Sonia lets out a dry laugh. Bitterness doesn't suit her, but it's been a long ten years and a difficult coming of age.

"They want us. They want the planet. They want it for their own." She rubs her hands over her lap, ostensibly trying to warm them, but she rocks a little where she sits. "They don't want to kill us all -- they want us to surrender. Some districts already have."

The look of disgust on her face is pretty clear: those Counts, as far as she and the rest of the Barrayarans around here, are tantamount to traitors.