Raeve’s violent alter self, The Other, prowls the Undercity hunting the man who stabbed Essi. Carrying the bloody blade and following its scent, The Other ignores the cavern’s predators and focuses only on vengeance. When The Other spots soldiers lying in ambush and hears them discussing the trap set for a black-haired Ath woman, The Other realizes Rekk’s men expected Raeve to come alone.

Instead of avoiding the trap, The Other attacks first. After removing Raeve’s iron ring to access stronger power, The Other drops onto the bridge and uses lethal songs to crush lungs, strip oxygen from the air, and silence enemy magic. Daggers and darkness do the rest, and many soldiers die where they stand or fall from the bridge. When reserve troops rush in and begin breaking the bridge, The Other counters with more suffocating magic and kills the retreating survivors.

Chasing the last men, The Other enters a smaller torchlit cavern and realizes too late that it is a second, more controlled trap. Barred doors seal the exit and a larger force of soldiers surrounds the room. The Other extinguishes flames, slaughters more opponents at close range, and even calls on earth-splitting power to open the ground beneath them, turning the cavern into a massacre and terrifying the men who thought they had cornered a single rebel.

The fight changes when an iron projectile strikes The Other from behind, abruptly cutting off the overwhelming songs and exposing a real weakness. At the barred entrance stands Rekk Zharos, whose scent matches the murder weapon. When The Other accuses Rekk of killing Essi, Rekk confirms it with deliberate cruelty, mocking Essi’s death to provoke more rage. Rekk then traps The Other inside a ring of fire, enters the chamber, and studies the blood-covered figure he captured.

Though bound by Rekk’s whip, The Other still lashes out and bites off Rekk’s fingertip when he touches Raeve’s face. The act wounds and humiliates Rekk, but it does not free The Other. Laughing instead of retreating, Rekk punches the restrained prisoner in the face, and The Other is finally knocked unconscious. The chapter ends with Raeve’s avenging power defeated and in enemy hands.