At the Belian ruins, the Light Sever shows Talasyn a memory of Hanan Ivralis speaking with Prince Sintan. Hanan says she can use sunrise and her light magic to hold Queen Urduja’s fleet in Port Samout while warships sail for the Northwest Continent. Hanan asks Sintan to protect her daughter Alunsina if anything happens to her, but refuses to make the child Queen Urduja’s heir because Hanan wants Alunsina to choose her own future.

The memory shifts to Hanan’s deathbed during wartime. Indusa brings baby Alunsina to Hanan, and Hanan promises that she will always be with her daughter and that they will find each other again. The Light Sever fades, leaving Talasyn alone in the empty fountain, grieving the brief contact with her mother’s past.

Later, Talasyn trains in the amphitheater, trying to expand her light magic into a larger defensive technique that might counter the scale of Gaheris’s chimeras. Talasyn has refined shielding and learned to mimic Alaric’s whip-like magic, but larger surges still slip from her control. Training in the place where Talasyn and Alaric first kissed distracts her, and Talasyn decides to return to the courtyard near the Light Sever.

Before Talasyn can leave, the messenger eagle Pakwan arrives with a frantic note from Jie. Jie reports that Alaric sailed alone to Chal’s Shadow Sever, dismissed the Nenavarene guides, and is now in danger because a storm is building to the northwest. Talasyn curses Alaric’s recklessness, orders Pakwan home, packs quickly, contacts Iantas to say she will retrieve Alaric herself, and instructs them to send rescuers only if the pair has not returned in two days.

Talasyn pilots her moth coracle toward Chal as the monsoon gathers over the Eversea. The storm overtakes her before she reaches the island, but Talasyn forces the coracle through the wind and rain, docks it atop the cliffs, and uses a light-woven grapnel and chain to rappel down to the beach. The feat proves her improved aethermancy, though the wet limestone and violent weather make the descent dangerous.

At Bukang-nabi, the Mouth of Night, Talasyn enters the cave holding Chal’s Shadow Sever. The sea-fed subterranean river has swollen in the storm, and Talasyn calls for Alaric without receiving an answer. Fear that Alaric has drowned overwhelms Talasyn, and while moving along the slippery bank, Talasyn loses her footing and is swept away by the freezing flood.