Virginia and her eighteen remaining Lions flee engineering, bleeding and exhausted, with Apollonius in pursuit and Cicero’s forces closing. With the tram dead and sanitation out of reach, Virginia escalates the heat of the halls and recalls the gear bags taken from the armory. Holiday, severely wounded, offers to buy time, but Virginia heads for the brig.

Cloaked, Virginia slips past Votum legionnaires as Cicero pauses at the brig door and moves on. Using her Sovereign implant, she enters and confronts Valdir the Unshorn, imprisoned with Obsidian traitors. Appealing to Valdir’s regard for Darrow, she offers freedom if they escape—or a good death if they do not—arming them with ghostCloaks, optics, and razors. Valdir accepts and takes charge.

Valdir executes a Rat War–style terror assault: scouts are butchered, a death chant sows panic, and embedded “ghouls” kill the command chain before the main force strikes in the dark heat. The aftermath is a nightmare of corpses and a pillar of blood; most of the freed Obsidians are dead. Valdir, lacerated, reports Apollonius killed many and that both Apollonius and Cicero are wounded and enraged.

With time short, Virginia leads the survivors toward sanitation. She sends Holiday, Glaucus, Sophocles, and the remaining Lions down the waste shaft, planning to reach the Hollows via the fertilizer plant and hydroponics. As enemy radios close in, Valdir abruptly shoves Virginia into the tube, forcing their escape to begin.