After Morath breaks through before Perranth, Aedion sees Terrasen’s retreat collapse into panic. Ren manages to keep some archers firing to cover the rout, but Aedion believes the battle and the kingdom’s defense are finished.

A call spreads that the queen has come to the front line. Aedion first looks for Aelin’s fire, then realizes the “queen” is Lysandra wearing Aelin’s form. Lysandra has deliberately taken a vulnerable human shape so the soldiers will believe Aelin fights with them, and the sight begins to halt the retreat and reform the lines.

Two ilken close in on Lysandra, who has only a sword and shield. One wounds her thigh, and Aedion, struggling through the fleeing army, is overcome with regret for every cruel thing he said and did to her. Lysandra nevertheless stands again, refusing to yield because Terrasen is her home and Aelin is her queen.

When the ilken attack, Lysandra blocks one and cuts open the other, proving her defiance before the watching soldiers. As the remaining ilken strikes again, Aedion throws the Sword of Orynth through its skull, reaches Lysandra, beheads the creature, and hauls Lysandra behind the newly rallied Terrasen line. The army surges forward around them, inspired by the apparent presence of their queen.

Aedion searches for healers, fearing poison and blood loss, but then sees Ironteeth witches dragging a massive Wyrdstone witch tower across the plain with chained wyverns. Remembering Manon’s warnings about such towers and the Yielding, Aedion orders a retreat. An Ironteeth witch leaps into the tower’s mirror-lined core and releases her dark power, which the tower amplifies into a blast that turns four thousand soldiers into ash and ruined metal.