Yrene soaks in Silba’s Womb, the sacred hot-spring cavern beneath the Torre, seeking quiet after examining Chaol. Surrounded by bells left by generations of healers, Yrene reflects on the Valg darkness she found bound to Chaol’s spine and realizes the wound is not merely physical or magical in any ordinary sense.

Yrene plans to search the Torre library for information about magically inflicted injuries, but she fears what true healing will demand. In the darkness above the waters, Yrene feels an almost divine prompting telling her that she must enter where she fears to tread. Yrene resists, thinking of the risk, the time required, and her resentment at being delayed for a son of Adarlan while her own homeland suffers.

Another healer enters the Womb and begins to weep over a three-year-old patient who died. Yrene silently comforts the woman, who admits she sometimes wishes she had never received the gift of healing. Yrene realizes she has never hated her own gift, even after her mother’s death, because it has always connected her to her identity and to the healers who came before her; this moment confirms that Yrene knows what she must do, even though she dreads it.

At dinner in the khagan’s hall, Hasar needles Chaol about whether Yrene has healed him yet. Chaol explains that treatment is only beginning and that Yrene is researching at the Torre. While observing guards and courtiers for any sign of Valg influence, Chaol considers the difficulty of identifying spies without proof.

Chaol attempts to request a private meeting with the khagan, hoping to warn him and advance the alliance, but the grieving ruler refuses and directs him to the Chief Vizier. Recognizing that the khagan is inaccessible for now, Chaol looks for another route. A conversation about Sartaq’s ruk, Kadara, leads Chaol to learn that Sartaq flies daily near dawn, and Chaol silently signals Nesryn to meet Sartaq in the aerie and determine where the prince stands in the war.