Saeris locates Danya at the war camp and requests her help. After hostile words, Saeris attacks and easily overpowers Danya, flipping her into the mud. She appeals to Danya’s hidden loyalty to Fisher and guilt over abandoning him in Gillethrye. Saeris asks Danya to knock her unconscious. Danya agrees and punches her in the jaw.

Saeris wakes in a dreamscape version of Cahlish, decaying and choked with rot. She calls for Fisher but receives no answer. A chandelier nearly crushes her as she navigates to his bedroom. The door is warded; when she blasts it with her magic, the rot absorbs the energy and grows stronger. Using the Hazrax’s rune of undoing, she breaks the ward.

Inside, Fisher sits catatonic in a chair, eyes clouded, unresponsive. The Hazrax appears, clarifying that their bargain allows it to observe Saeris herself, not just the court. It warns her not to waste her one favor. With seconds remaining, Saeris frantically searches and finds a paper stargazer hidden under a ceramic kingfisher figurine—the missing page from Edina’s journal with instructions for finding Fisher. She uses her favor to have the Hazrax transport her to the Wicker Wood.

Saeris awakens in the Wicker Wood, her physical body transported. Using her Fae Sight, she sees horrifying shades of the damned reliving their deaths as she tracks Fisher by sensing quicksilver in his eye. Ten of Belikon’s guards, armed with null weapons, ambush her. She fights fiercely, killing several. When guards pile atop her, she detonates her quicksilver shield, obliterating them. Belikon appears with Orious and reveals Fisher, nearly dead, trapped within a massive dryad tree called an oubliette.

Belikon explains he tried Fisher in absentia for Gillethrye’s destruction and sentenced him to life imprisonment. He demands Saeris swear servitude in exchange for Fisher’s eventual release and plans to claim Nimerelle once the bond breaks. Saeris reveals that Nimerelle is forged of iron and contains the spirit of Merelle—twin sister of Belikon’s general, Renfis—making it impossible for most Fae to wield. She combines her own swords into a single blade, Solace, then calls Nimerelle to her hand. When Belikon orders the dryad to consume Fisher, she impales Orious with Solace, but the tree begins closing.

Belikon moves with supernatural speed, punching through her chest and gripping her heart. Saeris refuses to surrender and stabs him with both god swords. Her hybrid physiology begins healing the chest wound. As the dryad closes completely around Fisher, Saeris touches it and speaks his true name—Khydan Graystar Finvarra—declaring all his oaths null and void.

Saeris’s command shatters Kingfisher’s mental prison. His magic explodes outward, obliterating the dryad that held him. He emerges to find Saeris bloodied but alive and Belikon impaled by both god swords. Kingfisher kicks the fallen king. Believing he now controls Kingfisher through his true name, Belikon commands him to kill Saeris. The command forces Kingfisher to draw Nimerelle and approach her, but he feints and plunges the blade back into Belikon instead. Saeris reveals she used the Hazrax’s rune to sever the magical power of his true name before speaking it.

Onyx suddenly appears and attacks Orious, who had been attempting to stab Saeris from behind. Orious slashes the fox with his null blade, mortally wounding him. Saeris tears out Orious’s throat while Kingfisher’s shadows eviscerate him from within. Onyx dies in Saeris’s arms as they grieve. Belikon reveals the fox had been harassing his camp for days, trying to reach the tree. Kingfisher realizes he accidentally brought Onyx through the shadow gate from Cahlish and that the fox never abandoned him. Kingfisher beheads Belikon to delay pursuit and opens a shadow gate for their escape.

After traveling through 12 shadow gates, Kingfisher and Saeris arrive on a snowy mountain outside Ajun Sky. Saeris grieves over Onyx’s body. Kingfisher comforts her with a Fae belief that animals are ascended beings who return to help souls in suffering. Saeris notices the Hazrax’s rune glowing faintly on her hand.

She summons the Hazrax and demands to know if it can see spirits of the dead. After negotiation, the Hazrax confirms Onyx’s soul remains present, unaware it is dead. Saeris resolves to resurrect him using the rune to undo death and her own power to heal. The Hazrax warns that this is impossible, will kill her, and destroy the rune forever. Kingfisher supports her decision.

Saeris pours enormous power into the rune, struggling against death’s void. The cold of oblivion creeps up her body as she fights. After an agonizing battle, she succeeds in returning Onyx’s spirit to his body. With her magic exhausted and his body still fatally wounded, she reaches for an unknown, deeper power source within herself. She channels this energy into Onyx, healing him completely as a shockwave rocks the mountain and a premature dawn breaks.

Kingfisher carries the weakened Saeris up the mountain as Belikon’s guards pursue them. Onyx leaps into her arms, fully alive and joyful. The Hazrax’s rune has vanished from her hand. They reach Ajun’s massive iron gates, which open to reveal Renfis waiting inside. Belikon’s forces attack the city’s impenetrable wards.

Renfis explains that his oath mark was activated after his twin sister, Merelle, was buried in Ajun, following the battle in which Kingfisher and his warriors killed the dragon Old Shacry. This bound him to the city and summoned him to become a Knight of the Orrithian. These knights guard an ancient, corrupted portal that cannot be closed. Kingfisher reveals that as a child, Belikon forced him through this gate, which is how quicksilver infected him. The portal leads to a realm called Diaxis, which Kingfisher calls hell.

Renfis confirms that the gate recently opened and that a beast killed all six previous knights. He was summoned as the replacement. The gate now opens daily for three hours, and wards protecting Ajun will eventually fail. They realize they must enter immediately to acquire brimstone and stop the rot. Renfis leads them to the gate—a festering organic pool of roiling black liquid.

A brief interlude captures Kingfisher’s state of mind as he contemplates entering Diaxis. Reflecting on his history with dragons and what lies ahead, he distills his feelings to a single thought: He hates dragons. The stark line underscores his dread and his resolve to proceed despite it.

Saeris and Kingfisher plunge through the corrupted gate into Diaxis. They emerge in a cavern of crushing heat and sulfurous air that scorches their lungs. A massive dragon named Arissan confronts them, her eyes burning orange-red points of flame. She towers 70 feet tall with gold-and-black scales, a horned head, and three-foot teeth. Kingfisher identifies her master as Styx, Lord of the charred aerie. Arissan reveals she can hear their mental communication and declares Kingfisher must face judgment for murdering her offspring, Shacry.

When Saeris attempts to provoke the dragon, Arissan unleashes a torrent of superheated brimstone that narrowly misses them. The brimstone triggers a strange reaction in Saeris’s body. She passes out from the heat.

Saeris awakens hanging upside down by chains in an enormous hall filled with thousands of silent onlookers. After she wakes Kingfisher, they are lowered to the floor, where two tall males, Crave and Githrand, confront them. The brothers identify them as Yvelians, from the realm of Yvelia, and list Kingfisher’s crimes. Githrand threatens to “enslave” Saeris as a “concubine.” Kingfisher unleashes powerful shadow magic, easily overpowering their weaker abilities and shielding them from the crowd.

He reveals to Saeris that he controlled what Arissan saw in his mind, allowing the dragon to capture them intentionally. Crave is shocked that Kingfisher wields shadow magic, which should only belong to half-gods. After a moment where Kingfisher and Saeris declare their love and trust, Kingfisher demands Crave summon their father, Styx. He has come to trade for a dragon.