Rowan fights through Morath's ranks while trying to stay near Aelin, who rides the Lord of the North and pushes deep into the enemy lines. The Darghan cavalry drives Morath back, ruks and wyverns clash overhead, and Borte, Yeran, and Falkan guard Aelin from Ironteeth attacks. Rowan reflects that he, Fenrys, and Lorcan are no longer Maeve's weapons but brothers fighting for Terrasen as their chosen home.

At Orynth, Aedion sees Aelin's army, Chaol, Dorian, and the khaganate forces advancing, but Morath continues battering the gates. Lysandra joins Manon and the Crochans in the aerial battle, while Aedion rushes to the western gate as it begins to fail. Dorian, fighting beside Chaol and the wild men of the Fangs, forces himself through the terror and brutality of battle for Adarlan's future.

Aelin reaches the walls as siege towers begin spilling soldiers into Orynth. With her magic badly reduced, Aelin relies on assassin training and conserves her fire. When an Ironteeth rider on a massive wyvern dives for Aelin and the Lord of the North, Aelin shields the stag and prepares to face the attack, but Lysandra arrives in wyvern form, kills both beast and rider, then shifts into a ghost leopard and reunites with Aelin.

A horn from Orynth draws Aelin and Lysandra toward the siege towers at the southern gate. Rowan, Fenrys, and Lorcan spot Aelin and Lysandra storming one tower while Ansel of Briarcliff captures another. Aelin and Ansel turn the towers' catapults against the neighboring towers, and Lysandra shifts again to rip a catapult free and smash the final siege tower, destroying the immediate threat to the southern gate.

In the skies, Nesryn and Sartaq continue fighting wyverns until Nesryn spots a second Morath host emerging behind the khaganate army from the direction of Perranth. Nesryn realizes the battle was a trap meant to exhaust them before pinning them against Orynth. At the same time, the western gate finally breaks, and Aedion's phalanx is overwhelmed until a dead wyvern crashes into the archway as a deliberate barricade; Gavriel leaps down and runs toward Aedion.