Seanchai segues to Meldof’s story. She knocks on the door of a drughouse where the elf who answers speaks to her in crude and insulting terms. She tells him she’s looking for Talyysen of the One Eye, an elf who has a thing for dwarven girls and a sergeant in the Golden Empire army.

He sends her off in harsh terms and slams the door. She listens for a moment to her hammer. She breaks in through a window and fights her way through the house. She emerges, bloody and smoking a pipe, and consoles her hammer that they’ll find Talyysen eventually.

In a bathhouse in Xin’trea, Balor and Eredin sit in a bath although Eredin is tense. He tells Balor the situation in the north and south is problematic, the supply lines are disrupted by areas that refuse to bow to the Golden Empire. He wants Balor to arrest the guild leaders and force the merchants to trade under the empire’s terms.

Eredin reports on the sightings of Fjall and Éile. He promises they’ll be taken and killed soon. Balor is skeptical.

Éile, Fjall, and Scían see Byrelle burning in the distance as the Golden Empire army massacres them. They need more allies. Scían says they can get sellswords for the right coin. Éile mentions a bank they can rob nearby.

In Daédwóde, formerly of Pryshia, they find the bank vault empty. The banker explains there was a run on the bank after the coup. He notes that the reward for Fjall and Éile is the most valuable thing in the town.

Soldiers surround the bank. The banker escapes through a trapdoor in the floor that he locks on his way out.

Scían organizes them and they manage to take out many of the soldiers. Éile gets out of formation, leaving Scían exposed and she takes a wound. The remaining soldiers retreat and seal them in, planning to smoke or burn them out.

Fjall breaks the lock on the trapdoor and they escape.

Back in Xin’trea, Merwyn is attacked in the palace by a servant who screams for the starving lowborn. She is saved by a young mage.

Eredin and Balor check in on her while the mage ministers to her with a drink. Eredin offers a lieutenant as bodyguard but Merwyn insists the mage be her protector. He introduces himself as Creven Espane aep Caomhan Macha, Avallac’h for short. Merwyn demands to know about the famine affecting her people. Instead, Balor suggests she stay confined to her quarters and let him and Eredin handle things.

Brother Death is hunting Éile, Fjall, and Scían and arrives in Daédwóde. In the woods, the three are moving slowly as Scían’s wound impedes her. They take a rest. Scían advises they go on without her. Éile refuses to leave her.

Merwyn invites Avallac’h to her book collection and although he protests he is only an apprentice, she says he’s perfect to be her spy on Balor and Eredin. She wants him to steal Syndril’s The Book of Monoliths from Balor. She wants Avallac’h to open gateways for her. She takes his cloak so she can sneak out into the city and see what’s happening outside the palace.

She sees the people starving and fighting and hears the Black Rose being sung. She bumps into Eredin and follows him to the home of a lover, Brían, who warned the merchants before the army could arrest them. The merchants took all their grain with them. Eredin reveals that the palace grain stores are empty. They have no food to feed their troops.

Balor discusses the arid world with his deaf assistant, Fenrik, intent on gaining the power from the being through the gateway who will make him a god with the Chaos magic.

Éile and Fjall find Brother Death standing over a delirious Scían when they return. He asks why there’s a bounty for them. Éile informs him they’re off to kill the empress. He joins them, interested in killing the soldiers who destroyed the good people and the village that had taken him in.

He informs them that the blade that wounded Scían was poisoned with corpse oil and she’ll be dead by dawn. He offers to take them to a healer.

The journey goes through the Marsh of the Mists. Brother Death warns them to keep going no matter what they see.

Fjall relives the battle where his brother, Kareg, died, and then sex with Merwyn while Kareg sits nearby and talks to him. Black liquid pours out of Merwyn’s face and drowns him until he emerges from a lake.

Éile steps into a lake. An arm pops out and drags her under. She watches a younger self set fire to enemy civilian captives under her mother’s orders. She finds a black liquid covered lark in her bag. The burned bodies suddenly open their eyes and look at her. Fjall pulls her out of the water.

Brother Death carries Scían into the mists and a blonde woman comes out and greets him as Callan. He calls her his love.

Syndril also joins them. He tells them Zacaré’s mists read their memories to judge them worthy. Fjall moves to attack Syndril but Zacaré rebuffs him and reminds him that Scían needs healing.

Meldof paints and talks. She’s addressing Talyysen’s body as she paints with his blood. On the wall, she’s painted the script reading, “Here lies Talyysen of the One Eye, rapist, murderer. Ended by Gwen of the Flowers. May he suffer eternity in the Lost Place.” In Xin’trea, Balor takes two children through a gateway. He introduces them to the being as celestial siblings, born under a scarlet moon, who have rare and powerful magic. The being recognizes the power and Balor kills the children so their magic can flow into him. He gets a taste of chaos magic but it fades quickly. The being tells him transformation requires true sacrifice.

Balor doesn’t understand what she wants.

Eredin wakes in Brían’s bed and hears him talking to Merwyn in the other room. She calls to him. When he joins them, she promises she’s not there to expose their relationship. She proposes that Eredin and she ally against Balor. In exchange, she’ll make Brían a titled member of her Imperial Council. She also orders Eredin to have Fjall brought to her so he can father her child.

As Zacaré ministers to Scían, Éile learns that they are siblings, celestial twins, born at the same time in the same village under the same burning star. After purging the poison from the wound, Zacaré closes the wound with her magic, completely healing Scían who thanks her.

Fjall confronts Syndril. Syndril tells him of his joy at opening a gateway and then his despair with the world on the other side was arid and dead. He tells Fjall about the energy being there and the beast he saw and heard. When the coup happened, it was the same beast that destroyed the monarchs and their protectors.

He escaped then and found Zacaré, intent on destroying the gateways. Fjall asks if Balor is behind it all. Syndril tells him Merwyn slit Fjall’s sister, Ryl’s throat herself.

Syndril warns that the monoliths Balor has raised is tearing the veils between the worlds. It’s affecting Zacaré’s ability to heal. He predicts the world will be ripped apart in days. They need to destroy the master monolith in Xin’trea.

Syndril and Zacaré plan to use a monolith to open a gateway directly into the palace. He says that’s how he escaped the palace.

The six make an alliance. They kill the guards at the nearby monoliths and Syndril opens a gateway but it takes them somewhere else. Éile is entranced by a sparkling plant which turns out to be a carnivorous creature that chases her.