Lin arrives in Prince Conor’s apartments with Kel and finds fresh blood on the floor, Queen Lilibet waiting beside the bed, and Conor conscious but badly whipped across the back. Lilibet accepts Lin as physician, orders Lin to prevent infection and minimize scarring, then sends Kel away so Lin can work undisturbed.

Alone with Conor, Lin cleans the wounds while Conor refuses morphea because he wants to remember the pain and remain angry. Their conversation softens into unexpected honesty: Lin recalls her anger at Mayesh after her parents’ deaths, and Conor explains that his scars would expose royal punishment and scandal.

As Lin applies theriac and healing talismans, the brooch hidden against Lin’s chest stings and seems to speak, urging Lin to use it. Lin focuses on healing through the Source-Stone-like power she has sensed before, but at first nothing appears to change, so Lin continues with conventional Ashkari treatment.

Conor confesses that Prosper Beck held a legal debt over Conor and began forcing Conor into humiliating or cruel tasks. Conor secretly arranged to marry Princess Aimada of Sarthe in exchange for an advance dowry to repay Beck, but the plan led to King Markus’s punishment. Lin admits Conor made poor choices, though Mayesh would likely have told the King anyway.

Conor finally accepts morphea, and Lin gives it to him while speaking of her own peculiarity, loneliness, and failed attempt to obtain Qasmuna’s book. Lin tells Lilibet that Conor is stable but will likely have some blemish; Lilibet responds with a rare admission that children make even the powerful helpless, and advises Lin to have more than one child if she ever has any.

Lin keeps watch through the night, studies Qasmuna’s copied pages, reflects on seeing Conor as a vulnerable patient rather than only someone she hates, and dreams of a man blinded by golden radiance in a mountain cave. In the morning, Kel wakes anxious, finds Lin asleep and Conor missing from the bloodied bed, then Conor emerges washed and unmarked: his back is completely healed, without even a scar.