Dior wakes to Aaron de Coste’s screams, a nightly signal that dusk has fallen during the prisoners’ three-week forced journey across the frozen Ossian wastes. Packed among other captives with Baptiste and Isla á Cuinn, Dior remembers how Kane proposed cutting away the silver aegis tattoos tormenting Aaron’s newly Dead body, and how Kiara brutally flayed the holy markings from his skin.

The torture proves temporary because Aaron heals each day to the state in which he died, so Kiara repeats the flaying every night. As Baptiste watches Aaron suffer, Dior tries to spare Baptiste more pain by asking how Baptiste and Aaron met. Baptiste recalls their first meeting at San Michon and explains that their love was immediate and absolute, making Aaron’s cursed immortality even more devastating.

In the framing conversation, Jean-François notes that vampires heal ordinary wounds at dusk, while Celene condemns the cruelty of Nikita’s line and rejects Jean-François’s attempt to distinguish the Blood Chastain from the Untamed. The narrative returns to Dior as the convoy reaches Maergenn, once a mighty Ossian capital and holy site, now shattered by conquest and marked with the Dyvok sigil.

As the convoy passes through ruined Newtunn, starving foulbloods emerge in their thousands. Kiara orders Kane to drive them off, and Kane throws living prisoners from Aveléne into the mob as food. Dior is horrified, while Baptiste thanks God not for rescue, but for not making him like the monsters around them.

Inside Auldtunn and Dún Maergenn, Dior sees surviving humans, Dyvok soldiers, the damaged Sepulcher of the Mothermaid, and a fortress reeking of death. The captives are unloaded and sorted by usefulness; Petrik, a scorched ledgerman, marks Dior for the feast when she claims no trade, while Baptiste is identified as a smith and sent to the forge. Before Dior can be put in the stocks, Kiara intervenes, claims Dior as her own, and leads Dior away because her lord awaits.