido's war to unite Rim and Core Gold against the Reaper. On Luna, the thief Ephraim rescued the children Pax and Electra but rode the Queen-hijacked ship down into a crater to keep them from the Syndicate, while Lyria — forgiven by the Sovereign — was struck by a House Barca assassin. And on Venus, Darrow killed the withered Ash Lord only to learn the war is beginning anew: the daughter Atalantia secretly commands the Society, is falling on his half-strength Mercury fleet, and one of his own has stolen his son. Now, hollowed out atop the Gorgon Isle tower, Darrow makes the choice that finishes emptying his soul. Rather than race home to find Pax, he will go to Mercury to save the nine million soldiers he stranded there — trusting Mustang and Victra to recover the children. Sevro, gutted, rages that Darrow has abandoned his own child and stolen him from his daughter, then takes the warship Nessus back toward Luna. Darrow takes the Ash Lord's shuttle with Alexandar, Colloway, Tongueless, Thraxa, Rhonna, and the Deepgrave prisoners; he honors his word, deactivates Apollonius's skull-bomb and cedes him Venus, but keeps the Gold hostages — whose families' love holds the planet's guns silent as they escape to orbit. Recognizing he was only ever the concentrated force of those around him, Darrow understands Atalantia meant to make him flee home. Instead he pockets Pax's key, sets aside the father, welcomes back the Reaper, and lets the old rage take hold.