Saeris Fane is flung from a shadow gate and drops roughly eighty feet into a freezing, pitch-black lake. Disoriented and injured, Saeris panics underwater until Lorreth finds Saeris in the dark, drags Saeris to the surface, and pulls Saeris to shore.

On the rocky beach, Saeris realizes Carrion is missing and fears he has drowned. Lorreth dives back in and hauls Carrion out unconscious and blue-lipped; after repeated blows to Carrion’s chest and Saeris’s frantic taunting, Carrion finally convulses and vomits up water, waking. Saeris learns only the three of them made it through—Renfis stayed behind, pushing Lorreth into the gate as it closed.

Lorreth gives Saeris and Carrion Widow’s Bane to numb their pain so they can move despite their damaged ribs, warning it is addictive and dangerous if swallowed. With no way around the cove and no ability to swim out, Saeris, Carrion, and Lorreth decide their only path is up the slick obsidian cliff face. As they climb, Saeris notices the “snow” is actually ash, and a deafening chant rises from above: “Annorath mor!”

They crest the cliff and find a colossal amphitheater packed with hundreds of thousands of roaring spectators. Lorreth translates the chant as “Release us,” and Saeris realizes the place is a slaughterhouse-like arena built around a deep pit and labyrinth. Across the killing floor, Saeris spots Kingfisher at the top of steps near a raised dais, confirming Saeris’s instinct that he is here.

Before they can act, Harron—Madra’s guard captain, grotesquely altered with quicksilver eyes—appears behind them, holding a dagger to Lorreth’s throat. Fresh-looking feeders swarm over the cliff edge under Harron’s control, hemming them in. Harron tears open a wrong-feeling vortex gate and orders them through to avoid “missing the beginning of the games,” hinting Saeris may get to say goodbye to Kingfisher; Saeris steps in, hears Kingfisher’s panicked mental warning to stop, and is torn apart by Harron’s corrupted passage.