Rune Winters and Gideon Sharpe stand on opposite sides of a deadly war. Having already betrayed each other in the past, their success throughout the novel relies heavily on their overcoming mutual distrust. Both are shaped by betrayals so deep they equate trust with weakness—a flaw neither can afford given that survival in their world depends on outmaneuvering enemies. Gideon views his past love for Rune as a catastrophic failure, reflecting bitterly:

By falling for her, Gideon had failed the Republic he’d helped build, the friends and soldiers he’d sworn to stand beside, the citizens he’d vowed to protect. Rune had weakened him, and that weakness had gotten people killed. It would continue to if left unchecked (22).

Gideon approaches their uneasy truce calculatingly, convinced that Rune is plotting her betrayal. He considers her “impossible” to trust (except if he first betrays her) and doesn’t think she can honor a truce, convinced that she’ll always have “some trick up her sleeve” (79). Rune mirrors this mindset, determined not to make the same mistake twice: “She couldn’t lower her guard with him again […] If Gideon was plotting to betray her, she needed to betray him first” (163).