Aaron bursts into Nikita’s court and attacks Kiara despite being starved, wounded, and surrounded. Aaron breaks Kiara’s wrist, drives Gabriel’s silversteel dagger into Kiara’s chest, and nearly reaches Dior’s side, but Kiara overpowers Aaron and smashes him into the floor. When Kiara is about to crush Aaron’s face, Nikita orders Kiara to stop, intrigued by Aaron’s ferocity and bloodline.

Nikita offers Aaron a place among the Dyvok, telling Aaron that God has abandoned him and that Aaron should kneel to a worthier sovereign. Aaron crawls to Nikita but spits blood on Nikita’s signet instead, declaring loyalty to God and refusing to kneel. Nikita takes Aaron’s defiance as proof of Aaron’s worth, bites his own wrist, commands Aaron to drink with the Whip, and gives Aaron Dyvok blood before snapping Aaron’s neck and having Aaron dragged away as a future prize.

Kiara then reveals Dior as her greater offering. Lilidh and Nikita become interested when Kiara explains that the Voss Princes of Blood wanted Dior captured rather than killed, and that Dior traveled with Gabriel de León. Under Lilidh’s command to speak truth, Dior says she does not know why Fabién Voss wants her; Dior hides what Dior knows about herself while Kiara and Kane describe Dior’s power to heal and her blood’s ability to burn vampires.

Lilidh tests Dior by ordering a thrall servant called Worm to stab herself three times in the chest. Dior tries to stop the act but cannot prevent it, and Lilidh then demands a demonstration. In a brief frame shift beneath Sul Adair, Celene rejects Jean-François’s sentimental view of Dior and insists Dior is not a saintly martyr but a hardened opportunist; returning to the court, Dior cuts her hand and heals Worm’s mortal wounds in front of the Dyvok assembly.

Dior’s miracle confirms Lilidh’s hunger for the Grail, and Lilidh cuts her own throat to force Dior into a blood bond. Nikita tries to halt Lilidh, but Lilidh argues that Nikita has already claimed Aaron, captives, and Gabriel’s dagger, while this prize belongs to Lilidh. Nikita yields, and Lilidh grips Dior, presses Dior’s mouth to the wound, and commands Dior to drink; Dior, choosing to keep surviving rather than make a futile stand, drinks Lilidh’s blood.