In the Avallen caves, Hunt readies lightning as Morven and the Autumn King approach with ghouls and the Murder Twins. Morven reveals Flynn and Declan have been abducted and held as leverage, and the twins psychically torment them, drawing blood from their noses. Bryce refuses Morven’s demand to return to his castle and calls out the kings’ fixation on using people as “breeding assets,” enraging Hunt and the others.

Bryce displays a concentrated “seed” of light, which makes the Autumn King abruptly warn Morven to run. Bryce fires a beam of burning light into the rock above, triggering a cave-in that separates the group from the kings, the Murder Twins, and the captured males on the far side. With rubble falling and enemies still near, Bryce chooses flight over fighting.

POV shift. That night at Morven’s castle, Ruhn invites Lidia into his room to talk. Lidia admits how exhausting it has been to live behind masks and explains her bargain with the Ocean Queen: after becoming pregnant through a secret stag-shifter fertility rite, Lidia staged her own kidnapping to protect her unborn twin sons from her monstrous father and from Sandriel’s forces. The Ocean Queen sheltered Lidia on the Depth Charger but demanded Lidia return to the Asteri’s ranks as an embedded source, separated from her sons, and Lidia confesses she tried to save rebels when she could, while bearing guilt over Sofie Renast’s death.

Ruhn and Lidia acknowledge what they mean to each other—Ruhn claiming he is hers regardless of who she is. They kiss intensely and begin to move toward sex, but Ruhn notices Lidia flinch when he pins her wrists, recognizing it as trauma linked to Pollux. Ruhn stops immediately and instead asks Lidia to stay the night with him without sex; she agrees, and they fall asleep holding each other as Ruhn keeps watch until dawn.

POV shift back. After the cave-in, Tharion recognizes Bryce’s light as “a laser” as the passage collapses, cutting them off from Flynn and Declan. Bryce orders everyone into the river and jumps first; her chest-light goes dark as she hits the water. With ghouls hissing closer in the darkness, Tharion drags Sathia into the current, and Hunt—shaken by Bryce’s choices and what they imply about trust—finally follows by leaping into the river to escape.