Virginia arrives at the Forum with Daxo and Holiday for the rescue vote, buoyed by new alliances and expecting Dancer’s support. Daxo reintroduces the resolution to grant Virginia wartime imperium. As Dancer begins a conciliatory speech, Sevro transmits a breathless warning of a Bonerider trap in Old Tokyo before his feed explodes into static.

Dancer and his moderate Vox lieutenants suddenly convulse and bleed out without alarms triggering, while the Wardens refuse aid and file out. Lionguards do not respond. Publius, bloodied from cradling Dancer, turns on Virginia and brands her a tyrant. Simultaneously, comms report coordinated attacks across Luna and Warden units engaging loyal forces: a coup has begun.

Holiday fights Wardens at the West Door; a Drachenjäger massacres Lionguards before Holiday disables it, but the great door seals, trapping Virginia and the Optimates inside. The Forum’s eastern shield collapses, and a vast, enraged crowd floods in. Obsidian senators join Virginia’s line as Daxo arms himself with the Dawn Scepter and charges, winnowing the vanguard in a terrifying display.

Overwhelmed by the press, Virginia is beaten down and nearly stripped as Daxo carves toward her, then is swallowed by the human tide. Lifted above the mob, Virginia watches an Obsidian pin Daxo while a Red sanitation worker hacks off his head. She recognizes the woman as Lilath, long thought dead and now revealed as the Syndicate Queen, who laughs as Daxo’s head is tossed through the crowd.

With the Forum a charnel house, Publius incites surviving Vox and the mob against Virginia. The coup fractures the Republic’s center, denies Virginia her vote, and exposes a deep conspiracy binding the Wardens and the Syndicate under Lilath.