Janner and Maraly fight off the attacking snickbuzzards with their blades, but Janner sustains a shoulder wound before Gammon finishes uncovering the boggan. After a brief struggle, Gammon pulls the anchor, and the boggan zooms down the mountain. The three quickly outpace the birds and celebrate their escape.

Janner falls asleep and later wakes to find Maraly happily learning to steer. Gammon points out a rise in the snow, identifying it as Kimera. When the boggan stops at the foot of the rise, Janner sees only snow and fears that he has been tricked. Then he hears Nia call his name. A trapdoor opens, and Nia emerges from a lighted stairway, wearing an elegant green gown and looking like a queen. Janner is struck by her beauty as he embraces his mother.

For five days, the caged Artham drifts in and out of lucidity, tormented by a memory of having left someone behind. He watches as the Stone Keeper transforms children into Grey Fangs. On the fifth day, overwhelmed, he finally offers himself to the Stone Keeper if she will free the children.

His cage is lowered to the floor and surrounded by Grey Fangs. The Stone Keeper tells him that the Black Carriage is bringing more prisoners who will witness his transformation, after which they will choose between freedom or service to Gnag. When the Carriage arrives, the children are lined up. All tremble, except for one boy, who stands with his head hung in shame. It is Tink. Artham recognizes him and screams his name. The Grey Fangs close in, blocking Artham’s view.

As Nia holds Janner, she asks him where Tink is. Janner blacks out from his guilt and exhaustion, then dreams of the Black Carriage and hears the sea dragon’s warning about a nearby threat. He wakes in a comfortable bed in an ice-walled room in Kimera. Leeli, who is once again walking with a crutch, enters and tells him that his shoulder wound has been tended and that the family arrived 10 days earlier. When Podo and Oskar join them, the family gathers around Janner’s bed. Overcome with guilt for failing to protect Tink and uphold his duty as Throne Warden, Janner breaks down sobbing. After he calms, Leeli plays an improvised melody on her whistleharp, triggering a vision in Janner’s mind. He sees Tink’s swollen face in the darkness, illuminated by a flash of red light. Janner cries out that he saw Tink alive.

In the fortress dungeon, the Stone Keeper orders the Fangs to silence the screeching Artham. They pin him to his cage as she calls Tink forward. When Tink is asked his name, he calls himself Weaver. The Stone Keeper offers Tink a new home and great strength. He quietly agrees and enters the iron transformation box. The door closes, and Artham hears the song of transformation begin.

Janner explains that Leeli’s music has triggered visions three times. When he describes seeing Tink in a Strander cage, Podo grows angry. Nia explains that the visions are a gift from the Maker, not magic that they control themselves. Oskar elaborates, citing the First Book’s descriptions of ancient Annieran children whose art held power, such as music that changed flower colors, poetry that raised stone arches, and paintings that moved. Nia tells Janner to serve the gift and warns him not to try to master it.

The family walks through Kimera’s ice tunnels to a large dining hall with a transparent ice dome and a massive fireplace. On the mantel are the bones of a baby sea dragon. Oskar explains the history of dragon hunting: a practice that Annierans despised.

Gammon and Maraly are also present at the gathering. Over dinner, Janner recounts his journey from Dugtown to Kimera, and Leeli insists on rescuing Tink. Maraly states that no one ever returns from the Black Carriage, sparking an argument with Nia, who storms out. Gammon agrees that rescue is impossible, as the Fangs are now stronger and come from the Phoob Islands, but he refuses to share his own plans. He says that even if Tink is alive, he is no longer the boy they knew. After Gammon leaves, Maraly reveals that the Carriage sometimes goes to the Phoob Islands; she suggests that they may be able to rescue Tink. With his hope restored, Podo declares that they will rescue Tink with or without Gammon’s help.

The family tries to trigger Janner’s visions again, but nothing happens. Podo declares that they will leave in the morning regardless. Janner goes to bed full of hope, but in the night, he is woken by Errol, a Kimeran, who seizes and binds him. Errol leads him through occupied iceways to Gammon, then into a stone cell where the rest of his family and Maraly have been bound and gagged. Gammon claims that he has a bargain with Gnag; he plans to trade the Jewels of Anniera for Skree’s freedom. To justify his actions, he brings in two men who lost families to the Fangs, then recounts his own tragic past, revealing that the Fangs killed his wife, Yona, and that the Black Carriage took his daughter. He tells Maraly that she will have to pose as Kalmar. He then leaves them, saying the Fangs will arrive soon.

Leeli begins to cry, then hums a sorrowful tune, and the song triggers another vision for Janner. In the vision, he soars over Skree and the Dark Sea to the Phoob Islands, then speeds north to the Ice Prairies. He sees a winged Artham, handsome and bold, flying with Tink in his arms. Janner cries out, breaking the spell, and begins to bounce with muffled, joyful shouts, unable to contain his excitement.

As the transformation song plays for Tink, Artham pushes against the bars of his cage, singing along with the melody. No longer running from his inner darkness, he hears a new voice call him the Throne Warden. A surge of power runs through him, and the cage splinters. Two large, feathered wings unfold from his back, and his mind is clear for the first time in years. His talons narrow into more functional hands, and the wildness within him is finally under his control.

Artham leaps to the dais and tears open the iron door of the transformation box. Inside, he finds a small, furry, trembling creature—the transformed Tink. Artham lifts Tink into his arms, mocking the Stone Keeper’s poetry, then leaps into the air. His wings carry them over the Fangs and out of the dungeon. He evades the fortress archers and flies across the strait to Skree, following the coastline to the Ice Prairies. He sees an armada of warships on the coast and a wide trail of tracks leading northeast. Realizing that the Grey Fangs are marching on Kimera, he flies low and fast toward the city.

Janner spends hours trying and failing to communicate his vision to his gagged family. Gammon and another man, Brogman, enter. They untie the family and string them together with rope. They are led through a deserted Kimera to the surface, where they face thousands of Grey Fangs. Brogman announces the delivery of the Jewels. Timber, a Grey Fang commander, notices that Maraly is not Kalmar.

As Fangs move to seize them, the Florid Sword appears. Janner recognizes him as Gammon. Brogman pulls a strap, freeing their bonds. Gammon signals, and the ice beneath the Fang army explodes, plunging hundreds into a river. From hidden trapdoors, a thousand Skreean warriors emerge, and the Battle of Kimera begins. Gammon removes his mask and apologizes to the family for the deception, explaining that it was necessary due to the presence of spies. He offers Maraly a home in Kimera and tells the Igibys that a ship is waiting to take them across the Dark Sea. As the Fangs charge them, Maraly decides to stay with Gammon. Podo cries out that he cannot go to the sea. The snow beneath the Igibys gives way, dropping them onto a boggan in a tunnel that leads toward the sea.

Artham flies over the Battle of Kimera, observing the Kimerans’ successful strategy of dividing the Fang army with the river. Unable to find his family, he spots movement on the Dark Sea and realizes where they are headed. He knows that Podo’s past is about to endanger them all, so he flies toward the sea.

The Igibys’ boggan speeds down a dark ice tunnel. Podo orders Errol to stop, insisting that he cannot go to the sea because of the terrible things he has done. Errol explains that the tunnel is a one-way escape route leading directly to a ship in a hidden cove. Enraged, Podo attacks Errol, but Nia stops him. Podo warns that if “they” smell him near the water, it will be the end for everyone. Nia orders Errol to continue. Podo leaps off the boggan but slides helplessly on the ice until he bumps into the back of the stopped sled. Leeli helps him back on, and they continue their descent with Podo trembling in fear.

The boggan shoots out of the tunnel and lands in a snow pile on the deck of a waiting ship. As the Kimeran crew prepares to set sail, Podo runs to the upper deck in a panic. Janner sees Artham flying toward them with Tink. As the ship enters open water, Janner sees Artham waving a warning. Suddenly, sea dragons erupt from the water. Podo screams his identity to the dragons: Podo Helmer, Scale Raker. The old gray dragon roars at him.

Grey Fangs slide out of the tunnel and attack the crew on deck. The dragon’s voice speaks in Janner’s mind, and he realizes that it had been warning him about Podo all along; Podo is a dragon hunter who once killed their young. Leeli runs toward the dragons. Artham lands on deck, beautiful and feathered, his voice now strong and clear. He hands the transformed Tink, now a small Grey Fang, to Janner, who is disgusted but takes his brother. Artham joins the fight against the Grey Fangs. As the old dragon strikes at Podo, Leeli places herself between them.

Leeli tells the dragon to stop, and it freezes. When she touches the dragon’s nose, the dragon recognizes Leeli’s song from the cliffs, and Artham identifies her as the Song Maiden of Anniera. The dragon declares that Anniera has fallen, but Artham argues that his own transformation and Leeli’s courage prove otherwise. The family gathers at the prow, and Artham presents them as a small beacon of hope in the darkness. Janner begins to understand that his own guilt over Tink mirrors the guilt that caused Artham’s past mental instability.

The dragon allows the ship to pass, but Podo must stay as payment for his crimes. Podo accepts his fate, confessing his past as a dragon hunter. He reveals that Nia’s mother knew of his past, which he renounced when Esben chose Nia as his queen. He explains that the dragons took his leg years ago. Nia tries to pardon Podo, but the dragons are unmoved. When Leeli pleads for mercy, the old dragon summons its daughter, Hulwen, a grievously scarred ruby red dragon. Hulwen spits a white bone onto the deck—Podo’s own leg. Podo recognizes it and remembers maiming Hulwen. The old dragon tells Hulwen to take her vengeance.

Hulwen hesitates, looking from Leeli’s “twisted leg” to Podo’s face. She communicates to Janner that Podo’s internal suffering is greater than her physical scars. She then sinks beneath the waves. The old gray dragon flies into a rage, attacking Artham. Leeli tells Janner to get the First Book. He retrieves it, and Leeli refers to its pages and plays Yurgen’s Tune on her whistleharp. The music calms the gray dragon, which begins to sing along. The other dragons join in. The song causes the captive Grey Fangs physical pain.

The dragon’s mind opens to Janner, revealing memories of its own violent past attacking ships and villages, and he senses the dragon’s contrition. Hulwen communicates a final passage to Janner. The gray dragon decrees that Podo may make one final passage across the sea, but after that, he will be killed if he ever returns. The family rejoices, and the dragons disappear.

The transformed Tink awakens, growling. He scratches Nia; his eyes are yellow, wild, and he has a tail. When Artham calls Tink Kalmar Wingfeather, Tink grows enraged and leaps overboard. Janner dives after him and holds the struggling, biting Tink as blood fills the water. Artham rescues them both.

The family sails east to the Green Hollows. Podo is at peace because he has confessed his story and is still loved unconditionally. He carries his recovered leg bone and uses it to signal mealtimes by banging it on the mast. As time passes, Oskar overcomes his seasickness, learns ship work, and gets a small tattoo expressing his love for books. Janner recovers in bed for days, reflecting on his journey.

The transformed Tink is strapped to the bed next to Janner, acting feral and hostile. Nia tends to him firmly, telling him she loves him and asking his name daily. He howls that he has no name. At night, Janner whispers stories of their childhood, and Tink listens quietly. One night, when Janner recounts his escape from Dugtown and his attempt to rescue Tink, the transformed boy whispers that he remembers, then begins to cry.

The next morning, Podo spots land. When Nia asks his name, Tink calmly identifies himself by his full name and title as the son of Esben Wingfeather and High King of Anniera. The family weeps with joy. When Tink opens his eyes, they are clear and blue again.