Celene recounts the aftermath of the battle at Newtunn. Survivors gather in the ruins: Highlanders, remnants of the Silver Sorority, freed prisoners, liberated thralls, and rescued children. Mila is found among the cages, while Reyne discovers Joaquin Marenn wandering with his hound and searching for Isla.

Dior is laid in state in the Sepulcher of the Mothermaid. Reyne dresses Dior in armor rather than stolen finery, leaving Dior’s maimed left hand visible as proof of the suffering endured for others. The mourners begin calling Dior San Dior, turning grief into reverence, while Phoebe delivers the eulogy despite her own losses and the blighted blood still afflicting her people.

Gabriel does not attend Dior’s funeral and leaves without known farewell, taking Argent with him. Celene admits she could not bear to watch Dior buried and instead mourned alone in the bloody waters below Maryn’s tomb, thinking of Dior not as a saint or symbol but as a girl Celene cared for and failed.

In the present, Gabriel reacts violently to Celene’s claim that she cared for Dior. Drunk and enraged, Gabriel hurls a bottle at Celene, leaps across the river dividing them, and attacks his sister. The siblings fight brutally until Celene bites Gabriel’s throat, forcing Jean-François to order Delphine and the thrallswords to intervene with flame-bearing weapons.

Gabriel is dragged away while threatening to reveal everything he knows about Celene and her kind. Celene, terrified of the fire but defiant, calls Gabriel a faithless coward and insists she will never be done because stone endures. After Gabriel is removed, Jean-François asks why Celene does not simply end herself if Dior and the Grail are gone; Celene refuses despair, hints there is more to tell, and, once left in darkness, whispers that Margot should be told Celene will see her soon.