Darrow’s team arrives at Ilium expecting a battle but finds a massacre. The Dragon and Dust armadas lie in ruins around Kalyke, with the Dustmaker crippled. Among the wreckage, the Ascomanni have wired thousands of corpses into a giant Obsidian crescent. The horror sobers the crew as they circle the debris, avoiding shields and minimizing risk from remaining hostile forces.

Skirting the field, they find no survivors, only ghostly distress loops. Aurae isolates a live transmission: Athena declaring, “The sun is down,” summoning all cells to Helisson. Aurae does not know Helisson’s location; her only secure contact is an omega torch at Sungrave, the Raa stronghold on Io. Despite Sevro’s objections, Darrow orders a cautious course for Io.

Aurae then detects a short-range heartbeat beacon. Cassius threads the Archimedes through the debris so Darrow and Sevro can board a jammed escape pod. Inside they find a heavily built Gold in gray armor, barely alive and connected to dwindling O2. Back aboard, they disarm and unmask him, revealing Diomedes au Raa. Aurae extracts tiny thornlike bristles from his skin; an unknown toxin likely paralyzed him before he armored up and entered a trance to conserve oxygen.

Sevro presses for torture and tests Aurae’s loyalties, but Cassius forbids it, citing a debt to Diomedes. Aurae notes Diomedes will be conditioned and hard to break quickly. The Archimedes creeps deeper into Ilium toward Io. Darrow and Sevro debate the improbability of the one-sided slaughter; Sevro argues the Rim’s honor and inexperience in this war left them vulnerable to Fá’s ruthlessness.