The next afternoon at the House of Wind, Cassian puts Feyre through basic hand-to-hand training and quickly exposes how unsteady she still is, especially on her left side. While Feyre struggles to punch correctly and hold her stance, Azriel returns from the mortal realm with news that some kind of barrier surrounds the queens’ palace, and he works off his frustration by sparring with Rhysand nearby. Watching Rhysand and Azriel fight, Feyre notices their Illyrian warrior tattoos and realizes Rhysand may have marked her bargain tattoo with the same symbols as a wish for luck and glory.

During a water break, Cassian abruptly asks when Feyre plans to talk about the letter she sent Tamlin saying she has left for good. Feyre lashes out by bringing up Cassian’s feelings for Mor, but Cassian quickly apologizes and explains that Azriel told him because the Night Court needs to understand what Tamlin might do next. When training resumes, Cassian’s question keeps echoing in Feyre’s mind, forcing her to confront that she truly meant the letter even though she still fears Tamlin’s rage and cannot fully untangle the love she once felt from the ways he controlled and confined her.

As Feyre keeps striking Cassian’s pads, the physical repetition pulls up everything she has been burying. Feyre thinks about how much she sacrificed for Tamlin Under the Mountain, how helpless he seemed while she fought for him, and how he later locked her inside the manor once he had his power and lands back. Those memories break into deeper guilt over the faeries she killed for Amarantha, and Feyre finally sobs openly in the ring. In the middle of that breakdown, Feyre burns through Cassian’s sparring pads with her fists and admits aloud both that she killed them and that it should have been her instead.

Rhysand immediately steps in, shielding Feyre with his wings and giving her privacy while Cassian and Azriel resume sparring at a distance. Rhysand tells Feyre that the guilt will never fully disappear, because he has lived with the same feeling since his mother and sister were murdered and he buried them himself. He also admits that he still has nightmares not only about Amarantha’s abuse but about hearing Feyre’s neck snap Under the Mountain. By sharing his own grief instead of dismissing hers, Rhysand gives Feyre a harder but steadier choice: learn to live with the pain rather than let it destroy her.

After Feyre calms, Rhysand identifies the fire that burned through the pads as an Autumn Court gift, likely inherited from the power Beron contributed when Feyre was remade. Rhysand suggests that if Feyre carries traces of the High Lords’ powers, they can discover them one by one. To help her understand darkness differently, Rhysand surrounds Feyre with his own soft, star-filled night, showing her that darkness can soothe as well as terrify. The lesson leaves Feyre breathing easily for once, and the chapter ends with teasing banter as Rhysand tells her to bathe and Feyre pointedly asks Cassian, not Rhysand, to fly her home.