One hundred eighty-six cycles later, Tau Tafari, a young High Common, trains under his father, Aren Solarin. Aren is the inkokeli, or leader, of the fief of Kerem’s Ihagu militia. Tau regularly spars with Aren’s Noble student, Jabari Onai, a Petty Noble who consistently outmatches him. During a cliffside training session, the three spot a wrecked boat in the surrounding ocean that they suspect belongs to the “hedeni”—the Indigenous people the Omehi have been fighting since landfall.

A High Harvester delivers news from Palm City: Queen Ayanna has died and her granddaughter, Princess Tsiora the Second, will take the throne. The new queen is very young, the Omehia bloodline has long lacked the Gift, and the succession is dangerously thin. Nkiru, Aren’s second-in-command, arrives breathless with urgent news: Hedeni raiders have crossed the sea cliffs and are moving on the hamlet of Daba.

Aren organizes a defense but learns that Jabari’s elder brother, Lekan, has refused to release the keep guard, ordering the undermanned mountain barracks to hold Daba alone. Aren sends Tau home. Unable to let his father walk into a doomed fight, Tau arms himself with his grandfather’s sword and runs to the Onai keep. Tau explains the crisis to Jabari who suggests a plan: By announcing he intends to go to Daba, he legally forces the keep guard to escort and protect him, effectively delivering the reinforcements Lekan withheld.

Tau and Jabari fight through Daba until they reach the Ihagu barricade. Aren scolds Tau for coming but accepts Jabari’s cover story that he ordered Tau along. Massive hedeni reinforcements then flood the plateau, while Aren forms a battle line to let townspeople escape. During the brutal combat, Tau is wounded and falls, but Aren rescues him just as the regular Chosen military arrives with an Enraged Ingonyama.

A Guardian dragon appears and burns a large group of hedeni. As a young Gifted attempts to protect the Ingonyama, the edge of her enervation strikes Tau and briefly pulls his soul into Isihogo; he glimpses a monstrous creature before the effect fades. The hedeni swarm and kill the Ingonyama, then capture his Gifted, a woman named Nsia, thwarting her attempted suicide. A retreat signal ends the raid. In the aftermath, a noncombatant Omehi Gifted dies in a violent internal collapse that Jabari calls a “demon-death.”

In the days after the raid, Aren doubles Tau’s training. While sparring with Jabari, Tau learns that Jabari’s mother praised his heroism publicly, forcing Lekan to stand by in humiliation. Alone at practice later, Tau resolves he wants no part of a soldier’s life. He formulates a plan: pass the Ihashe test to avoid Drudge status, then deliberately injure himself badly enough during training to be sent home. He would then use that position to pursue Zuri Uba, a Handmaiden. She appears unexpectedly, having heard him swear off killing. After Tau confesses to killing a woman at Daba and Zuri defends his actions, she kisses him and leaves, noting they have time before his testing.

The next morning, Tau and Jabari walk to Daba to help with rebuilding. Tau reveals his plan and asks Jabari to secure him a keep position upon his return. After learning Zuri kissed Tau, Jabari—certain the feeling of not wanting to be a soldier will pass—agrees to help.

That evening, Zuri is at Tau’s home with alarming news: Lekan sexually assaulted Anya, and when her father Nkiru struck him in her defense, Lekan demanded the family’s execution. Aren defuses the standoff by publicly fabricating a story that Anya had attempted to seduce Lekan and Nkiru had overreacted in shame, proposing banishment as the punishment. Lekan accepts. Tau, Aren, and Zuri help the family pack and see them off before dawn.

Weeks later, Tau’s manhood ceremony takes place. He gets heavily drunk on gaum and Jabari gives him a new pair of boots. The next morning, Aren erupts in fury: Lekan has had Nkiru’s entire family, including the infant, thrown from a cliff and killed. Aren draws his sword to confront Lekan, but his new second-in-command, Ekon, stops him by warning that killing a Noble will bring execution down on Tau and his mother. Aren collapses in grief and sends Tau away.

At training, Jabari tells Tau that Queen Tsiora is passing through Kerem. Tau serves as Jabari’s aqondise, or “most trusted,” for the royal procession, which includes the queen, her champion Abshir Okar, the KaEid Oro, and Guardian Council Chairman Abasi Odili. Tau notes the top Citadel initiate Kellan Okar—Abshir’s nephew and son of a general hanged for cowardice at the Battle of Kwabena, a disastrous defeat that cost thousands of lives.

Tau reflects on earlier in the day when he found Zuri and learned her womanhood testing date has been set. They shared a painful exchange about the seven cycles of separation ahead.

Later that evening, Jabari defends the execution of Kellan’s father as just punishment for cowardice. When he insultingly refers to him as a “Lesser,” of the same class as Tau, Tau is hurt by his flippant attitude about the Lesser people. In response, Tau pointedly asks why the Chosen are on Xidda rather than Osonte, implying that it, too, is a form of cowardice and retreat from battle. The remark angers Jabari and ends the day coldly.

On the morning of Jabari’s Indlovu testing, Tau, Aren, Jabari, and Lekan march to the fighting fields between Kerem and Mawas. Lekan orders Tau to warm up with Kagiso Okafor, a Noble’s son, who insists on sparring with a sharpened blade. Tau quickly realizes Kagiso is poorly trained. When Jabari taunts Kagiso, Kagiso attacks Tau wildly. Tau knocks him down and breaks his nose just as Chairman Odili, his Ingonyama Body Dejen Olujimi, and Kellan Okar look on. Odili uses the embarrassment to cancel the entire testing, declaring the southern Nobles unfit for the Indlovu Citadel, the training academy for Noble warriors.

In the resulting chaos, Tau confronts Lekan. Odili overhears and orders Kellan to fight Tau. Aren steps forward, invoking his Ihashe military status to fight in his son’s place. Kellan is younger and far more capable; he wounds Aren repeatedly before severing his sword hand. When Kellan declares the matter settled, Tau takes up his father’s fallen sword and threatens him. Odili orders Dejen to end the fight, and Dejen drives his blade through Aren’s chest, killing him. Jayyed places himself between Odili and Tau, preventing a second death. Odili grants a contemptuous clemency and departs while threatening Jayyed. Jayyed gives Aren’s sword to Tau and directs the Ihagu to carry Aren home.

On the march back to Kerem, Lekan worries aloud about tithes and the canceled testing; Jabari says he will travel north to test later in the season. When Lekan then insults Aren’s memory, Tau attacks him, giving him a black eye. Jabari stops the fight, stating that attacking a Noble is a crime punishable by death, and commutes the sentence to banishment, telling Tau to leave Kerem by sunrise.

At home, Tau finds Zuri waiting. She reveals her womanhood test confirmed she is Gifted and offers to flee with him. Tau refuses, knowing the Gifted are always hunted. He addresses her as “Lady Gifted,” acknowledging the new gulf between them, then leaves.

Rather than flee immediately, Tau climbs through a window into Lekan’s chambers and tells him he will join the military, earn the right to a blood-duel, and come back to kill him. Lekan grabs a dagger and slashes Tau across the face. In the struggle that follows, Tau repeatedly drives Lekan’s head into the wall until Lekan is dead. The keep guard Ochieng discovers the scene. Instead of stopping Tau, he spits on Lekan’s body in contempt for what he did to Nkiru’s family and to Aren, then helps Tau escape through the window. He shouts that Lekan has fallen down the stairs.

Tau flees toward Kigambe, the southern capital, to test for the Ihashe. Lekan is dead, but three names remain on his list of revenge: Kellan Okar, Dejen Olujimi, and Abasi Odili.