Seraphina leaps into the arena to finish the bloodfeud, while Cassius, bleeding and exhausted, braces himself with a discarded hasta. The room assumes the execution is settled. Lysander watches in dread, recalling past inaction and recognizing the purity of Cassius’s resolve.

Seraphina honors Cassius with words, then engages. Moving smoothly, she blocks his lunge, smashes his knuckles with her kitari, and disarms him. Cassius staggers, weaponless and dazed, and forces himself upright to face death.

As Seraphina prepares to end him, Lysander refuses to be a passive witness. He leaps onto the killing floor unarmed, declaring he will not let Cassius be killed. Seraphina warns him he has no right to the Circle, but Lysander challenges the premise before the Raa.

Lysander sheds his Martian drawl and proclaims, “My name is Lysander au Lune,” invoking his lineage from Silenius and Octavia. The revelation stuns Seraphina, Dido, and Diomedes; Cassius watches in silent heartbreak. Lysander appeals to Raa honor, argues their feud is sated, identifies the Slave King as the true enemy, and demands Dido bring the safe.

The declaration halts the spectacle and shifts the power dynamic. By claiming ancestral authority and moral ground, Lysander seeks to stop the execution and redirect the Rim’s ire away from Cassius toward their larger foe.