Kingfisher wakes in Cahlish to find Saeris already gone and another unworn dress lying over a chair. The dress came from a wardrobe Kingfisher’s mother mysteriously left for Saeris, but Saeris has again chosen fighting leathers instead. Kingfisher reflects that Saeris has not slept since becoming a vampire-hybrid, though she has tried to hide it, and decides not to force help on her unless she asks.

Kingfisher goes in search of food and finds Renfis in the dining room. After taking pastries and other breakfast items, Kingfisher opens a shadow gate back toward the camp. On the walk, Renfis teases Kingfisher about his sweet tooth, mentions seeing Saeris looking disheveled after checking on Everlayne, and presses Kingfisher about his relationship with Saeris.

Kingfisher jokes at first, then admits that his relationship with Saeris is going extremely well and that he is in love with her. When Kingfisher redirects the conversation to Renfis’s anger over Taladaius, the mood shifts. Renfis admits he has a blind spot because of Taladaius’s past actions under Malcolm, while Kingfisher argues that Taladaius’s coerced choices are not simple and asks what Renfis would have done if he had found Kingfisher dying as Taladaius once found Foley.

Renfis insists that, as Proelia, he would have let Kingfisher die rather than join the horde. Kingfisher challenges his certainty, but the argument ends when they reach the hilltop and see that Irrín has been destroyed. The living, shifting camp is gone, replaced by a vast scorched crater, smoldering debris, abandoned weapons, ash, and bones, with most of the thousands of warriors unaccounted for.

Kingfisher and Renfis notice that the oak where the feeders were tied remains standing. The feeders’ bodies have fused into the bark, black vines cover their gray skin and strangle the tree, and enormous roots have burst from the ground. The roots appear wounded and leak black blood that spreads rot and decay into the earth, revealing that the threat from the altered feeders has become far more dangerous than expected.