Story so far
Diomedes faces the ruined Garter as Hegemon and refuses both old hostility and naive trust. He tells Gaia he will clasp the Daughters' hands rather than kiss their feet, then meets Volga as an armed equal with a history neither has forgotten. The exchange over Fá's warsaw is sharp, but it ends in the precise balance necessary to sign the Covenant with Republic, Daughters, and Volk.
The treaty does not give Diomedes all the restitution or legal authority the Rim wants, but it gives the Dominion a ten-year alliance and a path to survival against the Society. He sends Uranus to intercept outbound Ascomanni ships and return stolen people, directs Neptune to meet the alliance in the Core, and waits for the Shadow Armada before joining Darrow at the rendezvous. He and Aurae openly show their love before separating: Aurae remains his emissary to the Daughters while Diomedes sails toward the Core. The personal bond and the political alliance now depend on the same improbable idea—that former enemies can choose to need one another.
Appearance
A thickset, muscular Gold with black-and-gold hair and golden eyes, in a pure black Hegemon cape and dust-swirling ring, carrying the duroglass Spear of Akari.
Role
Diomedes is the reforming Hegemon converting military survival into a new Rim political order while preparing its fleets for the wider war.
Relationships
Aurae — Aurae is Diomedes's beloved and Daughters emissary; their visible affection makes the personal meaning of his reforms impossible to hide.
Volga — Volga is Diomedes's uneasy Covenant partner, bound to him by treaty despite the Rim's deep injuries under the Volk.
Athena — Athena remains wary of Diomedes's people but signs the Covenant and entrusts him with a future in which the Daughters are no longer hunted.
Darrow — Darrow is Diomedes's partner in the Core campaign, whom the Rim fleet will seek at the alliance rendezvous.
Earlier in this series
Also appears in books you've already read — spoiler-safe to their endings:
Sources — 21 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 18
- The honorable Rim heir presses the Core to honor its Mars pledge, then stays to hear Lysander's intervention and supports the new campaign without trusting its architect.
Chapter 31
- Diomedes's disciplined Phobos raid helps make the initial advance possible, but he orders a measured withdrawal when Ajax's death reveals Lysander's overextension.
Chapter 37
- Diomedes recalls the Rim to defend Ilium, then asks Lysander to prove their alliance by coming with him under a century pact marked by the Shield of Akari.
Chapter 45
- Commanding the Dustmaker in Helios's absence, Diomedes shares the ghost-sail plan with Lysander and publicly includes him despite the peril Fá poses to Ilium and the Garter.
Chapter 46
- Diomedes detects that Helios has been replaced only after relinquishing the Dustmaker's Cestus, leaving the hidden enemy in command of the Rim's greatest warship.
Chapter 48
- Poisoned and newly rescued from Kalyke, Diomedes becomes Darrow's silent prisoner aboard the Archimedes while his destroyed armada's fate remains largely unknown to him.
Chapter 50
- Still silent and bound aboard the Archimedes, Diomedes endures Sevro's torture until Aurae, Darrow, and Cassius stop it, making his survival a test of their values.
Chapter 58
- Diomedes receives a first practical measure of trust when Darrow lets the bound Storm Knight defend rescued civilians at the Archimedes's gun turret.
Chapter 62
- At the Daughters' tribunal, Diomedes accepts the broken social contract between Gold and lowColors and tells the people wronged by his house to take their due.
Chapter 63
- Waiting for judgment, Diomedes reveals his suspicion that Atlas impersonated Helios, destroyed the Rim fleet, made Fá, and has trapped Lysander inside a larger plan for the Rim's ruin.
Chapter 64
- Freed to fight Fá, Diomedes confronts Athena's demand that he make abolition of the hierarchy his personal cause, as Aurae asks him to choose people over the sigils on his hands.
Chapter 76
- Diomedes keeps his promise to Darrow, leading Europa's Golds and Athena's hidden force into the air to sever Fá from the Pandora.
Chapter 78
- The honorable Rim commander helps corner Fá, then fears Darrow's refusal of the throne will trade one conqueror for a wider chaos.
Chapter 80
- Diomedes waits anxiously for Volga to keep her pledge, then sees a concealed Core armada bearing down on Io and the Ionian fighters he seeks.
Chapter 82
- Diomedes reads Lysander's public victory as a small window: keep Fá's death secret, enter Io, and show Gaia the truth before the trap closes.
Chapter 83
- Diomedes turns his false return into leverage, publicly saving Lysander's story before privately confronting him with Atlas and delivering him to Darrow.
Chapter 84
- Diomedes offers Darrow and Lysander a three-way alliance against Atalantia, protecting Lysander's freedom as a guest even when Darrow wants blood.
Chapter 87
- Diomedes risks his life to reject Gaia's command, pledging to protect the Daughters, expose Atlas's lie, and dismantle the hierarchy as Rim Hegemon.
Chapter 88
- Newly elected Hegemon, Diomedes turns the Moon Lords toward compromise, restores the Rising alliance, and stakes the Rim's future on an absent Lysander's honor.
Chapter 89
- Lysander's lie destroys Diomedes's summit, but the new Hegemon restores order under fire and runs toward Plutus's trapped civilians rather than safety.
Chapter 91
- Diomedes signs the Covenant, assigns Rim fleets to recover stolen people and meet the Core war, and lets his love for Aurae become visible in the new order.