Asar and Mische wake in a small apartment in the House of Blood, where they are instructed to wait for their escorts. Asar comforts Mische, who feels guilty for using her abilities to compel Raihn. They become intimate, using a bed sheet as a barrier between their bare skin.

The following day, Asar and Mische are visited by Septimus’s cousin, Atrius, who escorts them to his boat. They travel to an outpost for supplies, where they meet Atrius’s wife, Sylina, who is an Arachessen—an acolyte of Acaeja. The Arachessen can see threads of fate but must have their eyesight destroyed to do so; thus, Sylina wears a blindfold over her eyes. Sylina knows that they’re looking for the eye of Alarus but won’t reveal why she is invested in helping Asar and Mische, saying only that the threads of fate have drawn her here.

Asar, Mische, Atrius, and Sylina take horses from the Bloodborn stables and ride for the entrance to the deadlands. When Mische learns that the horses do not have names, she names her own horse after her sister, Saescha.

The group navigates the maze preceding the deadlands entrance, eventually reaching an archway. They are prepared to challenge the Keeper who guards the locked doorway but find him recently slain.

Mische and Asar use necromancy to revive the Keeper. When Mische drags his soul back, she sees flashes of his death and realizes he didn’t fight whoever murdered him but rather accepted his fate.

The Keeper is angry to be brought back to life. He disparages the gods, claiming that they are liars and that they “live by sweeping away all else” (320), which they plan to do again. Rather than accept the group’s challenge, he drives his sword through his gut and opens the door for them with a warning never again to bring him back to life. He tells them that the snow will offer them passage back home, so they collect it into a vial and store it in their pack.

They enter the deadlands, which are not as Atrius remembers them. The monsters that called the place home have long since fled. The same decay that affects the underworld has reached this realm, too.

Mische and Sylina regard the deadlands with horror, wondering how the gods they worshipped could cause such destruction. Mische wonders aloud how they can reconcile the lies they believed with the truth of the gods’ nature. Sylina explains how she was taught to defend what was right but has since learned that it’s not so straightforward; there are several truths that are contradictory, and “even in the biggest lies, there is something real” (329). She cherishes the sisterhood she found among her fellow acolytes, which Mische understands.

When the group stops near the execution site, Asar acknowledges a young wraith girl who has been following them. Mische learns her name, Celie, which allows them to open a gate and shepherd her on to the underworld. Meanwhile, the mask in his pack speaks to Asar, tempting him to wield Alarus’s power; Asar tries to ignore this. Mische asks if Asar is afraid of what he’ll become if he succeeds in ascending, but he admits that he’s more afraid of what will happen if he doesn’t. Mische tells him not to sacrifice the messy parts of his mortality, regardless of what happens.

The group reaches a stone gate. They dismount, and Atrius offers a blood sacrifice to it by killing the horses, shocking Mische, who mourns Saescha’s death. Though it is an unfair fate, Atrius offers the horses a swift, painless end to limit their suffering. The execution overwhelms Asar with memories of Alarus’s death. When Mische pulls him back to the present, his hand is in his pack, grasping the mask as if he’d been about to wield it. The group explores the area, which happens to be a forge for Srana’s magic. A blast of light occurs, after which Sylina can no longer see the threads of fate, and Srana appears.

Srana seeks to craft a weapon out of Asar. He realizes that she is creating an army and killed the Keeper to prevent the other gods from discovering what she’s doing in her remote forge. When Asar turns to Atrius for help, he discovers Atrius slipping away with Sylina, taking the vial of snow—their only passage out of the deadlands—from Mische’s bag and away with them.

A Sentinel arrives for Mische while Asar is locked in battle with Srana. The Sentinel is determined to make Mische face justice for killing Atroxus and damning millions of humans to a world of eternal night, plagued by vampires. A wraith appears with an axe encrusted with Alarus’s eye. Though Mische believes that only Asar can wield it, Vincent appears to her through the veil, urging her to take it: She, too, holds a piece of Alarus.

Srana offers Asar a bargain. She gives him the opportunity to rule over the White Pantheon, to create something new after the coming war. She offers to make him great and asks him to “imagine what [she] could make of [him]” (361). Instead, Asar lunges for his bag and grabs the mask.

Mische wields the axe against the Sentinel. However, the mask affects her mind, causing her to see the world through the eyes of a god; everything seems much less consequential than before. She pushes the Sentinel toward the crack in the veil. The axe urges her to leave the Sentinel to their fate, but Mische chooses mercy and reaches out a helping hand to save them. However, the Sentinel raises their sword against Mische once spared, forcing Mische to push them away as the flames of Srana’s forge suddenly surround them.

Mische finds Asar and offers him the axe, which he uses against Srana. He is affected similarly by the axe’s power. It urges him to kill Srana, which he nearly does before Mische convinces him not to. His moment of distraction allows Srana to flee. Without the snow needed to secure passage out of the deadlands, Asar has no choice but to don the mask and axe, giving him enough divine power to transport himself, Mische, and Luce using the spira.