Chapter 49

In the kitchen, Pyrok feeds the exhausted narrator and deflects questions about his mood. Roan returns, clearly guilty, after bargaining with the waif Borg and presents the Book of Voyd. When the narrator looks, the page’s silver threads writhe, inducing nausea and proving why Roan appears gaunt.

Roan explains the Tri-Council released only condensed excerpts; the book’s etchings seem infinite, and he now believes the God of Aether authored it. Despite the discovery, Roan has not found the Citadel’s protective pattern. However, a waif from the Citadel dungeon revealed a young protégé, traded by Tyroth, safely studies the book and likely runed the arches. The boy refused further transcription and went to Bhoggith to try for a Moltenmaw egg, with larks blocked to him.

Roan proposes a tracking plan requiring odd components, and the narrator agrees to leave once Raeve wakes. Studying a map, the narrator targets the Forest of Harthor near Bhoggith as their route. He also marks a perilous moonshard lying within a nest near the center—guarded by broody Moltenmaws—its dam holding a sterile egg and her mate set to rest above, threatening the shard’s destruction during the fall.

Raeve descends in a pearly cloak, eerily detached, and ravenously eats raw meat. In a feral voice she calls the narrator “mate of my Precious One,” learns the shard belongs to Slátra, and commands that they leave immediately. She then staggers, nearly collapses, and claims she was sleepwalking. Though evasive, she steadies as the narrator vows to attempt retrieval before the fall, setting their course toward Bhoggith for both the boy and Slátra’s shard.