Helena wakes in the quiet hospital three days after saving Lila. Pace tells Helena that Lila is recovering and that Pace has hidden Helena’s condition by claiming quarantine. Pace also warns Helena that the Resistance cannot afford to squander rare talents, implying Helena’s value is being ignored.

Helena visits Lila, who lies bandaged but stable, with Luc at Lila’s side and Soren guarding nearby. Helena reflects on Lila’s history as an extraordinary paladin and on the impossible burden her vows placed between Lila and Luc. Luc, shaken by Lila’s near death, confesses that the chimaera was after him, that Lila threw herself in front of him, and that he can no longer believe in heroic stories of war.

After Lila wakes and is declared out of danger, Luc faces a tense censure before Ilva, Matias, Althorne, and Crowther. Ilva condemns Luc for endangering his unit and undermining Lila’s sacrifice by trying to save her. When Ilva threatens to reassign Luc to a new unit and separate him from his friends, Luc yields and promises to uphold his vows, after which Ilva confirms the chimaera hunted with unexpected purpose and likely intended to take Luc alive.

Helena later meets Crowther, anxious because she restored the nerves in his arm without asking. Crowther, using his revived hand to put away chess pieces, acknowledges that Helena is responsible. Instead of punishing Helena, Crowther says Helena’s intuition may have been underestimated and that her vivimancy does credit to the Eternal Flame.

As winter settles over Paladia, Helena works with Shiseo in the lab on the alloy recovered from Vanya Gettlich. Shiseo identifies the unknown component as mo’lian’shi, a secret Eastern imperial metal that creates inertia, fused with lumithium to produce a resonance haze. The discovery suggests that Morrough’s forces may have obtained protected material from the Eastern Emperor himself, so Helena and Shiseo decide to report the danger to Ilva and Crowther while officially describing the metal only as a synthetic fusion with an unknown compound.

Later, Helena asks Kaine whether the Eternal Flame can win. Kaine argues that the High Necromancer will use any method, including genocide, while the Eternal Flame appears to rely on virtue rather than strategy. Helena presses Kaine on why Kaine helps them if he does not believe they can win, but Kaine refuses to answer; when Helena tells Kaine not to die, Kaine bitterly agrees only because Helena asked.