After the Torre’s candlelit vigil, Yrene is so exhausted from healing Chaol that two acolytes help her to her room. She eats almost nothing, sleeps deeply, wakes after midnight long enough to barricade her door, then oversleeps until sunrise—the exact time she promised to meet Chaol.

Yrene races to the palace courtyard and finds Chaol already attempting to mount a horse. Chaol refuses the ramp Yrene ordered because he wants to learn to mount as he would need to in battle. With help from guards, especially Shen, Chaol gets into the saddle and secures the specially made brace, though the process visibly embarrasses him. Chaol then insists Yrene ride too, and Shen helps her onto a white mare.

As Chaol and Yrene ride through Antica toward the Torre, Chaol realizes the horse and brace give him a freedom better than the chair. Chaol watches protectively when men stare at Yrene’s exposed legs, while Yrene struggles with riding. Their conversation turns to Nesryn’s failed search for the attacker, the danger of Valg in the city, Yrene’s name and fake wedding band, the khaganate’s strict justice, Chaol’s hope for an alliance, and Yrene’s belief that Chaol must confront the trauma feeding the darkness inside him.

At the Torre, Hafiza and a large group of healers and acolytes are waiting for Chaol’s lesson. Yrene introduces Chaol and the brace as a teaching example for patients with limited mobility. The demonstration becomes humiliating when young healers awkwardly unstrap and lower Chaol from the horse, nearly dropping him and treating him more like a lesson than a person.

Hafiza intervenes gently, straightening Chaol’s feet and explaining that Yrene meant to teach the younger healers from a rare opportunity, not to shame him. Hafiza also hints that Yrene carries scars beyond the visible one on her neck. Though Chaol is angry and exposed, he remembers his promise and rolls himself forward to teach.

When Yrene asks Chaol to advise the women on self-defense, Chaol is overwhelmed by memories of the guards he trained who died in Rifthold, his lost role as captain, his abandoned sword, and leaving Dorian behind. Chaol forces himself to speak anyway, beginning with warnings never to let an attacker move them and then offering to teach methods for taking down a much larger man.