Chapter One opens during a wartime wedding in the mountain city of Frostplum, where Sardovian helmsmen Khaede and Sol are married by an elderly cleric in a thatched longhouse. Talasyn, Khaede's closest friend and a fellow helmsman, watches from the edge of the crowd, deflecting jokes about being next to marry. The coxswain Darius approaches her and tells her that the Amirante—Ideth Vela, supreme commander of Sardovia's armed forces—and General Bieshimma want to speak with her about a crucial matter. Bieshimma has just returned from a failed diplomatic mission to the Nenavar Dominion, a reclusive archipelago across the Eversea, where the Nenavarene queen (the Zahiya-lachis) refused to see him or ally with Sardovia against the Night Empire.

As Talasyn heads toward the side room, she eavesdrops on a lance corporal recounting the failed Nenavar mission and a discussion about whether the Dominion's legendary dragons are real. The mention of Nenavar and dragons triggers a rush of vivid but fleeting images in Talasyn's mind—coiling scales, a crown sharp as diamond—hinting at some buried connection she has always felt to the Dominion, a secret she has never shared. Talasyn also reflects on her past as an orphan raised in abusive conditions at an orphanage in Hornbill's Head, now destroyed, and feels a deep longing for belonging as she watches the happy newlyweds.

Before Talasyn can knock on the side room door, warning gongs sound: the Night Empire is attacking Frostplum. The city plunges into darkness as lights are extinguished for defense. Talasyn races to the grid where small Sardovian airships called wasps are docked. She encounters the pregnant Khaede, who insists on flying despite being two months along. Talasyn boards her wasp—a nimble coracle powered by crystalline aether hearts—and joins an arrowhead formation led by Sol, who orders standard defensive tactics against an enemy force outnumbering them ten to one.

The battle is fierce. Talasyn uses her wasp's agility to dodge enemy bolts and return fire against Kesathese wolf coracles. A Kesathese ironclad appears over the peaks, met by two Sardovian frigates. As the fighting intensifies and Talasyn watches comrades' ships destroyed around her, she feels a mysterious burning power rising within her—something she must keep secret, per a promise to the Amirante. Distracted by suppressing this inner fire, Talasyn is outflanked by enemy wolves. Their iron projectiles shatter her ship and she spirals toward the ground in freefall.