The general is asleep. Not his general, of course. At least not officially. But Cody still pauses at the edge of the camp, caf in hand, and watches Mace breathe for a long, long moment before he steps closer and glances around them, checking whether anything has changed in the handful of minutes he was gone.

“Well,” Kit says lightly. “This does seem to be a predicament, doesn’t it?” Pressed right up against him, gauntlets digging bruises into his almost-bare hips, Dogma squeezes his eyes tightly shut. “I'm going to kill my whole squad,” he says, perfectly certain and resigned to it.

Bly's new wife is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and she's graceful and charming and funny and so far out of his league that he's about to die.

“I got you something. An early Life Day present of my own.”

Depa takes one step into the council chambers and stops dead, clapping a hand over her mouth.