Darrow and Cassius are driven through Flamma’s Gullet into the Hanging Coliseum. Cassius is battered, the Grays’ accents are Martian, and the arena is packed with tens of thousands of legionnaires and dockworkers. Seeing banners and hearing the chant “Invictus,” Darrow suspects Apollonius has deep new backing, perhaps tied to House Lune. Cassius scans for Lysander but finds no sign.

Apollonius appears amid rapture, basking in the devotion of his veterans and whipping the crowd into song. He flatters and taunts, claims he witnessed Darrow’s struggle on Mercury, and derides the Fear Knight’s grotesqueries. Pressed about Sevro, Apollonius refuses to produce him; Darrow and Cassius are left uncertain. Apollonius mocks Cassius, covets the “ghost ship,” and insists on a duel.

Darrow threatens to detonate a planted atomic, but Vorkian presents it on a platter, revealing Apollonius has already seized it. Apollonius strips to a Martian fighting tunic, swears bone, blood, and flesh oaths, and demands a fight to the death. When he says, “Only the rats know,” Darrow fears Sevro is dead. With negotiation closed, the duel begins.

Darrow matches early exchanges using the Willow Way and Lykos-bred ferocity, drawing minor cuts. Then Apollonius escalates to blistering onsets, his conditioning and power overwhelming Darrow’s form. Darrow suffers slashes to leg, shoulder, ear, and a deep stab to the left chest above the lung. Realizing Apollonius has learned to break the Willow Way, Darrow falters as Apollonius laments that he is being given only “scraps,” not glory.

As Darrow steels himself for a last stand, the arena trembles. Sand shivers, the dome warps under a shockwave, and the legions stagger. Cassius and Darrow exchange confused looks as they realize an explosion has occurred elsewhere: “That was a bomb, but it wasn’t ours.”