Darrow rides a rescue ship back to the Academy repeating the toll—eight hundred and thirty-three dead. Arriving to halls decked in Bellona colors for Karnus’s Victory, he receives no greeting. Roque urges him to accept the loss as a game and a service to Society, but Darrow rejects the logic, furious that lowColors’ lives are treated as clerical costs and that their supposed choice was conscription.

Seeking escape, Darrow retreats to the Academy’s garden, bathing and reflecting on Eo and how defeat robs momentum from her dream. He recalls Augustus’s warning not to allow a Bellona triumph and prepares to face his patron after the ceremony. As he dresses, he finds his clothes and razor gone—and then senses others closing in.

Karnus au Bellona enters with six Bellona cousins, including the Legate Kellan and lancer Cagney. They taunt Darrow about the “game,” the 833 dead, and Julian’s death, while making clear they will avoid murder because Augustus’s protection would make it war. Cagney brandishes Darrow’s razor and mocks his background; Darrow discreetly triggers a hail, which Cagney notices.

The Bellona rush him. Darrow disables two briefly, but the group’s kravat overwhelms him. Blows target nerves and organs; Karnus’s elbow and head-butts drop him. Pinned, Darrow watches Cagney confirm his hail and then saw off his hair before Karnus finishes the beating. The cousins urinate on him and leave a message: “Rise so high, in mud you lie.”

The assault underscores Bellona impunity and Darrow’s isolation. They steal his razor, maim his pride, and spare his life for political reasons, transforming his battlefield defeat into public humiliation that threatens his standing and Augustus’s position.