As the ship approaches Troy at dawn, Alex, Brother Diaz, and the others are overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the Pillar of Troy and the city around it. Alex shows off the political and historical education she has absorbed during the journey, but her knowledge does little to steady her nerves. While Balthazar, Jakob, Baptiste, Vigga, and Baron Rikard joke and advise her, Alex fixates on the danger still posed by her surviving cousin Arcadius and fears that Troy may reject her.

When the ship reaches the harbour, Alex sees the crowds, the towering machinery and architecture of the Pillar, and the formal reception waiting ashore. Baron Rikard coaches her through the performance of princely grace, and Alex forces herself to walk out smiling despite near panic. She is met by Lady Severa, the Warden of the Imperial Chamber, who greets her with flawless ceremony but also with wit that quickly reassures Alex. Severa reveals that Duke Michael has arrived ahead of her and arranged a public entrance into the city.

At first the watching crowd is unsettlingly quiet, but Jakob deliberately breaks the tension by calling for a cheer for Princess Alexia. The people respond at once, and Alex is carried through Troy in a grand procession led by priests, nuns bearing relics, and ceremonial guards. As she rides through markets, churches, and bright festival streets beneath the vast Pillar, Alex begins to understand the power of the story now being told about her. Jakob and Baptiste remind her, in different ways, that public love is really love for an idea, not yet for the person herself.

At the Grand Lift of Heraclius, Alex abandons courtly formality long enough to embrace Duke Michael, who warmly welcomes her and says she resembles her mother. He then presents her to Grand Patriarch Methodius XIII, and Alex successfully repeats the formal religious language expected of her. Methodius tests the evidence for her claim: the papal bull, the oracle examination, her birthmark, and the matching halves of Empress Theodosia's coin held by Alex and Duke Michael.

Although Alex privately recognizes that the proof is not conclusive, she also sees that Methodius already wants to believe. The Patriarch publicly proclaims Alexia Pyrogennetos the rightful heir who has returned to claim her birthright and defend mankind from the elves. The crowd erupts in approval, and Alex is formally accepted by both Pope and Patriarch's authority as heir to the Serpent Throne. By the chapter's end, the thief who still feels like an impostor has nevertheless entered Troy as a publicly acclaimed future Empress.