Kaan anxiously listens to Siharna’s labor screams. Worried, he checks on sleeping Korie and drinks heavily. Seeking company, he releases Borg, who tells him that a moonshard has been located. Kaan asks about Kyzari, Veya, and his second-in-command, Grihm, who set off to Gondragh for an egg. He also asks if Elluin was taken back to Arithia against her will. As payment for the information Kaan seeks, Borg demands a memory. Kaan relives the day his mother Kovina died giving birth to Veya; his father Ostern coldly rejected the newborn, forcing young Kaan to care for her. Borg reports that a moonshard is in a Moltenmaw nest in Bhoggith, roosted on by a pink Moltenmaw who lost her mate. Crucially, Elluin went back to Arithia willingly. The news devastates Kaan. Raeve finds him, and he tells her that his mother died in childbirth. She offers company.

Raeve asks why Rygun avoids hunting locally, and Kaan explains Rygun was once trapped in the Mists and nearly died; Kaan fought off other warriors for two days until Rygun recovered enough to save them both. As he tells the story, Raeve braids a tight uhloo and ties it into his hair, formally claiming him. Kaan gives her a gift: new white riding leathers, boots, and cloak, runed against Líri’s cold and reinforced with dragon scales. Pyrok and Roan arrive; distressed by Siharna’s screams, Pyrok brings alcohol and a Skripi board, and the three begin a drinking game.

Alone and feverish on the Ergor Plains, Veya cuts her infected shoulder wound to dig out a stone splinter. With predators howling, she knows she is dying but is determined to get a message to Kaan about his daughter. She cauterizes the wound with a weald—a handheld, magical device—and spots a cave entrance. Staggering through snow, she throws herself in just as three beasts charge. Using Bulder’s song, she seals the entrance, trapping herself in darkness. She loses consciousness, dropping the weald.

Raeve is jolted awake by sharp pain down her spine—the blood bind to Sereme, her former handler in the underground rebel group Fíur du Ath. Sereme knows she is alive. The others are passed out, and Kaan is gone, leaving a note explaining that he has gone to help a nearby village rebuild their collapsed bunker and letting Raeve know that Siharna has safely delivered a healthy boy. The pain forces Raeve outside. By the river, she is followed by a black-robed stranger who speaks the code phrase, “From the ashes” (247), identifying himself as the Elding Squire, a messenger from the Fíur du Ath. Sereme has a time-sensitive job for her.

The Squire gives her a lark from Sereme: Raeve must travel to Bhoggith, find a fae with silver hair and eyes, and bring back his heart and both eyes. Sereme claims this individual threatens The Flourish. When Raeve demands more, the Squire refuses. He uses a silver bottle and quill—linked to her blood bind—to inflict pain, forcing her to agree. He gives her seven days. As he leaves, Líri swoops down, snatches him off a bridge, and tears him in two. Siharna witnesses this and advises Raeve not to keep secrets like the blood bind from Kaan; Siharna regrets that she will never know where her mate Zior died because he kept secrets. The encounter solidifies Raeve’s resolve to master Bulder’s language.

Raeve prepares to enter her internal lake to find memories of Elluin’s lessons in Bulder’s language. She has seven days. Sereme activates the blood bind, torturing her with cramps. The pain solidifies her decision. She enters her internal world and is trapped beneath ice. Above, she sees her Other walking, silver light piercing the water. Relieved the Other is not in the lake with her, Raeve dives toward her den. The Other has rearranged the memory stones, hiding shards of Bulder’s language lessons beneath silver, egg-shaped stones containing the Other’s own memories. To learn the language, Raeve must absorb her Other’s past. Resigned, she picks up a stone.

In a memory, the Other as a Moonplume comforts her malformed young, Allume. A 12-year-old Elluin arrives, distressed after her brother told her he wished she had left him to die. The Other senses her sorrow and nudges her until Elluin breaks down. The Other cradles both Elluin and Allume, lulling them to sleep, cherishing the closeness despite their sadness.

In the kitchen, Pyrok has cooked a surprisingly delicious stew. Kaan is frustrated that Raeve has locked him out. Roan returns, having used Kaan’s cloak as a pretense to question Borg. Roan traded a memory to learn how to decipher the Book of Voyd. He shows Kaan the pages—a chaotic, shifting mass of infinite runes causing nausea. Roan believes the Tri-Council shared only a condensed version. He couldn’t find the pattern to protect the Citadel but learned that the young protégé who runed the Citadel’s arches is in Bhoggith, demanding a chance to claim a Moltenmaw egg. Roan has a plan to find the protégé, but Kaan is wary of Roan’s often-chaotic schemes.

Roan leaves to begin gathering materials for his plan. Raeve enters disheveled and, under the influence of her Other, begins eating raw meat, alarming Kaan and Pyrok. Raeve asks about a blade Kaan stuck in a map of Bhoggith. He explains that it is a moonshard he intends to retrieve. When she asks which dragon’s, Kaan reveals that it is from Slátra. The Other momentarily takes full control, declaring, “We go now” (267), before Raeve’s body collapses. Kaan catches her. Raeve regains control, claiming she was sleepwalking.

Raeve and Líri prepare to leave for Bhoggith. Sereme tortures her again. Raeve fits Líri with a saddle-free bridle, ensuring she can break free. Líri senses that Raeve is magically tethered to someone (Sereme) and worries for her. As they depart with Kaan, Rygun, Pyrok, and Roan, Raeve avoids Kaan’s worried gaze, determined to keep him focused on his mission.

Grihm, Kaan’s second-in-command, waits in Gondragh, the Moltenmaw nesting grounds, shrouded in volcanic smog. Having received Kaan’s lark about the moonfall, he can’t wait longer. He gives Kaan’s note and another lark to Kílíth, instructing him to send it if he doesn’t return in seven cycles. He tells Kilíth his name, to be chiseled on the memorial wall if he dies.

Veya awakens shackled, dragged through a tunnel. Her captors dump her in a cavern filled with scavenged treasures, including a throne made of moonshards—among them, pieces of Slátra. Arkyn, the Scavenger King, reveals that he knows Veya’s identity and her connection to Bulder. He questions her about Ostern’s cruelty. He summons his bonded creature, a massive Elding Bird—a species believed to be extinct. He reveals that he is Ostern’s unacknowledged son, conceived through Ostern’s rape of a woman who was not his wife. He recounts how Ostern favored Kaan, abused him and his mother, and ultimately burned his face. He intends to claim the bronze throne from Kaan, whom he blames for taking his right to kill their father. Veya, trying to defend Kaan, insists that Kaan killed Ostern to avenge the female he loves. She then immediately realizes her mistake, as Arkyn begins trying to work out whom Kaan loves so that he can use this female to get revenge against Kaan.

Raeve, Kaan, and Roan trek through the Forest of Harthor. Líri follows them silently through the canopy. Sereme repeatedly attacks Raeve with the blood bind. They reach a hidden treehut at the bog’s edge. Roan begins working on a device to locate the protégé who runed the Citadel’s arches; she expects that the work will take a day or two. Kaan explains that King Cadok’s militants kill mated Moltenmaw sires (males) to steal eggs while the dams (females) hunt, filling the sky with grieving dragons. Raeve’s Other takes over and points to a distant, isolated nest, declaring it to be the location of the moonshard.

Kaan is shirtless after washing; the sight stirs love and desire in Raeve. He correctly deduces her injuries, but she deflects. Watching Roan work reminds her painfully of her deceased friend Essi. To avoid Kaan’s questions, Raeve joins Pyrok at a window. Kaan explains that to honorably take an egg, one must first offer something in return. As they watch, Raeve’s Other identifies the correct nest—a different one than Pyrok had assumed.

Kaan waits in the treehut for the pink Moltenmaw dam to leave so he can retrieve the moonshard. He watches Raeve sleep, reflecting on how his desire to live has grown. The dam finally leaves. Raeve appears, but her eyes are black and filled with stars, indicating that the Other has taken over again. The Other, in Raeve’s body, descends and prepares to leave the safety of the treehut wearing only a shirt and boots. Kaan follows; she shoves him against the tree with feral strength, canines grazing his neck. He warns her that she smells like him and Rygun, and dragons will swarm and kill her. Pulling back, the Other looks at him with ancient eyes—he glimpses what appears to be a bud of blue flame at the back of her throat—and vows to return Raeve to him when she is done. She calls him “mate of my Precious One” before stalking onto the bog (295).

The Other walks across the bog toward the pink dam’s nest, Kaan following. She uses Bulder’s song to raise a stone path. Reaching the nest, she finds the moonshard—a piece of her own wing—next to a single, cold egg. She senses that the egg was not unfertilized but left too long without warmth when the dam first lost her mate. Remembering her own loss, she presses her lips to the shell and gifts it a tendril of her luminous life force, turning the egg from pink to silver. Taking the shard, she exits just as the dam returns. A silent understanding passes between them. The Other confronts Kaan, skin glowing with thousands of runes. She tells him that she is “almost whole” and that Raeve loves him deeply. She is slowly reintroducing Raeve to her painful past. Before retreating, the Other thanks Kaan for loving Raeve “as much as I do” (299).

Veya’s wounds have been mended, but she has been brutally interrogated by a Mindweft. Arkyn, now in possession of Kaan’s weald, has her dragged to a cell. There, she discovers Kyzari in the neighboring cell. Initially, Kyzari attacks her in a feral state, but she soon recognizes Veya and breaks down. Kyzari is emaciated and traumatized. Veya sees the words “I need you” scratched into the wall (303). Arkyn tells Veya that if she can convince Kyzari to eat, the Mindweft will be gentler. Veya learns that Tyroth traded Kyzari to the Grand Chancellor of Bothaim for political favor, and she was repeatedly raped. Realizing she has little time before the Mindweft discovers Elluin’s diary, Veya gives the diary to Kyzari. As Kyzari reads about her mother’s love for Kaan and her pregnancy, Veya holds her. Once Kyzari finishes, Veya tells her she must survive, because her mother is alive.

Raeve is violently ejected from her internal lake by her Other, having absorbed another painful memory of Elluin. The others are gone, but Kaan left a note saying they went to find the protégé and need to talk. She finds the silver moonshard, now covered by her white cloak. The sight is overwhelming; she covers it again. She prepares to leave for her own mission, noticing a pink Moltenmaw feather in her boot laces. Roan, who stayed behind, says the others left hours ago. Raeve must complete her assassination for Sereme. She exits into the mist, where Líri waits.

Raeve and Líri fly toward the western outpost atop the wall. She unhooks her muddy cloak, and Clode snatches it away, leaving her white leathers to blend with snow. Raeve leaps off, using Bulder’s song to create a stone hand to catch her, then climbs down. She finds the slumber quarters strangely empty. Moving deeper, she finds a room of Fade soldiers and Bothaimian guards, all armed and waiting, guarding yellow sun-carved doors—her target’s location. It’s a trap. As Sereme triggers the blood bind, a lone soldier discovers her and attacks with Clode’s song. A duel ensues; Clode ultimately chooses Raeve, causing the soldier’s lungs to explode.

Raeve bursts into the waiting room. She uses Clode’s song to turn their arrows against them, then uses Bulder’s song to collapse the mezzanine, crushing most archers. Shielded by Clode, she survives the falling debris and kills the rest with her blades. She finds one young Bothaimian guard alive. He reveals that they were waiting for Kaan, having received a tip that he would be there. Raeve spares the boy on the condition that he delivers a message to the Tri-Council: Calling herself “Prisoner Seventy-Three,” she vows that if they ever harm Kaan, she will personally destroy their Citadel. The boy reveals that her target’s name is Ahvi and calls him a good kid. Raeve promises not to harm him and heads for the yellow doors.