I should have expected this. Titans are nothing if not loyal—their love for their war-torn homeland is an integral part of their identities. And Magda, most of all, is loyal to a fault. I swallow thickly and try not to let her words get beneath my skin.

“Really? A coward?” My voice is low but hard. “After everything I’ve done?”

“Everything you’ve done so that you can run with your tail tucked between your legs?” She laughs, a cruel sound with none of the warmth I normally find in it. “It means nothing now.”

“It means something to me!” Despite my best intentions, my voice rises to meet her shouts now, enough for the words to reverberate in the huge room. As the echoes die away, silence falls. The entire mess hall is quiet around us.

Magda’s face is twisted in contempt, Sverre won’t look at me, and Daniil sits with his hands covering his face. After a moment, Magda shakes off Sverre’s grip and folds her arms over her chest.

“I understand now why you always stayed at a distance,” Magda says, her voice soft but icy. “You and your Gaian attitude, poisoning all of us with your secrets and your selfishness and your jealousy. You were never one of us, you filthy off-world traitor.”

I flinch as if she struck me, the words stabbing deeper than any physical blow could. For a moment I stand and stare at her, struggling to find something to say in return. I want to scream and rage at her, to grovel at her feet for forgiveness, to say something, anything that will fix this before I lose my chance to ever have a proper goodbye. But I can’t. She’s already made up her mind, and there is nothing I can say now that will make her forgive this.

So I turn and walk away, like the coward she accused me of being.

The rush of blood is so loud in my ears that I barely hear the footsteps behind me. I make it halfway down the hallway, fists trembling with rage and hurt at my sides, and whirl around when a hand touches my back. I almost swing a fist out of instinct, but stop short as I see Daniil.

“What do you want?” I snarl at him. I can’t take any more punishment from my team. Magda’s cold eyes are seared into my brain, tangling with memories of her warm hands against my frozen skin. Magda is lost to me now. I don’t want my memories of Daniil’s smile sullied as well.

“Sarge—”

“I’m not your sergeant.”

Daniil’s face is pained.