The Crew departs Hver the morning after the solstice. In the wagon, Silla finds three books that Rey took from Kraki: Creatures of Íseldur, Herbs of Íseldur, and A Brief History of Íseldur. She looks up skjöld in the book of herb lore and is devastated to discover that the plant is used to block a magic user’s inner source of magic. The leaves cause phantom visions with long-term use, and they are highly addictive; the withdrawal symptoms include the headaches she has experienced all her life. She finally understands that the leaves are the cause of her headaches, not the cure. The recurring vision of the little blond girl helps Silla to process the shock and raises the possibility that her father lied to keep her dependent on him. Silla also realizes that the blond girl is herself a hallucination—another side effect of taking the leaves.

That evening, Silla trains with Hekla to master a rear chokehold escape and decides to try skipping her dose. Rey goads himself into coaching her and achieves near-instant results, then challenges her to attempt the move on him. When he applies the hold, the pressure on her neck triggers a flashback to the attack near Skarstad. Panicking, Silla instinctively claws gashes into his forearm and runs into the woods.

Silla sits alone in the dark woods, dagger in hand. Hekla follows, offers her a drink of brenna, and listens as Silla admits that Rey’s hold reopened the mental wounds of her earlier attack. Hekla applauds her bravery for facing her fears

After Hekla leaves, Silla’s resolve crumbles and she takes a skjöld leaf. The little blond girl cryptically warns Silla against being too trusting and tells her not to let a certain person get too close. Before Silla can ask who she means, Jonas arrives and the girl vanishes. Jonas asks whether she wants to talk; she asks him only to make her forget. In a moment of clarity, Silla recognizes that his touch numbs her grief in exactly the same way the leaves do.

Days after leaving Hver, Silla reads A Brief History of Íseldur and learns that it covers the Volsik dynasty; this family’s crown had been passed down through the bloodline regardless of gender—in contrast to the Urkan system, which restricts succession to sons. Her mind keeps circling back to the skjöld entry. She repeatedly attempts to stop taking the leaves on her own but fails each time.

The perspective shifts to Rey at the campfire. The books contain nothing to explain the pulsing mist from Istré. He watches Silla joke and play dice with his crewmates, torn between his fury that she forced her way onto the trip and his inability to abandon her to her skjöld addiction. His thoughts turn to memories of his brother Kristjan, who was also addicted to skjöld. When Silla’s laughter stirs up emotions that he does not want to examine, he storms into the forest.

At a stream, Silla senses danger and spots a large vampire deer above her. It lunges, and she relies on her training to drive her dagger into its neck. The dying creature pins her, and a second deer stands across the stream, poised to attack as well. Suddenly, a blade strikes the second deer through the eye. Rey appears and tells her that her success has surprised him.

Rey cleans her wounds and sits with her in comfortable silence. He admits that he saw the deer earlier and chose to watch rather than intervene. He then returns her dagger, warning her to always recover her weapon.

Fully trusting Rey for the first time, Silla removes the skjöld phial and presses it into his hands, asking him never to give it back. He understands her intention and pockets the phial without ceremony. That night, Silla is overwhelmed by withdrawal symptoms: headache, fever and chills, and delirium.

In Hver, Skraeda enters a mead hall, carrying the broken shield, and encounters the spurned Asger, who identifies the axe sigil as belonging to the Bloodaxe Crew. Skraeda soothes his unease and fans his anger by claiming that she also wants vengeance on the Crew. Asger reveals Silla’s plan to head to Kopa; he also bitterly shares that she and a blond, scarred warrior are lovers.

Outside, a Klaernar kaptein delivers a scroll from Queen Signe, which contains orders for Skraeda to go to Skutur and receive instructions from Kommandor Laxa, who has been placed in charge of the hunt. Being subordinated to the Klaernar enrages Skraeda.

Jonas is consumed with worry, as Silla has been feverish and unconscious for a day and a night. Rey has been evasive about the cause, and Jonas suspects he knows more than he is admitting. Consumed by possessive jealousy, Jonas begins to fear that Rey will take Silla from him, but he still tries to dismiss her as merely a distraction. When he finds himself imagining her beside him at a future farmstead, the image frightens him. Later, Ilías admits that he enjoys the mercenary life and doubts he even wants the farmstead, but Jonas shuts him down by emphasizing that restoring the family’s honor is paramount.

Two riders hurry by the Crew, warning that the Slátrari has claimed two more victims just south of their position. The Crew members wonder at the idea that they might have encountered the infamous killer without realizing it.

Silla’s fever produces three dreams. In the first, her dying father tries to whisper the names of her biological parents, but the words dissolve. In the second, black smoke pours from her own hands, and she burns a bound man alive, smiling. In the third, the little blond girl calls her “sister” and says this may be their last meeting, then urges Silla to come find her.

Silla wakes, certain that the girl is really her sister and is still alive somewhere in Íseldur. Hekla explains that Silla has been unconscious for two full days. The Crew attributes her collapse to a wolfspider bite; Rey has said nothing about the leaves or her addiction. At the campfire, Jonas visibly relaxes at the sight of her, and Rey offers his closest expression to a smile, which she reads as pride.

The following day, Silla wakes clearer-headed than she ever has been. She trains with Hekla, and Rey joins, trading barbs with Silla as Hekla devises new training tactics that make him wary of Silla’s strikes. Afterward, Silla slips behind the tents alone and is seized from behind as someone clamps a hand over her mouth and tells her not to scream.

The narrative switches to Jonas’s perspective as he sneaks up behind Silla and surprises her. He suggests that the two have sex in his tent, even though the rest of the Crew will be taking their ease at the nearby fire. After they have sex, he reflects that she brings him a happiness that he feels unworthy to enjoy. When she traces his facial scar, he shares his deepest shame: as a young man, he killed his abusive father after the man murdered his mother. An assembly ruled the killing justified, but the family’s lands and money were still confiscated, leaving Jonas and Ilías destitute until they joined the Bloodaxe Crew.

Silla confesses that she also bears responsibility for a parent’s death. When she was 10, a neighbor accused her of producing magical light; her mother falsely confessed to being an Ashbringer to shield Silla from the Klaernar. Silla was forced to watch her mother’s public execution and was even made to cast a stone. Jonas denies Silla’s assertion that he is a good man but tells her that she makes him feel that he could become one. He then proposes visiting her in Kopa after the Istré job. She agrees, and he places a carved wooden talisman around her neck; it bears his family symbol. As they kiss, they suddenly hear Gunnar warning of an impending attack.

Jonas orders Silla to stay in the tent as he belatedly runs to help the rest of the Crew fend off the attackers. Through the walls, Silla hears clicking and shrieking and grows apprehensive at the Crew’s mention of “fangs.” While arming herself, she notices white light swirling from her forearms and realizes that the skjöld leaves had also been suppressing her magic. She understands that she is Galdra.

A giant wolfspider crashes through the tent roof. Drawing on Hekla’s training, Silla waits for an opening, slashes its eyes, and gives Rey time to deliver a killing blow. She conceals her glowing arms with a cloak and gloves. When Rey accuses her of lighting a torch and drawing the wolfspiders, she does not correct his assumption.

Later, Rey publicly demands to know why Silla was in Jonas’s tent. Jonas announces that they are sleeping together. Rey accuses Jonas of lying to him and of exploiting Silla’s grief; Jonas admits to deceiving Rey but criticizes the wisdom of his leader’s order and declares his affection for Silla. Rey challenges him to settle the dishonor with fists, and the two brawl while the crew teases Silla about her liaison with Jonas. The next morning, Silla apologizes to Rey, who dismisses her coldly and says they must travel to Skutur for wagon repairs.

In Skutur, the Klaernar presence unsettles Silla. At a wood crafter’s shop, she spots Skraeda and reacts with fear. As Silla slips away from the Crew, her forearms begin to glow.

She uses a passing flock of sheep to delay the warrior’s pursuit and then takes cover in an abandoned temple to the old gods, descending through a trapdoor into the crypt. Skraeda follows her into a dead-end chamber whose walls are stacked human bones. Taunting Silla, Skraeda reveals that she is also Galdra—a Solacer who senses and manipulates emotions. She offers to teach Silla to control her magic through the Cohesion Rite, then offers to reunite Silla with her sister, who is currently in Sunnavík.

Silla pretends to acquiesce but then attacks, toppling the bone wall onto Skraeda and escaping up a narrow shaft. Skraeda pursues and forces visions into Silla’s mind. Silla relives a past experience of armed men tearing away a young blond girl named Saga while Matthias held her younger self back, calling her Eisa. Silla realizes that she is really Eisa Volsik. Returning to herself, Silla kicks stones loose to block Skraeda’s passage and hauls herself up into the temple courtyard, where Jonas finds her.

Jonas sees the light shining from Silla’s arms just as three Klaernar enter the yard, searching for a curly-haired woman. Silla pulls Jonas into a kiss, and he stalls the men until they move on. He covers her with his cloak and tells Ilías that she is unwell; he and Silla ride ahead of the Crew through the Klaernar-filled town, heading toward a rendezvous point outside of town.

At a riverside stop, Silla admits that she is Galdra, explaining that her magic appeared after she stopped taking the skjöld leaves, which she gave to Rey for safekeeping. Jonas is hurt that she confided in Rey rather than him and presses for more details until Silla concedes that her land-dispute story was invented to keep Rey from handing her over. Jonas feels that his connection with her was built on a lie, though he acknowledges that he cannot fault her for trying to survive. He promises to get her to Kopa safely—as long as she promises to do what he tells her to do.

Skraeda waits in Skutur’s Klaernar garrison for Kommandor Laxa. He informs her that she has been dismissed from Queen Signe’s service; he then orders his subordinates to restrain her with hindrium cuffs that are designed to neutralize Galdra powers. Skraeda acts first, using her Solacer ability to compel one warrior to kill the other, then himself. Laxa produces a royal scroll containing the queen’s order for Skraeda’s execution.

Skraeda reveals that she is also an Ashbringer, a power that was linked to her twin sister. She burns Laxa alive, fights through the garrison, and locks the remaining Klaernar inside as the building ignites. She watches it burn, vowing that she alone will be the one to bring Eisa to the queen.