In the Cave of Princes, Bryce lies awake on the cold stone beside Sathia and a sleeping Hunt, irritated that her starlight broadcasts every movement and that the Starsword and Truth-Teller seem to “answer” each other with dueling pulses. Studying the carvings and the star-river of her lineage, Bryce spirals into bitterness about Fae cruelty and gendered bans, wishing Danika were there to help her carry the weight of inheritance and expectation.

At Avallen’s castle, Ruhn and Lidia eat breakfast alone when a secretive Fae male arrives to thank Lidia for saving his unit ten years earlier at Kelun by warning them the Hammer was coming. He offers a portrait of his family as proof her choice mattered; Lidia can barely endure it and sends him away for his own safety, noting Morven’s wrath. Outside the dining room, Lidia admits she saved the seven because she hoped someone would do the same for her sons, and she is haunted by the belief that she should have saved more.

Lidia and Ruhn resume searching the archives; tension and attraction simmer as they go looking for coffee and find only a filthy kitchen and tea. They discuss Morven’s suspicious insulation from Asteri scrutiny: Rigelus treated Morven as a compliant vassal, and Morven quickly disavowed Cormac to avoid investigation. Lidia warns that Morven and the Autumn King could exploit Ruhn’s visible emotions, and Ruhn accepts the compliment beneath her concern.

With Flynn and Declan still absent, Lidia uncovers an ancient scroll on earthen magic describing how earth-mages sensed ley lines and guided the Asteri to build cities at power-crossroads, while Avallen was chosen as a private, enduring Fae stronghold. The text clashes with present-day Avallen’s “dead,” rotting feel, leading Lidia and Ruhn to suspect the ley lines and land were somehow altered while the mists remained intact—possibly to hide whatever happened from the Asteri. They resolve to keep digging, uneasy about what the truth might be.

Back in the caves, Bryce and Baxian pause by an underground river before she teleports the group onward; Baxian challenges Bryce’s blanket condemnation of Midgard’s Fae and argues that leadership shapes cruelty, citing Danika’s hope-driven efforts among the wolves and the Asteri’s motive to crush that hope. Bryce reluctantly agrees to consider changing Fae leadership if they survive, and Baxian urges her to make Danika’s death count. As Hunt presses them to move on and the ghouls’ hissing intensifies, Morven emerges from the mists—followed by the Autumn King—cornering the group with no clear escape.