While the narrator sleeps in Mah and Pah's pallet, guards from the Burn, the Fade, and the neutral city of Bothaim arrive to seize her. Expecting resistance, they shoot her with an iron pin before she fully wakes, then allow her only one bag before veiling and shackling her in iron. As she is led out, she sees Mah and Pah's aides bound on their knees and Moltenmaws covering Arithia's walls and skies, terrifying the city.

The narrator learns the force has not come to conquer Arithia directly but to "ward" it until she can be bound to the male chosen by the Tri-Council: Tyroth Vaegor, one of King Ostern's sons and the same cruel-eyed man Pah once swore he would never trade her to. The narrator openly defies the arrangement and says she would rather rot, which earns her a blow to the head from a Burn guard. The strike knocks her into darkness.

When the narrator wakes, she is on the back of an enormous Moltenmaw en route to the Imperial Fortress near the Fade's capital, where she and her captors will spend the night. Slátra follows the convoy the entire way, screaming and attacking the escorting Moltenmaws. From her chamber, the narrator watches Slátra tear several from the sky and learns that, once the aurora rises, she will be flown across the Boltanic Plains to Dhomm, where she must wait three phases until she reaches coronation age and can be formally bound to Tyroth, who has already been charged with running her kingdom.

Earlier in the night, the Fade's young queen visits the narrator's room, removes the iron pin from her thigh, and quietly apologizes for the actions of her male, King Cadok Vaegor, who committed mercenary Moltenmaws to secure her. The narrator senses the queen's regret over her own binding and briefly accepts comfort when the queen embraces her after seeing her veiled face. After the queen leaves, the narrator sits at a window sealed against escape and prays to Clode to make Slátra stop fighting at dawn and return home, because Moonplumes cannot survive the sun. Faced with losing both her freedom and possibly Slátra, the narrator decides she would rather die than watch her companion turn to stone.