Jurian’s warning proves accurate when the Night Court and its allies find Hybern exactly where he said. Rhysand exhausts himself cloaking the army until the last moment, allowing the Illyrians and Keir’s Darkbringers to strike by surprise from favorable ground. Feyre watches from a hill with Mor and sees how disciplined unit warfare differs from the chaotic battles she has fought before; without faebane in use, the allied lines hold firm and begin breaking Hybern’s forces.

Cassian leads the assault with devastating precision, cutting through enemy soldiers and killing a mounted Hybern commander with a thrown spear. Hybern’s army retreats toward a river only to find Tarquin’s soldiers waiting on the other side, trapping them between two forces. The result is a massacre, and when surviving Hybern soldiers surrender, Tarquin spares only a few for questioning and drowns the rest on dry land, showing the ruthless cost of war.

Afterward, the allied camp is moved to the battlefield’s edge. Elain remains detached, but Nesta reacts strongly to the stories of Cassian’s prowess and later notices he has injured his wrist. She gently washes and bandages it, and the charged moment between them is broken when Mor arrives. That night Feyre tends the wounded, then speaks privately with Rhysand, admitting that line-against-line warfare terrifies her in a way Adriata and Velaris did not; Rhysand reassures Feyre that her value is not diminished because she cannot yet fight in that kind of battle.

For several days the armies recover while Azriel searches for Hybern’s main host. When he finally reports that a Hybern force has slipped between the Autumn and Summer Courts toward the Winter border, the leaders debate how to respond without abandoning their current position. Varian proposes leaving behind a glamoured false camp while the real army marches north under Rhysand’s shield. Feyre and Rhysand help craft the deception, with Cresseida assisting on the Summer Court side, and Tarquin spends his power winnowing his soldiers into place.

The allies catch the Hybern force near a forest at dusk, but this second engagement goes badly. Hybern had anticipated them, Keir’s Darkbringers begin to fail, Rhysand and Tarquin are too drained to overwhelm the enemy with magic, and faebane-tipped arrows finally appear, though Nuan’s antidote keeps the powder from crippling their power. As the rain turns the field to mud and Cassian becomes isolated trying to repair the broken line, Feyre realizes their deeper problem is ignorance: they still do not know where Hybern’s true main army is hidden. Unable to fight effectively in the ranks, Feyre decides she must seek out the Suriel to learn the answer.