Helena regains consciousness after the convoy crash and finds the road replaced by fire and a crater. A piece of metal is lodged in her chest, splitting her sternum and making every breath agonizing. Believing she may die as her father did in a field hospital, Helena forces herself upright, removes her mask, takes a small amount of laudanum, and resists the urge to pull out the shrapnel because it may be keeping her alive.

Helena checks the remaining patients and finds most dead or unresponsive. She comforts a dying soldier who mistakes her for his mother, then realizes her own injuries likely exceed the Resistance’s ability to treat under triage conditions. As her vision narrows and fighting outside ceases, necrothralls enter the hospital to collect bodies and survivors.

Helena tries to find a scalpel to kill the survivors quickly rather than let them be taken to West Port, but only finds a shattered piece of obsidian in her pocket. Too slow to stop the necrothralls from reaching the wounded, Helena slashes one with the obsidian, collapses from the pain, and loses consciousness as more necrothralls close in.

Helena wakes immobilized in an unfamiliar room with Kaine beside her. Kaine explains that he sent thralls to investigate the bombing and found Helena near death; he brought in a medical team to save her. Furious that the Resistance left Helena in danger, Kaine threatens to destroy the Order of the Eternal Flame if Helena dies, prompting Helena to confront the fact that Kaine’s attachment to her has become a catastrophic strategic danger.

Kaine is summoned back to the city and leaves Helena at Spirefell, his family estate, in the care of Davies, a highly preserved necrothrall who had once been Enid Ferron’s lady’s maid. Helena realizes Davies has apparently been reanimated for nearly seven years without decay, far beyond what Helena thought possible. Davies gives Helena drugged water, and Helena drifts in and out of painful lucidity.

When Kaine returns, Helena presses him about the medical team; he says he did not kill them but deceived them into believing they saved a prisoner who later died under interrogation. Kaine reports that Althorne is dead, the Resistance has lost at least half its active forces, and the Undying have retaken the ports, though public backlash over nullium contamination and reanimation failures may prevent another bombing on that scale. Helena makes Kaine promise to tell Crowther she is alive so Crowther will not judge Kaine too dangerous to keep alive, and Kaine says Helena must remain at Spirefell for weeks while the nullium clears and her injuries heal without resonance.