Rowan wakes Celaena and orders her to arm herself, explaining that Mistward has likely been betrayed. He has found that the enemy seems to know every trap and warning bell, and a spreading blackness on the horizon shows that Narrok’s forces will arrive within the hour.

At the fortress defenses, the demi-Fae prepare for a siege: archers wait on the walls, fighters ready the courtyard, and the ward-stones remain the last barrier before Mistward itself. Animals and the Little Folk flee the forest, revealing that the darkness around Narrok’s creatures kills whatever it touches.

Three Wyrdstone-controlled creatures appear at the tree line, proving that the skinwalkers did not destroy the one Celaena had encountered before. Narrok then emerges, scarred and armed, and silently orders the darkness to strike the ward-stone barrier, making the stones shudder under the assault.

Celaena realizes that flame may be the only defense, because the creature had recoiled from her fire before. Rowan warns that she would need to go outside the barrier for her magic to work, but before they can decide, fighting erupts inside Mistward: Adarlan’s soldiers have been let in through the escape tunnel, endangering the weaker fighters Rowan had placed inside.

Rowan wants Celaena to retreat and obey, but Celaena insists that Rowan is needed inside while her fire may hold back the deadly darkness. Driven by guilt over the massacres at Endovier and Calaculla and by her need to protect the people of Mistward, Celaena accepts Rowan’s order to hold the line, draws her sword, summons flame, and steps beyond the ward-stones into the darkness.