After a grueling twenty-two-hour flight, Violet and her five squadmates—Rhiannon, Ridoc, Cat, Maren, and Trager—arrive at the Samara outpost and report to Lieutenant Colonel Degrensi. The fortress is badly damaged: a massive wyvern crashed through the western wall when the wards came back up, and wounded soldiers line the remaining structure. Degrensi reads Aetos's orders but dismisses them, noting the fighting ended the previous day and he has no intention of sending cadets into battle. He explains that venin breached the perimeter after the wards fell, nearly costing Samara its power supply, and that the front line sits just over the hill. He warns the squad that the potential alliance with Poromiel is unpopular among the garrison, asks Violet to keep Tairn out of sight to avoid drawing a massed enemy attack, and tells the cadets to rest and then make themselves useful.

Violet leads the squad to Xaden's old warded bedchamber, which only she and Xaden can open, pulling each squadmate through the ward one by one. During their rest, Violet suffers a vivid nightmare in which she desperately searches a burning room for a miniature painting of her family while Cat urges her to flee. In the dream, Violet tells Cat she is the future queen of Tyrrendor and must survive. The painting catches fire and transforms into Violet's parents burning alive. Violet wakes in a sweat and confides the dream to Rhiannon, who shares that her own recurring nightmare involves failing to save Sawyer.

When the squad ventures into the hallway, they overhear a major and captain discussing a new venin attack: scouts have reported smoke near Newhall, a small village on the Stonewater River where Maren's family fled. The officers explain they are too stretched and exhausted to mount a rescue for such a small settlement—a painful but necessary strategic triage. Maren is devastated, and the squad rallies around her. Violet offers to fly ahead with Tairn, and Ridoc proposes narrowing the mission to a civilian extraction rather than a full battle. Rhiannon, weighing the unknowns but moved by the unanimous vote of every squad member, authorizes the mission, citing Degrensi's instruction to make themselves useful. The squad prepares to fly to Newhall.