The Iron Gold of gens Valii who takes Ceres for Darrow, then attempts a rape — and is bound to the Reaper as a blood brother by an unheard-of act of shared punishment.
Freed to fight for Darrow after taking part in storming both Minerva and Ceres, Tactus proves both invaluable and monstrous. He reveals himself as an Iron Gold of the ancient gens Valii, his blood traced to the Conquering, who believes might makes right and lesser Colors and Golds alike are not people. When Darrow checks him, he bristles that he does as he likes — then flouts that authority utterly by trying to rape the Ceres slave Nyla, choking her until Milia tears him off.
Sentenced to twenty brutal lashes, he hisses that it is a mistake. But Darrow overturns his whole logic: he strips off his own shirt and takes twenty-five lashes from Tactus and then Pax, declaring the army's evils his own, before pulling the confused, frightened Tactus into an embrace and naming him blood brother. It is a lesson in sacrifice the Iron Gold has never seen, and it leaves him shaken and unmade.
A lean, wiry youth with dark oak-honey skin, bronze sap-spiked hair, high cheekbones and heavy-lidded pitviper eyes; back now bloodied and striped from twenty lashes.
An Iron Gold of gens Valii, brilliant and cruel, whipped and then claimed as Darrow's blood brother.