After the trial, guards escort Raeve back through Gore’s prison tunnels. As she passes the other cells, she notices the prisoners’ hollow, fearful faces and recognizes a yellow-eyed boy she once found injured in the Ditch and tried to help with an Elding orb. The sight stirs her sympathy and reminds her of suffering she cannot now stop.

When the guards shove Raeve into her cell, one of them reattaches her mobility-restricting pole and kicks her hard. Because her movement is limited, Raeve cannot catch herself and instead slams into the wall, scraping her torn back and shoulder in fresh agony. The guard replaces the broken lock and leaves, and Raeve steadies herself by focusing on a calming rhythm while nursing her rage.

Wrook speaks to Raeve from the neighboring cell and gently reaches through the bars to touch her arm. Raeve is grateful that Wrook is expected to be released, because she believes the world needs someone as decent as him. Their brief contact gives her a small moment of comfort after the brutality of the guards.

When the prison food arrives, Raeve pushes her bowl toward another prisoner because dread has replaced her earlier hunger. She tells the others that she is to be offered to the dragons at the next aurora rise, and the prisoners fall quiet at the news. An unnamed male prisoner expresses sorrow, and Raeve, thinking of Essi, the beauty of the world, and the small moon she may never see again, gives him the food anyway, choosing compassion even as she confronts her own death.