Chapter 10

Years after the war, Owen Mallory struggles with trauma and lapses, trying to ignore memories of Una Everlasting. A mysterious book bearing Una’s device arrives by post. After resisting, Owen opens it and plunges into a feverish week of translation, loathing the author’s cowardice yet swept up in Una’s story. He shares pages with Professor Sawbridge while unrest brews outside.

When Owen returns from an errand, the book is gone, replaced by a card with an address. He follows it to the capitol, where the city feels held in a tense silence that erupts into a kettled protest. Owen encounters his estranged father in the crowd; soldiers in red jackets advance. Pushed to safety on the steps by his father, Owen watches him fall and sees soldiers raise rifle butts over the old man.

A discreet aide drags Owen inside to meet Vivian Rolfe, who reveals that Chancellor Gladwell has been assassinated and that she has just taken emergency control. Vivian frames the nation at a crossroads and places Owen’s book at the center of Dominion’s identity. She produces the missing manuscript and asks if Owen will "save" the country by giving it the story it needs.

Owen, torn between disgust and a desperate need to serve, questions why the legend is necessary when crisis already empowers Vivian. She insists the story defines who they are and claims he will do it for Una, not for her. Vivian then seizes Owen’s hand, stabs it with a letter opener onto a blank page, and uses his blood to awaken the book.

The world tilts: the scent of pine and snow returns; images of the yew, the dragon, the grail, the queen, and the bier flood Owen’s senses. Vivian’s coercion sends him back to Una’s time, handing the tale over to him to tell again.