“We never had the chance or the budget. I installed the prototype in Fiear right before we lost Vescent. It was just….just in case…A last resort. To give him enough time to–” To get help. Help from her. Which she would have been able to administer had she not been across the city and he thirty floors up an Ellegian spire. Even having sprinted here as fast as she could manage, so much time had passed since that alert had gone off. Too much time.

Gods, why hadn’t she gone with him?

“So he was killed, but this device–brought him back?” Dez attempted to clarify, but when Leta didn’t answer, wasn’t able to answer, he muttered, “Theoretically.”

The device went off, that was all she knew. It went off and sent her the alert that it had gone off and, yes, theoretically, administered the procedure to revive him. The science was there and it had worked in the chemical tests. It had done what it was meant to do to the collection of cells they had tried it on. There was no reason it wouldn’t work on a whole human being.

But even as she assured herself, the scientist in her knew there were a million reasons it might not work on a whole human being.

But she had to believe that it had worked as she forced her exhausted legs up yet another set of stairs. It had worked and she would find him alive because the very thought of the alternative, of being too late, of having to tell Cyrus what had happened, of a somber funeral and detached media speculation, of a Span without Fiearius in it —

She halted at the top of a stairwell in a hallway. The hallway, if the massive hole in the exterior wall was to be believed. The wind lashed at her violently as she took in the scene: Smoke, debris and lifeless bodies strewn across the ground. The rusty tang of blood filled her nostrils as she counted off four younger people with librera tattoos, an older woman she didn’t know, Ophelia? And finally, slumped against the wall beside her, his eyes closed —

“Fiear!”

Leta slid across the room and was on her knees beside him in an instant, pressing her fingers to the pulse in his neck. He lay unnaturally sprawled, his neck at an odd angle, his long limbs covered in soot. Unmoving. Her other hand pressed against his chest, wet with thick blood. If the device had worked, why wasn’t he responsive?

“You’re alright,” Leta informed him, her voice shaking so badly she could hardly move her lips. “You’re alright, Fiearius, you’re going to be alright, you always are.”

Fiearius did not stir.

“What’s your blood type?” Leta barked, throwing her eyes toward Dez who was standing over Ophelia’s lifeless corpse, looking down at it with empty eyes. “He needs a transfusion, I have some things in my bag, I can probably rig up– “

“Doctor,” said Dez, “I think it’s too late for — “

“No it’s not!” Leta growled in a voice so violent, so vicious, she hoped she’d never hear herself use it again.

After a moment of blank shock, in which Dez only stood staring at her curiously, Leta relented. Obviously he was going to be no help. But she could fix this without him, she knew she could. And suddenly, her memory jumped in and she knew how. Leta fumbled in her satchel, tossing aside vials, bandages, gauze, until her hand closed around a cold piece of metal: a syringe. In it, the very same cocktail of drugs the device carried. ‘Wake up juice’ they had called it in the clinic. Hardly a pleasant concoction and one they only used if nothing else worked. It was painful and probably harmful, but if it kept someone alive when they would otherwise be dead? it was worth it.

Taking a deep breath, throwing one last look at Fiearius’ face, she plunged the syringe directly into his neck. The needle sank and sank into his flesh, and Leta sank too; trembling with worry, her forehead fell against Fiearius’, and she squeezed her eyes shut. If you leave me with this war, she thought, I’ll never forgive you.

Still, the man below her didn’t move. Maybe Dez was right. Maybe it was too late. The tears started to well in her eyes before she could even consider the words: maybe she’d lost him.

Just as her chest started to clench in despair, though, Fiearius jerked awake, gasping in a deep breath and struggling in alarm. Leta drew back, water now streaming down her face as she grasped his shoulders and tried to calm him, “Fiear, it’s okay, it’s alright!” His body had gone tense and stiff, a reaction to the drug she’d given him. “I gave you something, it’s gonna hurt for a few minutes, but it’ll be okay. Just try and relax.”

Despite the clear confusion on his face, he seemed to try and follow her advice, forcing slower, more even breaths with each passing moment. Desperately, she searched his face as he blinked furiously and tried to focus on her. “You’re okay,” she said again, half laughing, half crying and she realized she was saying it mainly for herself. “You’re gonna be alright, I’ve got you. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

But as relieved as she felt, things weren’t fine just yet. He’d been shot in the chest, sustained massive blood loss and had to be given two heavy doses of questionable drugs just to keep his heart going. He didn’t need a field medic, he needed a hospital. So as much as she wanted to simply throw her arms around him and weep, she instead steeled herself and raised her fingers to her COMM. “Emergency channel, this is Dr. Adler, I need an extraction vessel to my location immediately. Priority level 1. I repeat, extraction vessel to my location, priority –”

Suddenly, Fiearius grabbed her arm. His grip was weak, but it was enough to give her pause. When she looked over at his face, it was twisted in pain and he was shaking his head.

In her ear, a voice came through the COMM. “That’s affirmative, Dr. Adler. Extraction vessel on its way.”

Unsure what Fiearius was trying to tell her, Leta simply replied to the operator, “Thank you. There’s a break in the tower wall, that’s where we are, the vessel should be able to–” she began but Fiearius’ grip tightened and he let out a groan of protest. A surge of anger rippled through her. “Fiear, no. Don’t you dare try and pull that sacrificial bullshit on me, I am getting you out of here and you are living through this so don’t you dare–”

“No–” he finally managed to choke out, “No, the –” He coughed violently. “The chip–”

Leta’s brow creased in confusion. “I don’t–”

“The Verdant database,” said Dez suddenly from behind her. “He was killed by a Society ID-ed gun. It transferred.”

Fiearius swallowed hard and nodded. “You can’t–let Carthis find it. They can’t–know.”

“Who has it?” asked Dez and Leta watched as Fiearius searched around the room, his eyes still glazed over and unfocused. Finally, he squinted and raised his index finger at the body of Ophelia Varisian. The look on Dez’s face changed, just by a fraction, Leta noticed. She had never seen the man hesitate on anything, but looking down at the dead woman, contemplating the CID in her wrist, for the first time, Dez showed a moment of reluctance.

But only a moment. Before Leta could even say anything, Dez had kneeled beside the body, drawn his blade and in one swift motion, expertly severed Ophelia’s hand from her arm. Leta’s mouth fell open in shock, but by the time she’d caught up enough to protest, he was already on his feet, hand in hand and stalking away from them towards the doorway at the end of the hall.

She wasn’t about to let this, let him, go though. Leta too stumbled to her feet and demanded, “What the hell are you doing?”

Desophyles paused in the doorway to look back at her. “Fixing Plan A.”

Leta marched after him. “Oh hell no. If you think I’m just going to let you walk away from this with the Verdant CID to do whatever the hell crazy plan you’ve concocted–”

Dez glanced down at Fiearius, presumably for help, but he seemed entirely focused on ensuring oxygen made it in and out of his lungs. So Dez sighed. “Doctor, you have to trust me.”

Leta crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t.”

“I know.” Dez frowned. “I know. But you need to. Any minute, the Ellegian fleet is going to return and Carthis, your friends, are going to lose this battle. Let me go and I can stop that from happening. I can end this.”

“If you’re suddenly so noble, then I’ll come with you,” Leta seethed. “I’d love to see this great save-the-world plan of yours in action.”

Dez’s clenched fists told her just how much he was losing his patience. “You have a more important task to attend to.” He gestured at Fiearius lying against the wall, those breaths of his coming shorter and shorter. “Doctor, please. Get him out of here, keep him alive. I swear to you, upon whatever you need me to swear on, what I do here today is nothing you yourself would not do, and as soon as I’m able, as soon as we can ensure Carthis’ ignorance of it, I’ll return the chip to Fiearius. You have my absolute solemn word.”

Leta didn’t like this. Of all of Fiearius’ colleagues and criminals, even those who she’d seen firsthand do terrible, brutal things, Dez was still the one she trusted least. He was the man who, no matter what side he seemed currently aligned with, appeared likely to jump to the other at any moment. How many times had he betrayed Fiearius? How many more would he? And yet as Leta stood there across the hall from him and growled, “Your word doesn’t mean a hell of a lot,” she realized he was right when he shrugged and replied, “What other choice do you have?”

As if on cue, a blast of wind swept through the hallway, so strong that Leta had to shield her face from it. When it died down and she looked up, a small Carthian shuttle was carefully hovering in place just outside the wall, its ramp already open and an emergency team rushing out into the hall. And Dez? Gone.

Praying with every ounce of faith she had left that just this once, Dez was telling the truth, Leta turned from the doorway and hurried back to Fiearius’ side to help the medical team get him aboard and get him to safety. After all, if she wanted Fiearius to live, if she wanted Carthis to stay in the dark about the CID and about Dez, if she wanted this alliance to continue? What other choice did she have?

“And what of me, ma’am?”

The Councillor could not have sounded more surprised. “You? What about you?”

And Ophelia could not have sounded more confused. “In assuming my place as Verdant, ma’am? I’m ready to serve and await your orders.”

“Ah yes.” The footsteps moved away from Fiearius and made a small circle nearby. “Our new Verdant, of course. Well.” There was a long pause as the Councillor seemed to consider her options. Finally, she decided, “You can just stay here with Soliveré, can’t you?” Before Ophelia could voice her concern, a quick succession of noises filled Fiearius’ ears. The sound of metal sliding out of a sheath, the same metal sliding into flesh, a horrible groan followed by the thump of a body hitting the ground.

“Like I’ve always said,” the Councillor remarked, calm as ever considering she’d just murdered a woman by her own hand. “The Verdant is a weak link. Regardless of who bears the title.”

The woman’s clicking footsteps began to move away and tentatively, Fiearius opened his eyes. Beside him, barely holding herself up, was Ophelia, her hand clutched over her chest, trying to keep in the blood that was spilling from her onto the marble floor. It pooled outward, Fiearius could feel the warmth of it as it met his arm. Varisian’s eyes were glazed over, her breathing was shallow and shaking. But just for a moment, she looked up and her stare met Fiearius’.

Of all the things Fiearius would have expected from the woman who had murdered him, relief was not it, but relief was what was written into all of her features. Her final words to him rang in his head, again, ‘I’m sorry’. None of it made sense. Ophelia had been trying to kill him for years. She was pure loyal Society. Her allegiance to the Councillors was clear.

Wasn’t it?

But as she kneeled there, bleeding out, dying at the hand of the woman she supposedly served, clearly the tables had turned.

Weak and growing weaker as she was, Ophelia frowned in what must have been determination, but looked a lot like pain. “Where is it?” he saw her say, more than he heard it as her voice was too weak to carry the short distance between them. Fiearius stared back at her, lost, until she snapped, “Gun. The–gun–where–”

The gun, of course, there was still a chance to finish this. Though it sent a terrible surge through his left side and across his middle, Fiearius forced his body up onto his elbows and frantically looked around for the weapon he knew he’d dropped somewhere around here. It was difficult to see, his vision was still a haze, but finally he saw the dark shape of the pistol just out of reach.

Bracing himself for the consequences, he stretched his arm out towards it, gritting his teeth as what felt like lava inside him rumbled and burned in protest. He could still hear the Councillor’s footsteps down the hallway. He had to get to her before she got away. Before he slipped away again. This had to happen. Desperately, he reached even further and his fingertips mercifully touched cold metal.

In an instant, the gun was in the air and his finger pulled the trigger. Where he’d aimed it, however, was another story entirely. Though Fiearius could make out a shape in a direction, his aim was hardly on point. The gunshot echoed off the walls, but there was no shout of impact, no collapse of a corpse. Just footsteps ceasing and a distant, “How’re you–”

Before Fiearius could even begin to try and line up another shot, he felt the gun being wrenched from his hand. Ophelia. She seized the weapon and with what looked like all the strength left in her, rose to her feet, aimed, and fired.

This time, the distinctive sound of bullet meeting body hit Fiearius’ ears. And then again. And again. Ophelia kept firing the gun over and over, all of her shots hitting her mark until the pistol clicked uselessly beneath her fingers, empty and spent. She dropped it and it clattered to the floor in unison with its victim who, from what Fiearius could make out, slumped to the ground ungracefully and went still. Ophelia, only moments later, did the same.

For a moment, Fiearius just sat there, barely propped up, taking in the silence and trying to wrap his hazy mind around what had happened here. A mission gone badly, no doubt about that. And yet the Councillor lay dead and defeated, as he had planned. Thanks to Ophelia, of all people. He glanced over at her where she lay, heaving in shallow breaths, her face pale and her eyes drooping. Maybe someone could save her. Maybe whatever miracle had saved him would reach her too. But if something was going to change, it would have to change soon because she was fading and fading fast. And Fiearius was in no condition to be that miracle she needed.

“Thanks,” he managed, his voice hoarse and rough. He wasn’t even sure she heard him until one eye from beneath her messy blonde hair flicked up towards him.

“It wasn’t for you,” she sputtered.

“I know.”

She gasped in an awful breath. “If you get out of here–” she coughed, “–save Satieri–”

Fiearius snorted indignantly, a gesture he regretted as soon as the spike of pain shot through his chest. “That’s the plan.”

But Ophelia was weakly shaking her head. “Not from–Society. From Carthis.”

Fiearius looked down at himself, unable to look elsewhere, mostly unable to look at her. “I will,” he mumbled, but when he glanced back at her, she wasn’t moving any longer. Her heaving breaths had stopped. Her eyes stared emptily at nothing. She was gone.

Feeling a strange urge to move away from the body, Fiearius clenched his jaw and pulled himself a few feet backwards to lean against the wall. His finger raised to his COMM weakly. “This is Admiral Soliveré, addressing all channels. Need medical assistance in the Capitol Tower ASAP. Repeat, medical assistance to the Capitol Tower.” He waited for a moment, but the COMM made no noise, not even a buzz of recognition that it was even on. He tried again. “If anyone can hear me, I need medical assistance.” Still nothing. “Hello? Anybody?”

He was starting to feel weak. Too weak. Whatever force had awoken him from death was starting to wear off now that his task was done. He was slowly becoming more and more aware of how much blood he no longer had, how much of his life was still smeared across the floor. He swore he could even feel the bullet still lodged in his chest, grating against his slowing heart.

“I think I’m dying,” he said into the useless COMM. “Again.” If only he’d let Javier find him one that wasn’t broken like he’d offered. Maybe the pigeon would find that funny. In the end, after everything, it was only him that could have saved Fiearius’ life. If only Fiearius had let him.

The chuckle that escaped his lips was barely more than a sharp breath. He was so tired. He’d never been this tired before. Sleep had never sounded so good. “Sorry, pigeon,” he muttered, letting his eyes close and his head roll back against the wall. “For not listening. And sorry, Harper. For leaving you behind. And Cy. For not calling you before all this.” His voice grew quieter and quieter as his mind started to drift towards unconsciousness. “Sorry Leta. For…well, everything.”

Save Satieri, Ophelia had said and he wanted to do that, of course, but right now? All Fiearius wanted to do was rest. “Sorry to you too,” he mumbled as he felt the sweet relief of blackness envelop him. “I tried.”

————

Although Leta had indeed prepared for this moment, she’d never felt less prepared for anything in her life. Her whole body shook like she was outside in freezing air as she forced her legs to jog up countless flights of stairs toward Fiearius. Behind her, Dez followed.

“I’m still not sure I understand,” he said, his breath coming short as he raced up the tower. “You remotely monitor Fiearius’ life signs?”

Explaining why and how Leta had gotten such a morbid alert to Dez was not particularly something she was in the mood to do in her current state of duress. On the other hand, explaining it, acknowledging the science and fact and logic of it, maybe was exactly what she needed to make her breathing even out, her heart stop pounding and her head stop reeling.

“Not always,” she managed to get out. “Just a–dramatic change in them.” Like when they stopped, she added silently.

“It’s something my team back on Vescent developed,” she went on, trying to ignore how much her voice was quavering. “You inject a microscopic device into someone’s bloodstream and it can sense when their heart stops. Then it’ll release an electrical impulse and a small cocktail of chemicals to reinvigorate the nervous system and speed up blood clotting in a wound.” She hesitated, before muttering, “Theoretically anyway.”

“You never tested it,” Dez concluded, his tone flat.

“That will mean nothing if your planet is destroyed and dead,” Leta snapped.

“She’s not wrong,” put in Dez, to Leta’s deep shock, though she didn’t say it. “Both contingencies will be more successful with the support of the Ellegian populace.”

“Gods, even he agrees with me,” Leta growled, rolling her eyes and then seeking out the woman who had brought her in. “Where’s my pack?”

The woman looked startled and then searched around the room for someone to assist her, but no one did so she pointed down the hallway. “Eh–it’s in the storage room on the left, but–”

“Great,” Leta cut her off and headed back to the hall just as Ezra stuttered, “W–what are you doing?”

“Taking my stuff, freeing my med team and getting back out there,” Leta called back as she walked straight past the stunned guards into the storage room and sought out her medical bag. Slinging it over her shoulder, she made a pointed glance at the man guarding the holding room where her team was waiting. He nervously cast a glance at Ezra who didn’t seem to know what to do, and then Dez, who nodded. The door swung open and Leta smiled, heading back into the main room.

“And if anyone tries to stop me? Like this guy said,” she jutted her thumb at Dez, “You can wave goodbye to your Plan A.” Whatever that meant. It didn’t matter. There was work to be done and damned if she was just going to sit here as someone’s captive. She made for the door, her team, confused but ready to go, filling in behind her.

“Wait — is she — is she really?” Ezra sputtered in desperation and Leta could have sworn she heard Dez laugh appreciatively before he said, “I did warn you not to pick her up.”

—————–

Fiearius ducked beneath the arc of Ophelia’s blade, but left himself completely open for the mean right hook she delivered to his ribs straight after. He recoiled and lashed out for a counterattack that she easily side-stepped to slash at him again.

Fiearius had fought Ophelia before, a few times actually, but this time something was different. The woman’s style could be categorized only as ‘relentless.’ Even back in his days in Internal, she was known for her ability to just keep going and going and going without a pause for breath. ‘Inhuman’ was a word often assigned to her, although only behind her back. Fiearius had often gotten the impression she didn’t like the description.

Relentless and inhuman, however, were not applicable now. Though she was currently swinging a blade furiously in the direction of his abdomen, Fiearius sensed something surprising as he stumbled backwards away from her: hesitation.

There was a subtle hint of distraction in her eyes as she continued towards him, this time slashing at his leg which he slid out of the way and used the momentum of to pummel forward with his fist. And though she was paying attention enough to dodge him, her elbowing counterattack was clearly delayed and not even aimed at a vital organ. She had made a few contacts in this scuffle, but Fiearius was still mostly intact and not out of any skill of his own. He was a scrappy fighter and could hold his own against normal brunt force, but Varisian? She was a creature of grace. And distracted or not, she should have been kicking his ass.

So why was she holding back? Why had she wanted him to leave? What was with that look she’d given him? were all questions he might have wondered had he not been too busy trying not to fall down the stairs she’d managed to back him up against.

He tried in vain to raise his arm enough to get even a decent shot with his gun, but Ophelia’s blade came down on his wrist, forcing his hand back. Fleetingly, as he used her momentary preoccupation to slide away from the stairwell’s edge, he caught glimpse of the Councillor at the other end of the hall. She leaned against the doorframe, her dress whipping around her ankles from the wind, watching with her chin propped in her hand and a smile curling her lips.

She was fucking enjoying this, he realized, narrowly avoiding having his shoulder sliced open.

That fucking asshole.

Fueled by a sudden spurt of rage, Fiearius looked back at Ophelia, coming at him again with her weapon and felt that familiar thought rise into his head: fuck it. She may have been faster, but he was still bigger. He tensed himself and ran straight at her.

The collision hurt even more than he had anticipated as her blade cut through his shirt and into the flesh of his side, but it had worked. He planted his feet firmly in the ground as Ophelia staggered backwards, no match for his full force. He gripped his gun and raised it again, but not at her. Fuck her, she wasn’t what he was here for. He spun around and aimed at the woman in the doorway whose expression flickered from amusement to, infuriatingly, curiosity. It wouldn’t last long, he thought to himself. Time to end this.

His finger pulled the trigger just as another force plowed into him from the side. The bullet shattered the top of a pillar in a cloud of plaster.

Smaller she may have been, but unprepared as he was for Ophelia leaping on him, Fiearius lost his footing in an instant and the two of them tumbled to the marble floor. She seized his wrist and twisted until the pistol fell from his grip then kneed him in the ribs. She wanted to wrestle? Fine.

Fiearius ripped his arm from her grasp and pushed, flipping her off of him and onto her back where he pinned her down and returned the favor, forcing her blade from her hand to clatter onto the ground. She struggled with her hands for a moment, desperate to release herself, but without the advantage of weight or gravity, she was stuck. That is, until she realized he’d accidentally left a key opening available for her to kick.

As Fiearius recoiled, resisting the urge to howl in pain, he thought he heard something that only made this worse. Laughter? Seriously? It was bad enough that he was rolling around on the floor with this goddamn woman trying to kill him, but this Councillor had the audacity to think it was funny? He’d felt some sympathy for the Ascendian official. A little respect even for the Synechdan, managing to stay hidden in plain sight for so long. But this one? This was the first Councillor since Vescent he’d wanted to murder so fucking badly.

Which was probably why, after fending off Ophelia for another few seconds, when he was finally granted just a split second of reprieve after getting in a punch to her collarbone, instead of going for another attack as he should have, he stretched his arm out in a desperate reach for his gun. Just shoot her, that’s all he wanted to do. Shoot that damn Councillor and finish this.

But his fingertips never touched the gun. It was the wrong move. It put him off balance, it gave Ophelia  the edge, and when she put her palms on his chest and shoved, he didn’t have the chance to resist. Within instants, he was on his back again, pinned to the floor by her knee with her gun pressed against his forehead.

Neither of them moved. Fiearius stared up at her, breathing heavily. She stared back, unreadable as ever, her face stone. The laughing, thank the gods, had stopped, but now the sound of clicking heels on the floor met his ears. They stopped a few feet away and a barking voice snapped, “I gave you an order, Varisian. Kill him.”

Ophelia still didn’t move. Her shoulders were rising and falling hard, her nostrils flaring with each breath. She continued to meet his gaze, unwavering.

“Kill him!” shouted the Councillor again and this time, he saw Varisian ever so slightly flinch. Then, she took a deep breath and moved her gun from his head to his heart. She mouthed, “I’m sorry.” And fired.

Before he could move, before he could think, fire blasted cleanly through him, more painful than anything he’d felt before. And then — numbness spread through his limbs. Warm, wet blood started to seep over his skin and, dimly, he registered that he was probably in shock — he made a choking sound, he had to press his hand against the wound — his lungs were starting to feel heavy, full —

But then his thoughts became nothing. A curtain fell over his mind; he only saw noise. Ophelia, the Councillor, Ellegy, melted away, his head slumped back onto the ground. He exhaled one shaky last breath and then breathed no more.

The Councillor smiled and then laughed. “Varisian?” she called across to them, her voice nearly garbled by the wind and the outside sounds of battle it carried. “Kill him.”

Fiearius met Ophelia’s eyes just briefly and he could have sworn he saw a hint of apology there before she brandished a blade and attacked.

——————–

Leta didn’t argue when the Ellegian rebels escorted her and her team towards the neighborhood they had holed up in. She didn’t argue either when they were herded into the back room of a house that could have belonged to any normal Ellegian family. Nor did she argue when the woman who’d brought them all in told her she’d have to wait to speak with their leader.

No, Leta saved her arguing power for the exact moment when she was brought out of holding and into the house’s dining room to face Ezra Norran, the man she had been in contact with for over a month, the man Fiearius had been in contact with for many months and the man who had apparently decided to take his rebellion and flush it all away.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded the minute he looked across the room and locked eyes with her.

Ezra was an older man, lines marring his tired face, his greying hair pulled back into a ponytail. Still, despite his age, he looked like the kind of person you didn’t challenge to a fight, specifically because you’d lose.

He regarded Leta curiously, but said nothing so she went on, “Kidnapping Carthian forces? What exactly is that going to accomplish? We’re on your side. We’re here to help you. But you’re blowing up your own city and rounding us up.”

Still, Ezra remained silent, as did the other rebels standing around the table watching in some sort of wonder as Leta, finally exploring her rage and frustration, let out a bitter one-note laugh. “I hope to the gods you have some sort of plan here, at least an explanation for why you’re capturing your allies.”

The man blinked his grey eyes curiously. “Allies. That’s an interesting notion, isn’t it? From what I understood, Carthis had decided they wanted nothing to do with us.”

Leta opened her mouth to retort, but the words caught in her throat. It was true, after all. Carthis had denounced the Ellegian rebels and cut them out of the attack plans. But Fiearius hadn’t. Leta hadn’t. And from the messages they’d shared just before they’d abandoned the CORS, Ezra had known that. He’d agreed to continue supporting them. And yet…

“Look, Ms. Adler, don’t get me wrong,” he went on, moving around the table toward her and leaning against it. “I have a lot of respect for you and for Admiral Soliveré and what you’re trying to achieve. And I know, truly,” he held his hand over his heart, “that what you’re here for is the freedom of the Ellegian people. But forgive me if I feel the need to call a spade a spade. This?” He gestured vaguely towards the window, the outside, the burning city under attack. “This is not a rescue mission. This is an invasion.”

Leta wanted desperately to argue. To prove him wrong, to defend their purpose here, but she found she couldn’t. Not without lying. Or at least dramatically stretching the truth.

“Of course, we’ve no real ill intent towards Carthis and certainly not you,” Ezra continued. “The enemy of our enemy is our friend after all. We want the Society dismantled as much as you do and even as we speak, our forces are aiding yours in that fight. We’ll help win this battle. It’s just…what comes afterwards that I worry for.”

“And that’s why you’re kidnapping soldiers,” Leta finished for him, her tone still bitter. “As an insurance policy?”

“More like a bargaining chip,” Ezra corrected and though what he was saying made her angry, she couldn’t quite hate him for it. He spoke so earnestly, as genuine as he always had been in their messages, she couldn’t entirely fault him. “When the smoke clears and our victory is secured, it’s going to be us against a massive military force ready to sweep us out in one fell swoop. I need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“But–Ezra, like this?” Leta rubbed her palms against her temples. “You know as well as I they’re going to just see this as an act of aggression. They’ll use it as a reason to attack you. They’ll just spin the entire planet as Society sympathizers.”

Ezra shrugged and said something that left Leta speechless. “Maybe we are.”

“What?”

“It’s different on Vescent, I know,” he tried to explain, pushing himself from the table. “The Society’s presence was new and imposing, something swooping in to take over an existing system. But on Ellegy? The Society isn’t some outside force taking over our government. It is our government. It’s a fundamental structure of the Ellegian way of life. There’s no one on this planet that doesn’t know someone within it. My own sister is the head of the Ellegian Department of Science and Technology. My father worked for fifty years in the Department of Transportation. My mother, the Department of Health. It’s not us versus them. It’s just us.”

Leta was shaking her head before he’d even finished. “But you’re a rebellion, you’re fighting against the Society.”

“We’re fighting the current Society regime,” he corrected. “The one that’s lost sight of what Ellegy should and can be. Now I’ll admit that without the actions of you and even of Carthis in the rest of the Span, what we’ve started here wouldn’t have been possible. But nonetheless, this remains, at its heart, a civil war. And these supposed allies of yours offering ‘help’?” Now it was his turn to shake his head. “Opportunists.”

Leta could not point to any particular sentiment she disagreed with, but the entirety of it still left a foul taste in her mouth. Opportunists or no, Carthis was still the driving force behind this effort and this tiny rebellion hadn’t stood a chance against the Society fleets or even the ground forces without their intervention. And now acting like their help was an inconvenience? Attacking Carthian forces? On top of it all, lying about their allegiance until they had already arrived?

Leta grit her teeth. “We had an agreement, you and I. We were on the same page. We’d fight the Society together with Carthis and negotiate where things landed politically afterwards.”

“I know,” Ezra sighed. “And I’m sorry we neglected to tell you when that changed, I really am. But we couldn’t risk the overall plans falling through.”

There were few things Leta liked less than feeling used, but the uncomfortable feeling edging in on her from all sides was coming in a close second. “And dare I ask what made you change your mind?”

Ezra’s eyes flickered past her and Leta drew a deep breath as she turned around to find Dez standing in the corner of the room, arms crossed over his chest, watching in interest. “Of fucking course.”

“Careful with this one,” Dez advised Ezra, stepping out of the shadows. “Any harm comes to her, we can wave goodbye to our Plan A.”

Leta balled her fists at her side and lifted a brow at him. “Plan A?”

“You’ll see,” Dez assured her and then smiled emptily. “Welcome to Plan B though. I can tell you’re not a fan.”

Hardly in the mood to talk to Dez of all people, Leta spun back around on Ezra. “This is who you’re listening to now? Do you have any idea who he is?” She let out a groan and dragged her blood-stained hands down her face, not even wanting the answer. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter who it came from. How could you even entertain a plan that involves blowing up your own city? How many people were hurt in those explosions? And for what? A distraction? How many had to die so you could get the edge on the Carthian troops?”

Beside her, she heard Dez open his mouth to speak, but she held up a finger to him and snapped, “If you even think of saying it was ‘necessary’ I swear I will take you down with my bare hands.” The man regarded her curiously for a moment and then obediently shut his mouth.

“But Ms. Adler, it was,” Ezra argued and she rounded on him with fury in her eyes. “If we hadn’t set off the explosions, we never could have made the extractions we needed and without the extractions, if Plan A fails, even if it succeeds, we’d have nothing to negotiate Carthis’ exit with.”

“So the people out there, your people, as you pointed out, that are dying and suffering, mean nothing? Instead of helping them, you’re blowing them up and hiding away with your political negotiation assets?”

“They don’t mean nothing,” Ezra argued. “But we have a bigger goal–”