In the Red Rising Saga, Darrow sailed to the Rim to break the warlord Fá and turn the Volk toward the Republic, and though he forged the beginnings of an alliance, the Sovereign Lysander betrayed them all, murdered Cassius, seized the biological weapon Eidmi, and burned Io's Garter before fleeing home. Recently, trapped three weeks beneath the surface, Darrow emerges into an ashen winter of a world, its orchards and grain washed gray. Now the survivors gather. Volga's Obsidian ships and Athena's Daughters comb the ruin for refugees, and Sevro, arrived at last, holds a grieving Darrow as they mourn Cassius together. Atop a charred hill, Darrow brokers the meeting he has bled for: Diomedes, now Hegemon of the Dominion; a chastened Gaia; Athena in a laborer's jumpsuit; and Volga, a warrior queen wearing ashes on her face at Lyria's counsel, who snaps Fá's warsaw across her knee before Diomedes. Their blood is sealed into an iron Covenant, granting the Daughters amnesty and all Colors due process, binding the Volk never to venture beyond the asteroid belt, forming a ten-year military alliance between Republic and Rim, and declaring war not on any single tyrant but on the Society itself. No one is content, which is why it might hold. As the mismatched fleet departs Io for the Core and the final reckoning over Mars, the invisible Archimedes hails them: Pytha has brought Cassius home. In the cargo hold Darrow weeps over his brother in his funeral torpedo, and Sevro reclaims his father Fitchner's helm from Cassius's room of mementos. The two settle in to watch old Institute footage of three lonely boys howling at the moons, and Darrow, clutching Pax's key, sends his heart to Virginia and his son: I love you, I am coming home, I have an army and an armada, and for Eo, for Ragnar, for Fitchner, for Cassius, we will win.