She sat down at the table in the chair that Alexander was not occupying—the one next to Rex.

She moved with the composed efficiency of someone who had processed the outside conversation to its conclusion and was now choosing to be present in the room rather than absent from it. Her expression was the professional one, which Rex had learned conveyed something different from the personal one, even when the two appeared similar.

She glanced at the food, then surveyed the table as a whole before placing some on her plate and starting to eat with the deliberate focus of someone who has determined that eating is the next task at hand and is executing it.

Alexander did not come back inside.

Mireya glanced at his empty chair, then shifted her gaze to Elizabeth before focusing on her own plate.

"So... I want to be clear about something," Mireya said. "This has to be a long-term discussion."

’Ah shit... here we go again.’ Rex thought.

The table oriented toward her with varying degrees of attention. Rex kept eating without having to care if she starts it again.

"What I described this afternoon is accurate," Mireya said. "Rex killed people who had surrendered and given him everything he asked for!"

"That is the truth, and I didn’t try to make it into a story because that’s really what happened in the canyon."

"Mireya," Talyra said, and her voice had the specific directness of someone who had prepared what she was going to say and was saying it. "I want you to hear something and actually take it in rather than waiting for me to finish so you can answer."

"I’m listening," Mireya said.

"You watched the last few minutes of a situation that started before you got there," Talyra said. "You took an electrical discharge and you were on the ground, and you watched the end of something."

"Rex went into that canyon alone. Not the group, one person, because the group would have been slower and because Apollo and Veylor would have been moved before we reached them."

"And now look at the situation! He came out with all three." She met Mireya’s gaze directly. "The people who are dead in that canyon are the people who spent fourteen years running extraction operations!"

"The individuals who captured Apollo and inflicted stone spurs on Iris’s back were not mere bystanders; they were integral to the operation."

"I know who they were," Mireya said. "That doesn’t change what was done to them after they stopped fighting."

"Did they stop fighting?" Talyra said. "Kregg took Apollo."

"He had ten people in that canyon and possessed a ring that suppressed divine designations."

"He informed everyone in the chamber that five additional Legion members were already upstairs collecting the others." She paused. "At what point in that sequence did they actually stop?"

"They gave him information," Mireya said. "Kregg gave him the name, the location, the document, and the ring."

He cooperated fully!"

"He cooperated because Rex had Virella’s throat as leverage to intimidate him; I heard the story from him," Talyra said. "That’s not the same as stopping."

Mireya looked at her. "That distinction is doing a lot of work in your argument."

"Well yeah! It’s doing accurate work," Talyra said. "There’s a difference between someone who has stopped because they’ve changed their position and someone who has stopped because they have no other option in that moment."

"Kregg had no other option in that moment. The moment the situation changed, so would he."

"You can’t know that," Mireya said.

"Neither can you," Talyra said. "And Rex was the one standing in the canyon making the call, not either of us."

"The immediate threat was not resolved," Aisella said.

She said it quietly, the way she said most things, but with a firmness that was unusual for her. "Kregg had spent fourteen years removing reincarnators from this world."

"Virella was a senior commander of an organization that had killed forty-three people in the same category as Apollo."

"They were in the same category as me, Talyra, and Rex." She paused. "Allowing them to remain functional meant that the threat also remained functional."

"That is not a complicated calculation when you are the category they remove."

"There are processes," Mireya said. "There are systems."

"The Apostle network exists for exactly this kind of situation, and what Rex did was take those processes and decide unilaterally they didn’t apply to him."

"The Apostle network," Aisella said, "did not prevent Apollo from being captured today."

"The ring that Kregg used was specifically designed to suppress Apollo’s designation."

"The Legion spent fourteen years learning the network’s processes well enough to build tools that bypass them." She looked at Mireya steadily. "The processes you’re describing are the ones the Legion has already accounted for."

"They planned around them."

"But that doesn’t mean we abandon the processes entirely!" Mireya said.

"I’m not suggesting we abandon them entirely," Aisella said. "I’m saying that in that specific canyon, with that specific group, the processes had already failed at the point where Apollo was on two knees and Rex was the only one standing."

She paused to exhale her breath. "The process resumed when Rex brought them back. But there was a gap in the middle where it wasn’t available."

"And in that gap," Mireya said, "Rex decided he was the process."

"In that gap," Aisella said, "Rex was the only thing between the Legion and three people who wouldn’t have come back otherwise."

"Yes... That’s accurate."

Mireya pressed her lips together. "I’m not saying he should have done nothing!"

"I’m saying what he did after the immediate situation was resolved went beyond what the situation required."

"Rex went into that canyon alone," Nerith said.

She spoke in a neutral tone, characteristic of her precise communication style rather than a persuasive one. "Nobody asked him to."

"The calculation he was making in that room was done independently, without any support, and was made in opposition to ten people whose main role was to eliminate individuals like him."

"Whatever he decides in that calculation is his to account for." She paused. "But he came back for the group... including me..."

"I was not his priority by any reasonable measure. He came back anyway."

Mireya looked at her with the expression of someone who had expected this argument and had a response prepared. She was revising the response slightly because the person making the argument was Nerith rather than someone else.

"I know he came back for the group," Mireya said. "I know he came back for you!"

"I’m not arguing against that, but all I’m asking is whether the people he came back for have decided that means he gets to operate without any accountability for anything."

"That’s not what anyone said," Talyra said.

"It’s what my own eyes see," Mireya replied. "I raised my voice because I was there seeing him do it, but nobody else did see it."

"Because your voice was asking whether further inquiry was needed," Talyra said. "I’m not sure whether what happened was perfect."

"Those are different questions. What he did in that canyon is something I think about."

"What I don’t think is that a formal inquiry three days after a Legion engagement is going to produce anything useful except damage to the trust we’ve built in this group over three days of difficult work."

"Trust built on what?" Mireya said. "On not knowing what he actually did?!"

"Trust built on observing his actions," Talyra said. "In the gorge. In the chamber. In every instance during this expedition when something went awry, he was the one who set it right."

She set her cup down with the deliberate care of someone who is keeping their physical movements controlled because the conversation is pushing in a direction they have decided not to follow. "I’ve watched him work in real conditions under real pressure for three days."

"That’s what the trust is built on."

"I’m not defending the decision," Aisella said. "I’m saying I understand why it was made."

"I am not willing to treat Rex as a threat to the people in this group because he has not acted that way." He’s been consistent in protecting everyone here."

"That includes people who weren’t originally his to protect," Nerith said again, this time looking at Mireya rather than the table, while the amber leaves moved in the direct, forward motion that Rex had noted as her way of emphasizing a point.

Mireya looked at her. "I know he saved us," she said. "I’ve said that...!"

"I’ve said it multiple times, and that’s not the argument."

"Then what is the argument?" Talyra said. "Specifically..."

"What outcome do you want from this conversation?"

"I want someone in this group to acknowledge that what happened in that canyon was not standard operating procedure," Mireya said. "I want someone to say that the system exists for a reason and that one person deciding he’s above it is worth noting."

"I’ll note it," Talyra said. "And... Noted."

"Now, I’ll also note that the system you’re describing would have held Kregg for three weeks in Aethelgard while his relay network adapted and the Balance Keeper relocated, and by the time the network’s process concluded, there would have been nothing to follow." She picked up her cup. "The system is useful in the situations it’s built for."

"This wasn’t one of them."

"You sound like him," Mireya said. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Talyra looked at her. "I sound like someone who thought about it," she said. "Those aren’t always different things."

"Mireya," Aisella said, and her voice had the careful quality she used when she was trying to reach something rather than argue something. "I want to ask you something honestly."