Kai lies awake beside Paedyn after their night together, watching her sleep and trying to suppress how deeply he still wants her. He admits to himself that nothing essential has changed: Paedyn is still the woman he was falling for before he learned she was Ordinary and before she killed the king. That realization frightens Kai because he knows he killed Paedyn’s father and is still taking her toward a fate she does not want.

When Paedyn wakes, their teasing quickly turns into a mock escape attempt. Paedyn grabs a jagged rock and presses it to Kai’s throat, but while leaning over him she notices him flinch. She discovers blood soaking through Kai’s shirt and learns that a stable hand grazed him with a hidden blade earlier. Paedyn scolds Kai for hiding the injury, then insists on cleaning it with water and strips torn from her yellow skirt.

As Paedyn wipes away the blood, Kai notices that she becomes pale, shaky, and distressed by the sight of the wound. Recognizing that something deeper is wrong, Kai stops pressing her and takes over cleaning the injury himself when she cannot continue. The moment shows both Paedyn’s instinct to care for Kai and Kai’s growing sensitivity to her unspoken fear.

To shift the focus, Kai asks why Paedyn never left Ilya after learning she was Ordinary. Paedyn explains that stubbornness, love for her home, loyalty to her father, and defiance of the king all kept her there. Remaining in Ilya let Paedyn claim control over at least one part of her life, and Kai understands that impulse because he also found small ways to resist the fate imposed on him.

Kai then reveals a major secret: he refused to kill Ordinary children, banished them with their families instead, and lied to his father about it. He explains that Abigail, one of the children he spared, later survived the crossing and led him to Paedyn in Dor. Their conversation turns warm and playful again as Paedyn finishes bandaging Kai’s wound, preserving the intimacy and trust growing between them.

After they prepare to leave camp, their familiar bickering resumes during Paedyn’s awkward insistence on privacy while they are chained together. The chapter ends with a practical shift in their journey when Paedyn approaches the horse and asks Kai to teach her how to ride, signaling both her determination to adapt and the uneasy partnership continuing between them.