Helena spends weeks recovering at Spirefell after the nullium bombing, enduring fever, infection, pain, and the slow return of resonance. Kaine remains beside her, studying anatomy so he can heal her when the nullium clears. As Helena regains clarity, she remembers using obsidian against a necrothrall at the field hospital and suspects it severed the reanimation.

During Helena's convalescence, Kaine reveals more of Spirefell's grief: the undead servants are the bodies of people killed after his family's fall, and he may have reanimated them because he could not let them go. Helena reads about old alchemical theories while Kaine monitors her injuries, and they discuss Morrough's avoidance of Luc and the strange fact that Morrough has long ordered Luc captured alive rather than killed.

As Helena begins walking again, she struggles with the scar down her chest and fears Kaine will see her as ruined by the war. Kaine counters by asking whether Helena sees only his scars, then reassures Helena that the injury does not change his attachment to her. Before leaving Spirefell, Helena and Kaine share a careful, intimate night in which Helena silently acknowledges her love but cannot bring herself to say it aloud.

Kaine returns Helena to Resistance territory, where she sees that the bombing has cratered the city and forced the Resistance behind a much smaller defensive wall. At Headquarters, Helena is first treated with suspicion because she was listed among the dead, then released by Crowther under the cover story that splinter factions found her. Matron Pace confirms that Althorne and Ilva are dead, Luc is inconsolable, many combatants still suffer nullium poisoning, and Lila's pregnancy remains healthy.

The Resistance is in free fall: its infrastructure is damaged, prisoners are presumed dead, aid from Novis is dwindling, and the Council is reduced to Luc, Matias, and Crowther. Helena tells Crowther about trapping death-energy in obsidian and using it to sever a necrothrall. When Crowther tries to take the discovery without accountability, Helena bargains her cooperation for oversight of every order he gives Kaine; Crowther agrees, warning her that disobedience will have consequences.

Once Helena's resonance stabilizes, she works in palliative care, secretly collecting death-energy in obsidian while Crowther passes the weapon to others. The obsidian proves devastating against necrothralls and liches, and the public assumes it is holy pyromantic fire, strengthening Crowther's position. After a lich is killed and his necrothralls collapse, Kaine summons Helena to say the Undying have been withdrawn from the front lines; Helena realizes her breakthrough may be able to kill Kaine as well as Morrough's forces.