That afternoon, Silla’s father Matthias steers her down Vindur Road, toward their temporary home. She reflects on their 10 years of transient life; they have never stayed more than three months in the same place, and they always use new identities.

He tells her that it is time to go to Kopa—a town that lies a month’s journey to the north. He has received a message via falcon; a contact has promised them a shield-home (a safe refuge for people in hiding). As Silla reluctantly considers the possibility, six armed men suddenly emerge from the trees. Their leader addresses Matthias as “Tómas” and declares that Queen Signe (the wife of King Ivar) has been searching for Silla. He identifies Silla by a crescent-shaped scar next to her left eye and tells her that Matthias is not her biological father.

Matthias breaks free and surprises Silla by fighting with formidable skill. During the melee, Silla is caught and choked unconscious. She wakes to find herself lying beneath the leader’s corpse; Matthias has saved her life but is mortally wounded. She clasps his blade, called a hevrit, and places it in his hands. Just before he dies, he tells her to look under the mattress, and go to Kopa. He insists that she never let the queen capture her and reassures her that he loved her as if she were his own. Grieving over his corpse, she feels her survival instincts reassert themselves; desperately, she takes the coins from his pockets and flees.

When Silla returns to their hut, the little blond girl appears and asks why the queen wants Silla dead. Remembering Matthias’s words, Silla cuts open his mattress and finds coins and a letter addressed to Tómas; the message mentions a contact named Skeggagrim, who lives at a house with blue shutters beside the Dragon’s Lair Inn in Kopa; this man can secure a shield-home for her.

Now determined to reach Kopa, Silla packs the letter and coins, along with a heart-shaped rock that her father recently gave her. She also packs her red cloak, some meager food supplies, and her supply of skjöld leaves, which she takes every day as a headache cure. She takes a hammer as a weapon, then sets off alone down Vindur Road.

Silla travels through the Twisted Pinewoods, resolving to move at night and hide during the day. During her journey, she ruminates on the discovery that Matthias was never her blood relation, and she reels at the idea that Queen Signe has been searching for her. She does not understand why she should be a target. Drawing a protective circle around a tree, she prays to the old gods, though her words feel hollow.

In a flashback, she relives a moment from when she was 12, when Matthias explained that people had noticed Silla’s tendency to see things that others do not—specifically the little blond girl. Matthias warned her that the Klaernar would suspect her of magic and come to take her if word of her peculiarity were to spread.

Back in the present, Silla feels a severe headache coming on; her symptoms have worsened because she has missed dose of the leaves. She takes a double dose and relishes the sudden sense of peace and forgetfulness that she feels, then drifts into a broken sleep.

On her second night, a twisted ankle slows Silla’s progress, and she takes another double dose of skjöld leaves before sleeping. Later, she wakes to find herself surrounded by four members of a violent warband called the Battle Thorns; they demand payment for passage. Still dulled by the leaves, she reacts slowly. When their leader reaches for her bag, she shatters his hand with the hammer. The men subdue her and take her food, her waterskin, the leaves.

A massive grimwolf bursts into the clearing and kills one warrior, and the others flee. Now without food, water, or her leaves, Silla recalls her mother’s teachings about graylag geese flying south near midsummer and follows a passing flock. Regaining her bearings, she finds the Vindur Road again.

The perspective shifts to Skraeda Golf, who is a Solacer—a Galdra who can sense and manipulate other people’s emotions. Despite her status as a member of a hunted class, she now operates as an agent for Queen Signe. Now, she is lurking in a tavern and has been surveilling several warriors whom she suspects of being Galdra. Before she can act to manipulate her target, the leader of a group of Klaernar walks straight to her and announces her name aloud. Her cover destroyed, she reluctantly engages with the Klaernar and receives a sealed parchment bearing Queen Signe’s wasp sigil. The queen’s orders are for Skraeda to locate a 20-year-old young woman with curly brown hair and a scar beside her left eye; Skraeda must bring the woman in at all costs. Skraeda tells the Klaernar to take her to their regional leader, Kommandor Thord.

Silla emerges from the pinewoods, exhausted and starving, and changes out of her current clothing, as it would mark her as a worker in Jarl Gunnell’s household in Skarstad. A wagon approaches, and the driver, a woman named Vigdis, offers her a ride alongside her nephew Dalli. Vigdis warns Silla about the Slátrari, a murderer who burns victims from the inside out.

At the bridge into Reykfjord, the Klaernar and a woman (Skraeda) confront Vigdis and describe a young woman matching Silla’s description. Silla smears mud over her scar, and Vigdis claims that Silla is her niece; the wagon is waved through. Before parting, Silla mentions her need to travel north; Vigdis warns that the route north is the dangerous Road of Bones and advises Silla to find traveling companions. Later, Silla stumbles across The Owl’s Hollow Inn and goes inside, perceiving the image of the owl as a good omen.

The perspective shifts to Jonas Svik, second-in-command of the Bloodaxe Crew. He and the leader, Reynir Bjarg—called Axe Eyes—meet privately with Magnus Hansson, King Ivar’s chief hirdman—a highly trusted lieutenant—. Magnus is known as the Heart Eater because he reputedly devours the hearts of his enemies.

Magnus reports that the kingdom’s berskium mines have been destroyed. (Berskium is a powdered substance that the Klaernar inhale just before battle to gain berserker-level strength and ferocity.) Magnus also mentions that the Slátrari has been active near Reykfjord. He then offers the Crew an assignment in the remote settlement of Istré, where livestock and farmers have been disappearing into a white mist that pulses with a heartbeat. A Klaernar battalion sent to investigate was found murdered; the men were bound to pillars with strange vines, surrounded by a Spiral Stave (the symbol of the Volsik family, whom Ivar deposed 17 years ago). The job pays 10,000 sólas and must be kept secret. Magnus offers to provide the Crew with rare rhodium blades, and Rey and Jonas accept the contract.

They rejoin the Crew, which includes Jonas’s reckless younger brother Ilias; a mute female warrior named Sigrún, who communicates by hand signs; Hekla, another female warrior, who has a prosthetic arm sporting retractable silver claws; and a brash, coarse-mannered man named Gunnar. As their banter gives rise to a playful brawl, Jonas spots a small figure in a red cloak slipping toward the door.

Riding north, Jonas fixates on the contract, which will yield him a cut of nearly 2,000 sólas; with this job, he and Ilías will be able to reclaim their family’s longhouse, which was unfairly stripped from them years ago. He slips into a childhood memory of his dying grandfather pressing a silver talisman into his hands and charging him to embody the sacred values of family, respect, and duty. Then, his violent father had crashed through the door, spurring his mother to urge the young Jonas to flee with Ilías.

Back in the present, Rey outlines the Crew’s plan. They will scout the abduction sites, observe the mist, and gather intelligence. Jonas reflects on the inconsistencies in Magnus’s account—particularly the fact that the Spiral Stave, the sigil of the deposed Volsik royal family, was found alongside the dead Klaernar. Seventeen years earlier, King Ivar seized the throne, executing King Kjartan Volsik, his wife Queen Svalla, and Princess Eisa. The only surviving Volsik was five-year-old Princess Saga, who was taken as the king’s ward.

Rey determines that in order to complete this job, the Bloodaxe Crew needs to acquire a guidebook on creatures, which is held by their former leader, Kraki, who is now estranged from the group. That evening, Jonas goes to the supply wagon and pulls back the cover to find a pair of wide brown eyes staring up at him.

Jonas hauls Silla out of the wagon, holding a blade at her throat. Confronted by the rest of the Crew, she offers to cook, wash, and tend horses in exchange for safe passage to Kopa. Rey orders Sigrún to search her; Sigrún checks for a thrall brand and finds none, then confiscates her ankle dagger. Rey interrogates Silla about her lack of provisions.

Silla reveals that she overheard their talk of Kraki and offers to help the obtain the book, falsely claiming that she has always had immense skills of persuasion. Rey initially threatens to kill her, but when she stands up to him and faces his piercing glare without flinching, he relents and agrees to consider the proposal. Jonas binds her to a tree.

Hekla approaches and asks her name. Silla lies, calling herself Katrin. Hekla loosens the painfully tight rope and gives Silla water, then returns with a fur and her bag. The little blond girl appears to Silla, who smiles for the first time since the Crew discovered her.

When Skraeda arrives at the Klaernar garrison, Kommandor Thord leads her to Vigdis, whose head has been bound into a cruel iron bridle. Skraeda reflects on her covert arrangement with the garrison, which allows her to extract confessions and claim prisoners for the queen without King Ivar’s knowledge.

She recently located Vigdis after recalling the dirt-smeared, red-cloaked figure huddled in the woman’s wagon. Because Vigdis was carrying a load of winterwing eggs—a rare delicacy—she was easy to locate. Using her Solacer ability, Skraeda weaponizes Vigdis’s fear and threatens her nephew with a torturous execution. Seeking to save her nephew, Vigdis confirms that Silla traveled north on the Road of Bones. Skraeda slits Vigdis’s throat. As Thord protests the waste, saying he could have put Vigdis’s death toward his execution quota, Skraeda notes an unusual “golden thread” running beneath his emotions—a quality she has observed in all Klaernar but cannot explain. She heads north after Silla.

Silla has a recurring nightmare in which the blond phantom girl is ripped screaming from her grasp. When Jonas shakes her awake, she scratches him in her panic. After she calms down, she grows embarrassed at the thought of showing such a hardened warrior her vulnerable side.

The following morning, Rey weighs the pros and cons of killing Silla, even reaching for his weapon twice. However, he is held back by the crescent-shaped scar by her eye, as well as her offer to help the Crew gain the book of lore from Kraki. He proposes a deal; Silla will help him obtain information from Kraki, and they will take her as far as Hver. Silla accepts but refuses to seduce Kraki. She declares that her name is Katrin. Rey then tells her that she must obey the Crew’s orders, tell no lies, and reveal nothing about their pending job. He warns that breaking any of these rules will result in her death.

Relieved but privately committed to lying when her safety requires it, Silla keeps calling herself Katrin and resolves to make herself indispensable. She spots Jonas glaring at her, and he warns her not to disrupt the Crew’s job or interfere with his expected payout. Silla holds him in contempt, deciding that he only cares about money. Sigrun kindly offers Silla a bowl of burnt porridge, who notes that the entire crew eats the botched meal without complaining.

While sitting bound in the wagon, she fixes her thoughts on Kopa, Skeggagrim, and the shield-house. A headache prompts her to take another skjöld leaf. With difficulty, she resists the temptation to take two, knowing that her supply is dwindling.

That evening, she volunteers to cook, Rey has three portions of her stew, and Sigrún delightedly hands over her cooking duties to Silla. Later, Hekla spots the bruising on Silla’s neck—sustained during the attack that killed Matthias. Hekla assumes that Silla is fleeing an abusive man, and Silla does not correct her. Hekla then shares her own history of surviving abuse; her husband severed her arm with an axe, and she later killed him in revenge. Silla feels guilty over having allowed Hekla’s assumption about her past to stand. Later, Rey confronts her with his knowledge that seven bodies were found near Skarstad, one of which wore Jarl Gunnell’s colors—the same emblem on Silla’s dress. He calls her a liar and demands to know her real name.