Acker visits the dungeons, where he sees Irina, still disguised as Beau. He gives her an apple and promises to free her soon. He then finds Zion shackled to a wall; he secretly passes Zion a blade and gives him the same promise of eventual freedom. Zion remains distrustful, not having seen Acker since plans changed.

Acker then attends a meeting in his father’s sitting room with the council and King Chryse. He learns that Captain Wren has been temporarily removed from court. As a supposed gift, King Edmond presents Acker with Vad, a traitor responsible for the ambush that killed most of his training battalion years earlier. Edmond reveals his method for consolidating power: using a rare slatstone to steal the magic of other Heirs. He explains that Beau’s specific gift—the ability to identify the location of a person’s magic—is essential to the process. He then slits Vad’s throat.

As Vad dies, he uses his oracle gift to project memories into Acker’s mind, revealing that Irina has inadvertently exposed Acker’s and Jovie’s plans to him in the dungeons, as his oracle gift let him see the truth in her mind. Vad also reveals that his dying hope is that Acker will kill everyone in the room. Edmond extracts Vad’s magic with the slatstone, mixes it with his blood, and forces Acker to drink it, granting Acker Vad’s oracle gift. Horrified, Acker watches Chryse perform the same ritual on another prisoner. He stumbles from the room and vomits.

Acker returns to the bedchamber, covered in blood that’s not his own. He’s visibly shaken and tells Jovie to go back to sleep while he cleans up. Messer leaves to check on Fredrich. That night, Acker holds Jovie but remains distant. The next morning, he confesses that King Edmond executed Vad and then forced Acker to take his gift.

In the following days, a tense routine develops. Jovie remains confined to the room, receiving covert visits from Messer in animal form, while Acker attends to his duties at court. He returns late each night, withdrawn and exhausted from the mental toll of his new powers. Aside from chaste kisses along her shoulder and neck, he doesn’t touch her in the ways she secretly wishes for, though the Bond makes the desire nearly unbearable.

Acker informs Jovie that it’s time for her to escape. Messer has found a vulnerability in the city’s west wall, and the plan is for her to meet her army in the valley. At the same time, Acker will lead an attack from within the palace, during a dinner his father is hosting. Jovie insists that Fredrich remain with Acker inside the palace to share his shielder power. Acker reluctantly agrees that Messer will guide Jovie out of the city alone while Fredrich stays with Acker. He also instructs Messer to have Fredrich retrieve a hidden cache of hearthstone weapons from Wells’s former smithy. With their plan set, Acker and Jovie spend their last few hours together in bed, savoring their time together before the coming battle.

Using his new oracle gift, Acker learns that his father’s most trusted maidservant, Stassia, secretly despises the king. She helps Acker and Fredrich, who brings the cache of hearthstone weapons from the smithy. Stassia offers to ensure that a key reaches Zion via the kitchen’s nightly gruel delivery to the dungeons. She also warns Acker that King Edmond has sent Greta away from the palace for the first time ever, suggesting that he’s anticipating trouble.

Acker attends the formal dinner and notes his father’s uncharacteristic anxiety. Captain Wren arrives late, exuding a dangerous confidence. He dismisses the pleasantries and demands that they proceed with the final stage of their alliance, prompting Edmond to have “Beau” brought from the dungeons.

Irina is brought onto the dais, still pretending to be Beau. Captain Wren tests her, asking her to identify every person present who has stolen another’s magic. When Irina refuses, Wren touches her face, breaking the illusion and revealing her true identity to the entire court. Furious at the deception, King Edmond confronts Acker, but Fredrich suddenly appears and kills the king with a hearthstone sword before decapitating him.

Wren then reveals that his true plan is to eliminate everyone involved in the magic-stealing plot. He uses his powerful gift of influence to compel King Chryse to kill himself with his own dagger. Wren commands the entire room to remain seated, but Acker and Fredrich are protected by Fredrich’s shield. Just as Acker prepares to strike, Wren reveals that he has captured Jovie, who’s brought into the hall unconscious. Wren warns that if he’s harmed, Jovie will never wake, and he claims that her best friend, Messer, is already dead.

Hallis arrives to report that Evelyn’s troops are invading the city. Wren then states that, according to the agreement that Acker made with Kai, Acker no longer holds claim to the throne, leaving a battle for control inevitable.

Jovie experiences a vivid dream of a childhood memory with Acker, who eventually appears as an adult and urges her to wake up. She awakens on a table in the dining hall to Acker’s relieved face. She immediately asks after Messer, and he tells her that they believe Messer is dead. She collapses in grief. Acker comforts her but rallies her to fight for her friend.

She takes in the surrounding carnage, realizing that Acker killed the entire council while she was unconscious. After retrieving the slatstone from his father’s corpse, Acker arms himself and Jovie with swords. They’re joined by Fredrich, and the three resolve to stay together, find Captain Wren, and end the war. Acker also vows to kill Kai for his betrayal.

In the palace courtyard, Acker, Jovie, and Fredrich find Zion leading the prisoners he has freed. Acker announces King Edmond’s death, assumes command of the Kenta forces, and orders a ceasefire. He and Zion quickly reconcile. Jovie stands on the battlement and uses her light to signal her Maile soldiers to halt their attack. From the wall, Acker spots Captain Wren’s enormous army approaching from the west, complete with two giant trolls.

Evelyn and Beau arrive and reunite with Jovie. Beau confirms that a soldier found Messer’s belongings and blood, but not him. Evelyn, furious at Acker for endangering her daughter, attacks him with her air-siphoning magic until Jovie intervenes. To appease her, Acker formally pledges his loyalty, his life, and his army to Jovie’s crown. United, they prepare for the imminent battle against Wren.

The united Maile and Kenta armies prepare for Captain Wren’s assault. Mangi stones are distributed to soldiers to protect them from Wren’s gift of influence, while civilians are evacuated into the palace. At dawn, Wren’s army attacks with catapults. Jovie retaliates by releasing Evelyn’s venomous rabbits, which sow chaos among the enemy’s front lines.

The battle intensifies as Kenta archers rain arrows on the attackers and Evelyn uses fire and tar to repel the siege at the city wall. The fighting soon spills into the city streets and onto the rooftops as the enemy pushes forward. The battle takes a destructive turn when two giant trolls breach the city. One troll horrifies the defenders by scooping rooftop archers into his fist, squeezing until blood and guts ooze out, and then licking the residue from his open palm.

Jovie’s group is ambushed on the rooftop by Lawson, a former Alaha friend who’s now loyal to Captain Wren. Jovie pleads with him to stop, but he only relents when a giant troll attacks their position. Acker blinds the troll by throwing his sword into its eye, but a second troll traps him, Zion, and Fredrich beneath its hand, with only Fredrich’s shield protecting them.

Jovie draws the trolls’ attention to save them and is knocked from the roof into an alley, where Lawson confronts her again. As Acker fights his way toward them, Jovie realizes that Wren is influencing Lawson and speaking through his body. Acker chooses to knock Lawson unconscious rather than kill him. Surrounded and facing overwhelming force, they decide to retreat to the valley.

The allied forces retreat to a Maile base camp in the valley west of the city. Acker takes the unconscious Lawson to a healer’s tent to be restrained. Jovie is met by General Sam, who embraces her and expresses his fondness for her as a father figure. Sam then coldly informs Fredrich that due to the revelation that he was a Kenta operative while under Sam’s command, he can never again serve Maile.

As the trolls are heard tearing down the city walls, Sam instructs Jovie to hold the line and not retreat until he gives a specific signal. Jovie rallies the exhausted and frightened soldiers with a powerful speech, declaring that they fight not for any crown but for their own freedom. She ignites her sword, and the army roars with renewed purpose.

Evelyn instructs Acker to have his soldiers take cover on a 10-count signal. As Captain Wren’s army advances, Acker asks Jovie to marry him; he hears her answer in her mind via his oracle gift and covers her mouth with his before she can speak it aloud.

The battle begins, and Jovie unleashes a new power, igniting the swords of all allied soldiers around her and bathing their front line in light. During the brutal fighting, the two trolls attack. Zion injures one, and Acker blinds it, causing it to fall and die. The second troll corners Acker, but something stops it. Acker sees Wren in the fray behind the giant, his hand outstretched and focused on restraining the troll, just as Kai appears and slits his father’s throat. The troll collapses, unconscious.

Seeing that his forces are being slaughtered, Sam releases a box of golden butterflies. The allied soldiers begin a chant of “Light Wielder,” counting down from 10. On the final count, Jovie fires a beam of pure light at the butterflies, which reflect and amplify it across the battlefield, incinerating Wren’s unprotected army and ending the war.

Amid the smoldering battlefield, a stunned Jovie is comforted by her family. Kai approaches through the surviving soldiers and surrenders. Jovie furiously confronts him about Messer and his betrayal. Kai insists that he was unaware of his father’s full plan and that he was disowned after Captain Wren discovered that he had been helping Acker. Acker corroborates part of his story, revealing that Kai saved his life by killing Wren just as a troll was about to crush him. A soldier confirms that Wren’s body has been found. When Jovie presses him, Kai looks her in the eye and admits that he killed his own father.

Messer, having survived being shot down by a hearthstone-tipped arrow, has been recovering in his hawk form under the secret care of a young boy. After learning that Jovie and Acker are leaving the city, he endures a painful and difficult flight to intercept their carriage procession. He successfully lands in their carriage, where Jovie and Acker are overcome with relief to find him alive.

Despite the agony it causes his still-healing body, Messer shifts back to his human form. He then reveals that after he was wounded, Aurora found him, but Kai called for her and commanded her to leave him to die. Convinced that Aurora would never have abandoned him of her own will, Messer believes that Kai is influencing the woman he loves, and he’s going to go after her.