Chapter 35

Unable to sleep before her planned escape, Rin accepts Nezha’s sudden invitation to drink with Kitay and Venka to avoid suspicion. On the palace tower, they get drunk, banter, and momentarily forget the war while surveying the wreckage below. Kitay muses on disease weakening enemies and the permanence of war; they all consider alternate lives and a democratic Nikan.

The conversation exposes fault lines: Nezha’s optimism for a Republic clashes with Venka’s cynicism and Rin’s doubts about unity. Rin admits war defines her worth, while Kitay argues militaries always find enemies. They part ways temporarily as Kitay escorts a sick Venka downstairs, urging Rin to rest.

Alone together, Nezha coaxes Rin to the harbor. He rows her out to see bioluminescent waters, a moment of fragile beauty that evokes intimacy. Their talk turns raw: Rin confesses she once feared Nezha’s privilege would end her career; she presses him about the dragon grotto, and he shuts her down. Nezha warns that Hesperians want a moratorium on shamanism—registration, suppression, and destruction of knowledge—while Rin refuses to relinquish the fire.

As Rin plays firelight over the glowing water, Nezha moves close under the pretense of checking her wound. Then, without warning, he drives a knife into her back and, holding her, pushes it deeper. The chapter ends on Nezha’s intimate betrayal, collapsing Rin’s plans to flee and reasserting peril from within her closest circle.