The unnamed slave—who has been secretly plotting his master's downfall—reveals the full scope of his betrayal during the final months of the Kejari. From within the castle, invisible and trusted, he passes critical intelligence to the promising Hiaj contestant: guard schedules, castle layouts, fortification weaknesses, and details of the king's growing defensive paranoia. He never reveals his identity, not even to the queen he loves, maintaining absolute secrecy as his hatred hardens into quiet obsession.

On the final night of the Kejari, the slave at last tells the queen everything. He expects joy but is met with horror. She begs him to undo what he has done, but he tells her it is too late—the plan is already in motion. He urges her to flee Sivrinaj with him once the chaos begins, but she refuses, insisting she cannot leave the king. Despite his desperate pleading, she will not change her mind. In their final moment together, she kisses him and tells him to go without her, leaving him agonized but resolute.

Sitting behind his master in the colosseum, the slave watches the final trial unfold—not the battle itself, but the queen's face. When the Hiaj contestant wins, the crowd erupts and divine light fills the sky as Nyaxia descends. While all eyes turn heavenward, the queen looks back at the slave and mouths a single word: "Go." He obeys.

Fleeing Sivrinaj on foot, the slave hears the roar of the House of Night as the victor claims his prize. At the city's outskirts, wings spread for flight, he is compelled to look back. He sees the glowing colosseum and then looks to the sky, where Nyaxia's gaze finds him. The goddess smiles at him—cruelly, beautifully—and in that instant, a devastating burst of power courses through his veins. This is the moment the slave becomes a king, secretly Marked as an Heir by Nyaxia herself.

He flies to a remote village and discovers the red Mark of an Heir on his back. Desperate to deny his fate, he pays a tongueless beggar to burn the Mark off his back so brutally he nearly dies, burying the evidence under layers of scar tissue. He insists to himself he is no king—just a free man for the first time in nearly a century. But the truth cannot be erased so easily. It will take the Turned king two hundred years to finally accept what Nyaxia made him that night.