Haunted by the overheard conversation, Elara decides that both Kael and Vale are masters of deception. Feeling that her physical intimacy with Kael stalled due to her inexperience, she resolves to seek out Vale to learn how to handle a full seduction properly. She finds him in a small, neglected room in the eastern tower. Vale taunts her, but she meets his challenge, and they begin a sexual encounter in which Vale behaves with uncharacteristic gentleness, attempting to be sensitive to her lack of experience. Elara makes the deliberate choice to have sex with Vale, intending to gain the confidence she needs to seduce Kael. After they are finished, Vale shows his vulnerability by asking her to stay with him.

Elara raises objections to staying with Vale, stating that she wants to be present when her family arrives that day. He reassures her that they will not arrive until the afternoon, so she relents, feeling surprised by the comfort she finds in his arms. As they lie in bed and talk, he tells her the origin story of the curse, stating that Death once befriended a mortal ferryman named Eamon, who became like a mentor and a father to him, especially when it came to explaining the ways of mortals. When Eamon taught Death to play chess, Death objected to the cruelty behind the idea that although “the queen was the fiercest piece on the board, […] she was expendable” and “existed to be sacrificed if it ensured the king’s survival” (209).

One day, a cruel king used Eamon as a hostage to force Death to play a game of chess with high stakes; if Death lost the game, he would be obligated to grant the king a wish. When Death could not bring himself to sacrifice his queen piece, the king sacrificed his own queen piece to win the chess game, then asked for a crown that would keep him safe from injury and illness. After Death warned he would weave a curse into the crown, the king killed Eamon in fury. Overcome by grief, Death severed one of his heart strings and wove it into the crown, binding a curse to the royal line. At this point in retelling the story, Vale grows emotional and says that the lesson for princes is that they must lose whatever they love.

Moved, Elara decides to trust him with the conversation she overheard. She tells him about the messenger’s report of finding “her” and the mention of an “original translation” related to the curse. Alarmed, Vale leaves abruptly. As Elara descends from the tower, Miss Hampshire witnesses her dishabille and confronts her about her recent sexual activity, then curtly informs her that her family’s carriage has arrived and that Kael is waiting at the main gate.

Determined to outrun Miss Hampshire’s unfavorable report of her, Elara rushes to the gate and finds Kael waiting. He embraces her, but their moment is interrupted by the arrival of the carriage. Elara’s mother emerges looking frail, and when Elara embraces her, she spots dark purple veins webbing up the side of her mother’s neck; her mother now has the rot as well. Inside the carriage, Elara finds her brother, Daron, whose condition has drastically worsened. He is very weak and emaciated, and the rot now covers his arms. Kael gently helps carry Daron into the palace, leading them to a well-appointed room. As Elara tries to make Daron comfortable, he has a violent coughing fit, spitting up a thick, gray substance. The sight of her brother so close to death hardens Elara’s resolve. That night, she will go to Kael’s chamber, seduce him, become his queen, and enact the sacrificial ritual to save Daron.

That night, Elara goes to Kael’s chamber in a revealing gown, evincing distress over Daron’s condition. Kael comforts her, and their embrace quickly turns passionate. He lifts her onto a table and prepares to have sex with her but then stops suddenly, declaring that if he were to do so, he would be starting down his father’s road. He adds that their connection can never happen. A desperate Elara argues with him and tries to force the sexual encounter. Kael tears her hands away and shoves her back, but her heel catches in her gown’s hem, and she falls to the floor. Although the stumble is an accident, Kael is immediately horror-struck at his actions.

Humiliated and enraged, Elara screams that he is useless while her brother is dying. As they argue, her eyes fall upon a letter on his desk. Before Kael snatches the paper away, she reads the words “hide her, and hide her well. Prepare the rite. He cannot find her” (235). Kael’s demeanor turns menacing, and he threatens to hang Elara and her entire family if she were ever to tell anyone what she saw written in the letter. He then furiously orders her to leave.

The next morning, a defeated Elara recalls Kael’s threat against her family with horror and realizes that she has already had many hints of his underlying capability for extreme violence. Going to Daron’s room, she is startled to find Vale there. Now that she has lost all trust in Kael due to his threat against her family, she decides to tell Vale what happened, and she reveals the contents of the letter as well. Vale connects Kael’s refusal, his declaration that the curse will end with him, and the letter’s phrase “hide her” with the messenger’s earlier words about “heritage” and “original translation.” He reaches a sudden, urgent conclusion but does not explain anything. Instead, he merely tells Elara to wait and rushes out of the room. Right after he leaves, Daron begins to convulse violently, choking on the gray fluid produced by the rot.

Two days pass, during which Elara sees neither Kael nor Vale. One evening, while returning from the kitchens with broth for Daron, a drunken, furious Kael confronts her near the greenhouse. He grabs her, accuses her of ruining everything, and says he knows that she has been sleeping with “that bastard.” To placate him, Elara lies, telling Kael that “he” only kissed her once before she pushed him away. Kael laughs hysterically before his rage returns, and he accuses her of telling Vale about the secret letter. (Throughout this exchange, Vale is never mentioned by name.)

Kael violently demands to know where Vale has taken “her”—the unnamed woman from the letter. Elara says she does not know, and Kael reacts with astonishment when she refers to Vale as his “brother.” Elara repeats what Vale told her: that he is the son of Maeryn and that Kael stole his crown. This prompts an embittered Kael to reveal the truth. He explains that Vale is not his brother, as his father had only one son. Maeryn was Kael’s own birth mother; she treated him with cruel indifference during his childhood, and he watched her die in the coronation ritual. Later, he embraced the gentler, kinder Ophelia as his true mother in spirit. Out of devotion to her, he later added Ophelia’s name to the official palace lineage record, erasing his connection to Maeryn. This was a private act of honor unconnected to the curse. He explains that he had a plan to break the curse, but Elara has ruined this plan by talking to Vale. When Elara asks who Vale truly is, Kael tells her that Vale is Death itself: a being with no heart who rules the valley of death, the realm that every soul passes through. Kael instructs her to lure Vale into the moonlight to behold his real form. He then collapses into a drunken stupor. Elara flees in terror.

Elara runs to her chamber and bolts the door, only to find Vale waiting inside. He calmly explains that he thwarted Kael’s plan to break the curse, which involved a distant female relative whom Vale has since relocated for her own safety. Elara notices that Vale has closed the curtains, blocking the moonlight. Torn between Kael’s warning and Vale’s explanation, she decides to test Kael’s claim.

She initiates a sexual encounter with Vale and maneuvers him into a position that lets her reach the window. In the midst of their lovemaking, she yanks the curtain open, and the moonlight instantly reveals Vale’s true form; he is a skeletal creature of bone and sinew. Screaming, Elara scrambles away and hides under a table as the creature leaves the room.

At dawn, a naked Elara awakens, still under the table, as Kael grabs her wrist. He frantically asks what Death told her about the royal bloodline being compromised. She confirms that Vale had said the curse once went to the wrong heir, someone outside the royal family. Realizing that this information confirms his theory, Kael does not deign to explain further. He wraps Elara in a blanket and carries her toward the throne room with Miss Hampshire in tow. At the king’s orders, she has prepared for an unspecified “rite.”

In the throne room, Kael sets Elara down and takes a ceremonial knife from Miss Hampshire. The main doors explode inward, and Death appears, his appearance vacillating between his monstrous “divine form” and his human form. As Death roars that the curse is unbreakable, Kael raises the knife toward Elara. However, instead of killing her, he forces the knife into her hand, rips the crown from his head, and slams it onto hers. He then guides her hand, with the knife, to his own throat, screaming for her to cut him and take the curse upon herself. A dumbfounded Elara slashes the blade across Kael’s neck, killing him. Wearing the crown, she turns to face Death and says, “Crown me dead.”