Violet Sorrengail wakes in the night to find Xaden slipping out of their room, and she follows him through the tunnels beneath the Riders Quadrant. She is terrified because Xaden has faint strawberry-red rings around his irises—a telltale sign that he channeled power from the earth, an act associated with venin. If anyone sees these marks, he will be arrested and likely executed. Andarna, Violet's dragon, tells her that neither Tairn nor Sgaeyl will respond to communication, as both are consumed by rage and sorrow.

As Violet crosses the bridge between quadrants, she sees heavy snowfall blanketing the campus, a sharp change from the earlier thunderstorms. She suppresses her grief over her mother's death—General Sorrengail died securing the kingdom's defense during the recent battle at Basgiath. In the Healer Quadrant's expanded sickbay, an infantry cadet toasts her mother's memory, but Violet pushes forward without stopping.

Violet tracks Xaden's shadows to the stairwell leading to the interrogation chambers. She bluffs her way past two guards by invoking her mother's sacrifice and her own reputation as the lightning wielder. Descending the stairs, Andarna reveals she scorched a venin dark wielder during the battle when her scales changed color, suggesting her power may have weakened the venin. Andarna proposes that others of her kind—whose existence is now known to leadership—might know how to master this ability and potentially cure Xaden.

Near the bottom of the stairs, Violet overhears Jack Barlowe taunting Xaden from his cell. Jack knows Xaden has channeled from the earth and threatens that Xaden will inevitably lose control, turn fully venin (asim), and that mysterious "higher-ups" want Violet for the power in her veins. Xaden adamantly denies he will ever slip, but Jack offers to help deliver Violet to these forces in exchange for his freedom. Violet realizes Jack will reveal Xaden's secret to interrogators.

Violet resolves to find a cure for Xaden at any cost, even if it means breaking laws. Andarna pledges to help, arguing they should seek out her own kind on their own terms before leadership forces the issue, since her scale-changing power may hold the key to reversing what channeling from the earth has done to Xaden. Violet accepts the danger and decides to keep Xaden's secret, recognizing she needs allies. She instructs Andarna to summon Imogen—one of the few people she trusts completely with Xaden's life—and vows she will save him.