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Nomad, still hearing Contemplation’s jab, rides with Rebeke on her quadcycle as Beacon’s ships rise from darkness into the rings’ dim light. He dons new clothes and notes Beacon’s surprising mobility as their disassembled city forms a small fleet.

Surveying the corridor, Nomad studies jagged rock fields and deduces they are flash-frozen eruptions from sun-induced heating, not erosion. Rebeke confirms the terrain changes completely with each rotation; nothing remains the same. Nomad and the internal knight voice debate the odd geology and the planet’s mechanics, highlighting his suspicion that something doesn’t add up.

Rebeke points out prospector ships sweeping for Investiture to locate the Refuge door, which periodically reappears. She explains the Cinder King’s obsession, heightened after obtaining a key from a dead stranger. Beacon once lived under his rule within Union’s influence, breaking away only recently; Elegy, now hollow-eyed, is confined aboard a ship.

Rebeke outlines their strategic situation: Union will soon pass this region after harvest, so the Cinder King seldom patrols here now. Other corridors are either deadband to the north or blocked by a rising southern mountain range their ships cannot surmount, forcing Beacon to hide in darkness and evade patrols.

When Nomad asks about taxation, Rebeke reveals the Cinder King’s lottery selects people for the sun. Their bodies vaporize and their souls condense into sunhearts—the power cores that run their machines. The revelation turns personal: the quadcycle’s sunheart was Rebeke’s mother, harvested two weeks prior.