Cicero watches the Garter burn and hears Lysander's logic, remaining valuable and compassionate but shaken by the price of his leader's victory.
Cicero stands near the advancing burn line of the Garter with ash covering his hair and shoulders and red-rimmed eyes. He tells Lysander that the growers give each tree a name, sing to make it happy, and are refusing sanctuary because they consider the olive trees their children. The scene makes the conquest's cost immediate: these are not just rebel assets but people choosing death beside a world they cultivated.
Lysander insists the Garter is military infrastructure that feeds sedition, says the Rim must be starved into dependence, and promises that their long lives can be devoted to healing and building after the war ends this year. Cicero lets himself be pulled away but looks back at the growers burning. He later agrees that the fleet should avoid a costly encounter with the newly combined Volk and Daughters force and return home, but his grief leaves open how long he can accept Lysander's definition of necessary peace.
A formidable Gold soldier with ash-covered hair and shoulders, red-rimmed eyes, and battle-worn armor, standing before a wall of fire in the Garter.
Cicero is the compassionate military ally whose conscience recognizes the victims inside Lysander's strategic triumph.