“It will take time,” Pittacus replies. “One day, the Mogadorians will choose peace. Loridas believes that, and so do I.”

“But what if they don’t? They endanger not just our way of life, but the entire galaxy. Why should we simply contain them and wait for their mind-set to improve when we could hasten their evolution? What if the Mogadorians we chose, the ones we see as peaceful and potential allies—what if we could give them Legacies? Make them Garde? Leaders among their people, capable of excising the warlike and dangerous? We could change the fate of an entire species, Pittacus.”

“We aren’t gods,” Pittacus replies.

“Says who?”

A moment of silence follows. Pittacus takes a step away from his old friend.

“It’s all I’ve thought about since we returned from Mogadore,” Setrákus continues. “Not just the Mogadorians, either. Us. All of us. The Loric. Why are there Garde and Cêpan? We have peace, yes, but at what expense? A caste system where our leaders are decided by who is and isn’t lucky enough to be born with Legacies? We Elders sit around a table that reads ‘unity,’ but how are we equal?”

“It is as Lorien wills it—”

Setrákus barks a bitter laugh. “Nature, fate, destiny. We are beyond these childish concepts, Pittacus. We control Lorien, not the other way around. You, me, everyone—we could choose our own fate, our own Legacies. My wife, she could—”

“Celwe would be disgusted by this and you know it,” Pittacus counters. “She’s worried about you.”

“You . . . you spoke to her?”

“Yes. And I saw the mess you made of your home.”

Setrákus Ra’s eyebrows shoot up and his mouth hangs open, almost like he’s been slapped. I half expect him to start shouting Pittacus down in the haughty tone he used so often with me on board the Anubis. I can see the arrogance that I know so well in his expression, but also something more. He isn’t so far gone yet. Competing with my grandfather’s delusions of grandeur is a healthy dose of shame.

“I . . . I lost my temper,” Setrákus Ra says after a moment.

“You’ve lost a lot of things and stand to lose more if you don’t stop this,” Pittacus replies. “Maybe our world isn’t perfect. Maybe we could do more, Setrákus. But this—this isn’t the answer. You aren’t helping anyone. You’re making them sick and torturing our natural world.”

Setrákus shakes his head. “No. It’s not . . . this is progress, Pittacus. Sometimes, progress needs to be painful.”

Pittacus’s expression turns steely. He turns towards the Liberator and watches the steady flow of Loric energy wrestled free from the planet’s core. He makes his decision quickly. Fire courses over his hands and arms.