Paedyn fights the king in the rain with only a dagger against his sword and Brawny strength. Although the king’s head wound makes him unsteady, he still wounds Paedyn repeatedly. As they trade blows, Paedyn provokes him about her father’s murder and the persecution of Ordinaries. The king openly defends his rule, insisting that Elites are meant to survive and that destroying the Resistance is necessary to preserve his society.

Paedyn manages to injure him by slashing his chest and then breaking his elbow when her dagger is knocked away. The king retaliates by throwing her to the ground, pinning her beneath his boot, and overpowering her. While Paedyn lies helpless, he taunts her about power, calls Ordinaries worthless, and claims she helped bring about the Resistance’s downfall. He then tortures her slowly, cutting her face, neck, and chest and carving a mark above her heart before preparing to kill her as he says her father was killed.

Refusing to die, Paedyn uses the king’s instability against him. She twists his foot, topples him, and crawls for his fallen sword. Even after he drags her back, she breaks free by kicking and crushing his nose, then reaches the weapon and forces herself upright. Standing over the wounded king, she prepares to kill him, but he stops her by claiming she is wrong about who actually stabbed her father.

The king reveals that although he ordered Paedyn’s father’s death, Kai was the one who carried it out on the king’s command as his first kill. This revelation shakes Paedyn, forcing her to reconsider the memory she had clung to and linking her growing feelings for Kai to the deepest wound in her life. Even so, Paedyn refuses to let the revelation distract her from revenge.

Paedyn drives the sword through the king’s chest, first saying it is for her father and then twisting the blade and naming Adena as well. Feeling no pity for him, she pulls the sword free, retrieves her father’s dagger, and claims a final act of vengeance for herself. The chapter ends with Paedyn throwing the dagger at the king, completing her rejection of his cruelty and seizing power back with her own hands.