Unable to remove her painfully tight dress, Aris goes to Raker’s room for help and finds him shirtless. As he unties the corset, the tension between them builds until he accidentally rips the fabric in frustration. At Aris’s suggestion, he tears the bodice open completely. When his hand brushes the scars on her lower back, he stops and asks who hurt her. Aris replies, “You did.”

She recounts a memory from two years prior when Raker, then head of the king’s guard, caught her training illegally. Despite her pleas for mercy, he turned her over to his men. The guards imprisoned and starved her for two days before pinning her down and carving their names into her back through her shirt with rusted knives. They never noticed her silver marks because she was covered in blood. Stellan eventually rescued her. Raker is horrified, insisting he only ordered the guards to throw her out and had no idea they would torture her. Aris reaffirms her hatred for him and leaves.

At midnight, Aris goes to the forge, only to find Lord Rodin and his knights waiting. Rodin reveals the meeting was a trap; he has betrayed her to his patron, the God of Death, who is now on his way. When Aris draws her sword to attack, it freezes in her hands—the guest oath prevents her from harming Rodin or his men. Rodin mocks her, explaining this restriction. Just as the knights surround her, Raker appears. Announcing his own sword is not bound by her oath, Raker throws his blade, which decapitates all dozen warriors in seconds before it passes just beside Aris’s throat to kill Rodin behind her. Aris retches in shock, and after a moment of hesitation, accepts Raker’s offered hand.

Aris and Raker flee House Rodin. The next morning, Raker apologizes to Aris, explaining he now remembers the day he caught her training. He claims he told the guards to release her on the streets and expresses deep regret for what they did to her, admitting he should have stopped it. Shocked, Aris dismisses the apology, saying that it doesn’t matter, but Raker insists, “You matter.” She rejects his comfort, stating she has made peace with dying for her revenge.

They enter a vast desert where a sand creature attacks, pulling Aris underground and trapping her in illusions of her past traumas, including her sister’s death and a tender memory of her mother. A second, twisted apparition then rises, taking her mother’s form but corrupted and wrong, telling Aris she is a poison and should die. Overcome with guilt, Aris allows the sand to bury her. However, a memory of Stellan’s voice urges her to find a reason to rise. Fueled by a surge of rage, Aris breaks free, stabs her sword into the sand to steady herself, and rises on shaking legs before issuing her defiant vow to kill the gods. The sand drops away to nothing.

She finds Raker nearby, eyes closed, lost in his own tortured illusions and fighting an unseen enemy. When Aris tries to help, he lashes out, nearly killing her. He recognizes her but orders her to leave, warning that he is a monster. Aris refuses, and their blades clash. To break through his delirium, Aris drops her sword and reaches for him. He puts his blade to her throat, drawing blood, but she doesn’t back down. She tells him she sees all of him—the good, the bad, and the monster—and that he makes her feel safe and want a future. Her words finally break the spell. Raker drops his sword, says, “I see you too,” and catches her as she collapses (437). They embrace, both having survived their inner demons.

At the edge of the desert, Aris and Raker bathe in an oasis pool. He winces at the sight of the new scar on her throat from his blade. After resting in a nearby cave, Aris goes for water and sees Cadoc’s dragon land nearby. She finds Stellan’s dagger planted hilt-up in the ground as bait. Cadoc appears and reveals he is carrying Kira’s sword, claiming he hunted her down and killed her near the gates.

Enraged, Aris attacks. Her combat skills have vastly improved, and she easily shatters Cadoc’s weapon. As Raker is heard approaching, Cadoc summons his dragon, which scoops both him and Aris onto its back and soars into the sky. Their duel continues in the air, high above the City on Fire. Aris’s superior stamina allows her to shatter several more of Cadoc’s swords. However, Cadoc begins using Kira’s blade, knowing Aris will hesitate to damage it. The heat from the burning city below triggers Aris’s trauma, further distracting her. Aris’s sword slips from her sweaty hands, and seizing the moment, Cadoc kicks her off the dragon, sending her plummeting into the flames below. On the ground, Raker bellows in anguish.

Lying with shattered bones in the City on Fire, Aris is overwhelmed by guilt and ready to die. A memory of her mentor, Stellan, urges her to rise like a phoenix from the ashes. Drawing on her resolve, she forces her broken body to stand and walks through the inferno. She emerges from the flames naked and covered in ash but physically unharmed by the heat, stunning Raker, who was about to run in after her. Cadoc, circling above on his dragon, is equally shocked. Aris summons her sword, Stellaris, which flies to her hand, and Cadoc flees. Her body then gives out, and Raker catches her.

Aris awakens in agonizing pain in a glowing pool. Raker is with her, along with Este from the Traveling City, who Raker summoned using the starlight necklace. Este is using the pool’s magic to heal Aris’s destructive injuries. Once recovered, Aris is confronted by Raker, who demands to know how she survived the fire. Trusting him after their shared ordeals, Aris reveals her immunity to heat following the lightning strike and recounts the night her family died. She was locked in a room and forced to hold her sister as she burned to death, while Aris herself remained untouched. Through the flames, she saw a goddess who started the fire. Este then appears and reveals that by leaving the Traveling City to save Aris, she has been permanently exiled. Este believes Aris is destined to change the world and offers her a night of peace before she completes her quest.

Este leads Aris and Raker to a secluded cave for the night. Knowing she will likely die the next day, Aris propositions a stunned Raker. After a moment of harsh denial, his control breaks, and he rips her clothes off. They have intense, aggressive sex, which Aris frames as another form of their ongoing duel. The physical act, however, evolves into something more intimate. After they climax, Raker breaks his own long-held rule and kisses Aris—an act he previously described as more intimate than sex and something he had vowed never to do. They continue to kiss and have sex throughout the night, their animosity burning into a complicated passion. The next morning, Aris wakes to find that Raker is gone and has taken her sword, Stellaris, in its scabbard.

Just as Aris realizes Raker has betrayed her and that Stellaris cannot be summoned from within the scabbard he took, three male Questral challengers ambush her in the cave. They saw Raker leave and intend to rape and kill her for the bounty on her head. Though naked and unarmed, Aris is filled with blinding rage. She lunges at the first man, smashes his head against the stone floor, and gouges out his eyes. The second man’s sword buries itself in his still-living comrade’s chest; Aris then forces the blade free and claims it. She slices off the second man’s legs. She pins the third man to the wall with a thrown sword. As he begs for his life, she is reminded of the men who tortured her years ago. In a brutal frenzy, she stabs him to death with both of the swords she has claimed. She then walks out of the cave, covered in blood.

Devastated and alone, Aris climbs a mountain. She finds that Raker left behind the diamond necklace—the one he had previously insisted she remove—along with a sprig of herbs to prevent pregnancy. Rejecting any thought of seeking help through it, she cries out for her dragon. Instead, a woman of light who identifies herself as the Astral Queen appears. She reveals that Aris’s and Raker’s swords are two halves of a single, powerful blade; if rejoined, they would bring ruin. The Queen also explains that because godswords are tied to the soul, Raker could only take Aris’s sword after she let him into her heart. She tells Aris that the bond between their swords now makes Raker a “map” she can follow to the gods.

The Astral Queen declares Aris is not alone, and just then, Aris’s dragon returns. The Queen magically cleanses Aris of blood, clothes her in new armor, and forges her a sword of pure starlight. Aris tosses the diamond necklace to her dragon, which eats it. With her new weapon and companion, Aris flies off to find Raker and finish her quest.

Aris follows a psychic connection to Raker, her grief and betrayal hardening into pure fury. Along the way, her dragon speaks to her telepathically for the first time. They arrive at the Land of the Gods, a place of disorienting magic, and land before a silver archway that marks the entrance to the well of magic.

There, she is reunited with her friend Zane, who is riding a massive Helmhawk. He has already claimed his cup of magic and is preparing to return to his people. Aris tells him that Cadoc killed Kira. Zane reveals that Cadoc was also there recently, drank a cup of magic, and survived, becoming immortal. After a final embrace, Zane departs to save his mountain, and Aris tells her dragon to wait outside before stepping through the arch to complete her journey.

Aris enters a shimmering cave filled with goblets. A silver chalice fills with pure, unspillable magic, which she claims in order to fulfill her promise to Kira’s sister. With her new purpose clear, she uses her blood and the starlight blade to summon the God of Travels. The goddess who appears has pale skin, silver hair, and hundreds of gems growing from her skin—and Aris recognizes her as the same deity she glimpsed starting the fire that killed her family.

The goddess confirms she burned Aris’s village because a prophecy identified her as a threat. She then offers Aris a deal: If Aris makes a blood oath not to kill her, she will reveal how to bring her family back from the dead. Torn, Aris chooses hope over revenge and makes the oath. The goddess then reveals the secret: “Kill the God of Death, and you can bring back your family” (484).

Having secured her promise, Aris reveals a loophole. She telepathically calls her dragon, which smashes through the silver arch and lands behind the goddess. Aris informs the terrified goddess that while she made an oath, her dragon did not. She orders her dragon to eat the goddess.

Determined to resurrect her family, Aris immediately summons the God of Death. She is teleported to a silver throne room where a dead god lies impaled with a sword. Sitting on the throne is Harlan Raker. He reveals he is the true God of Death; the dead god on the floor is the God of War, who usurped his throne five years prior. Raker had hidden a fragment of his soul on the mortal realm, causing him to be reborn as a human. The Questral was his plan to regain his power.

Devastated by his lies, Aris confronts him. Raker says she has withheld secrets too, as she is Aris Agron, the heiress to House Agron of Stormside. She attacks repeatedly, but he effortlessly deflects every blow, his godly power far superior to hers. He then throws his sword to the ground, stalks toward her, and asks her to join him in overthrowing the other gods. Overcome by their connection, Aris kisses him and confesses, “I think I love you,” (492) before plunging her starlight blade through his heart.

To Aris’s shock, Raker is unharmed by the fatal blow. He grins and tells her, “I am death,” explaining she will have to try harder to kill him (493). He seems more concerned with whether she meant her declaration of love. Taking advantage of his distraction, Aris steals his sword from the ground where he threw it. Because she holds his heart, she is able to wield his blade. She pulls her own sword from his chest, and he collapses in pain. She places both swords together in the scabbard to prevent him from calling either of them.

Aris flees on her dragon. After a week-long chase during which she can feel Raker closing in, they reach the gates to the mortal realm just as they are closing. Raker appears and grabs Aris’s ankle, dragging her back. She draws his sword and buries it in his heart a second time, but again it has no effect. Her dragon attacks, forcing Raker to release her for an instant. Aris scrambles through the gates just as they slam shut.

They confront each other through the bars. The gates, which even a god cannot break, separate them. Raker vows they won’t keep him from her. Aris looks at the God of Death and whispers, “See you in fifty years, Raker,” (497) before turning back toward her world.