Bandits ambush Paedyn and Kai on the road, and Kai is badly wounded when an arrow slices across his shoulder. As arrows keep flying, Paedyn pulls him behind nearby rocks, ignores a graze to her own calf, and quickly realizes Kai cannot fight effectively. Furious at seeing him hurt, she takes the bow and vows to make the attackers pay.

Paedyn steps out alone and kills the bandits with cold precision, using the few arrows she has left as carefully as possible. Once the fighting stops, the shock hits her: she stares at her hands, counts the lives she has taken, and feels crushed by guilt and by the fear that she has betrayed everything her father taught her. Kai finds her in that state and tries to steady her, telling her that caring about her soul proves she is not beyond saving.

They continue down the road toward the caves near the Sanctuary, passing the bodies Paedyn has left behind. One surviving bandit appears behind them and fires at Kai, but Paedyn steps in front of him and knocks the arrow away with her bow before she can shoot back. Kai then throws a knife with his uninjured arm and kills the man himself, sparing Paedyn from taking another life. Their tense gratitude turns into familiar banter as they push onward despite Kai’s worsening pain.

Inside a cave, Paedyn strips off Kai’s shirt, washes his shoulder wound with their limited water, and binds it as best she can. Because the sight and smell of blood are overwhelming her, she asks Kai to keep talking, and he admits a painful truth: part of him used to envy Paedyn for killing his father, because he had long imagined doing it himself after years of abuse and after seeing his father despise Ava. He says blood and duty kept him from acting, and he confesses that, despite everything, Paedyn is much harder to hate than his father ever was.

While finishing the bandage, Paedyn sees Kai’s blood smeared through her braid and spirals into panic, flooded by memories of her father, Adena, and every death attached to blood on her hands. Convinced the blood will never truly leave her, she asks Kai to cut off her braid, saying it carries memories that have become too heavy. Kai carefully cuts it away, then gently washes the blood from her hands and lets her use her own thumb to wipe away her tears after kissing it between each touch. Holding her against his chest, he comforts her until Paedyn admits that, for the first time in a long while, feeling better seems possible.