After the burns on Isla’s arm, Ella keeps Isla supplied with ice while Isla uses Wildling elixirs to speed the healing. Restless from pain and thoughts of Grim, Isla snoops near the arena wing and notices islanders preparing something, most of them dressed in Moonling white, signaling that Cleo’s demonstration is coming.

Twenty-four hours later, Ella wakes Isla in the middle of the night with no warning. Cleo has transformed the arena into a freezing maze of waterways for a trial of desire: each ruler’s heart will guide them toward what they want most, and the first to reach the end wins. Isla, underdressed and still injured, stands beside Oro and identifies a giselroot rash on his hand, advising him how to treat it before questioning why he was deep in the woods.

When the bell rings, Isla plunges into the icy water. The cold is brutal, but Isla draws on a memory of Terra abandoning her blindfolded in a hurricane as survival training; because Isla has already faced near death, Isla forces herself forward. At a fork in the maze, Isla feels pulled in two directions: one toward home, Poppy, Terra, and her people, and another toward a larger, more intoxicating desire she cannot name.

Isla hesitates long enough to fall behind, then chooses a path. The cold overwhelms her, her body fails, and Isla begins sinking. As Isla nearly drowns, she realizes that she wants more than duty and freedom: a long life, powers, friendship with Celeste, perhaps love, and a future in which her people can want more too.

Isla revives her will, fights through the water, reaches the glowing ice tablet at the maze’s end, and collapses out of the pool. Ella covers Isla and helps her escape while Cleo is crowned winner, tying Oro in the trials. Back in Isla’s room, as Ella helps Isla into a hot bath, Isla renews her vow to find the bondbreaker and break the curses, even if doing so destroys her.