Dianna drifts in and out of consciousness after Sophie’s poisoning, hearing fragments of Sophie’s threats and feeling someone hold and tend to her. A sweet liquid eases Dianna’s pain and nausea, and when Dianna wakes again, Dianna believes she has died and reached a place of judgment.

Instead, Dianna finds herself in an otherworldly hall with golden doors, battle carvings, crimson curtains, and a sky full of unfamiliar stars and planets. Dianna worries about Gabby and Liam’s bargain, then accidentally passes through a wall into a grand bedroom, where Dianna realizes she is not dead but trapped in a blooddream caused by drinking Liam’s blood.

Dianna concludes Liam must have fed Dianna to save Dianna’s life, because consuming blood can pull Dianna into fragments of another person’s memories. The memory shows a younger, confident Liam, called Samkiel, with Imogen in his room before Logan, whose real name is Nephry, interrupts to warn that Liam’s father is approaching.

Unir, Liam’s father and a powerful god, arrives with guards and orders everyone else away. Unir rebukes Liam for missing another coronation and for treating duty carelessly, while Liam dismisses the ceremony as unimportant and argues that the celestials who serve with him are friends and sentient beings, not tools made only to obey and fight.

The argument reveals major truths about Liam’s past: the other gods fear Liam because he carries the weapon of Oblivion, has ended worlds, and has gathered warriors around him. Unir insists Liam must someday rule for the stability of the realms, warns that visions show worlds burning and realms torn apart, and explains that Liam’s mother, Merda, is dead and cannot be resurrected because resurrection has an unbearable cost.

As Unir leaves, Dianna watches Liam’s grief and briefly relates to Liam’s loss of a mother. Dianna recognizes both the arrogant, powerful World Ender and a more vulnerable person beneath the harsh version of Liam she knows, before the blooddream begins to dissolve.