With the formal announcement of Sabran's pregnancy, the people of Inys celebrate, viewing the unborn heir as continued protection from the Nameless One. The court returns to Ascalon Palace, and the Ladies of the Bedchamber tend carefully to Sabran, who suffers from sickness, exhaustion, and unease. Duchess Igrain Crest urges Sabran to remarry—specifically to accept the Chieftain of Askrdal's suit to secure Hróthi military aid—but Sabran refuses to consider any marriage while pregnant, deflecting with the argument that the stress could harm the heir. Crest reluctantly accepts. Meanwhile, Lord Admiral Fynch reports that Yscalin's fleet has been scouting the Swan Strait, and Sabran orders mercenaries sent to torch the enemy ships in Quarl Bay.

As preparations for the birth continue, Sabran proposes naming her daughter Sylvan, after the place where Aubrecht died and learned of the pregnancy. Roslain, Katryen, and Ead all advise against the unconventional name, and Sabran reluctantly settles on Glorian instead. The news spreads quickly, and celebrations are planned. Ead, knowing Chassar will eventually summon her back to the Priory, feels torn between duty and a growing attachment to Sabran.

Ead secretly visits the imprisoned Truyde utt Zeedeur in the Dearn Tower. Truyde reveals the intellectual basis for her beliefs: she connects the Tablet of Rumelabar's cryptic words about fire and starlight to a cosmic cycle involving a comet called the Long-Haired Star, which she believes periodically subdues the fire beneath the world through starfalls. Truyde argues the cycle has been disrupted, meaning the Nameless One's return is inevitable regardless of the Berethnet bloodline. She learned all this through her grandfather's research in the buried city of Gulthaga and her own dangerous expedition there. Ead is skeptical but disturbed, recalling the Tablet's words and their possible connection to the orange tree and the Priory's own fire-based magic.

That night, Ead shares Sabran's bed at the queen's request. Sabran confides her fears about becoming irrelevant after her daughter is born and her resentment toward her unborn child. Ead comforts her, and a deepening emotional bond—described as a feeling "small as a rosebud"—begins to bloom. Sabran suffers nightmares, seemingly sent by the mysterious Kalyba, and Ead tends to her.

Ead then senses a Draconic presence. Shouts erupt from the palace walls as a flock of wyverns led by a pale-scaled High Western attacks Ascalon Palace. Ead arms herself with her longbow and special Priory arrows, climbing to the roof of Carnelian House for a vantage point. The High Western crashes into the courtyard, devastating guards and blocking the escape route to the cellars. Ead calls out to the wyrm in Selinyi, identifying herself as a handmaiden of Cleolind, and the wyrm responds that her fire is spent and "the God of the Mountain comes." The wyrm speaks Sabran's name with unsettling familiarity. Ead manages to strike the wyrm under its wing with a frozen arrow, wounding it. As the bleeding wyrm retreats, its spiked tail collapses the weakened Dearn Tower vestibule. Falling masonry strikes Sir Gules Heath, and Sabran tumbles from his arms. Ead races down to find Sabran curled on the ground, still breathing but bleeding from between her thighs—a sign she is losing the baby.