Niclays Roos formulates a desperate plan to obtain the elixir of life and buy his way back to the West. He needs dragon blood and scale to study how dragons renew themselves. He sends a letter to Lady Tané at Salt Flower Castle, summoning her to a secret meeting. While waiting, he reads his favorite alchemy text and discovers a fragment of ancient silk that once belonged to Jannart, his deceased beloved. The fragment, brushed with an indecipherable Eastern script, was the mystery Jannart had been pursuing when he died. Jannart's granddaughter Truyde had given it to Niclays before he left for Inys, hoping he could decipher it, but he never could.

That night, Niclays sneaks out of Eizaru's house and meets Tané on a deserted beach. He blackmails her, threatening to expose her role in hiding the outsider Sulyard unless she brings him blood and scale from her dragon Nayimathun. He also reveals that her friend Susa was arrested alongside Sulyard. When Tané puts a blade to his throat, Niclays holds firm, insisting that Sulyard remembered her face in detail and that his corroborating testimony would doom her. He gives her four days to comply.

Afterward, Tané sits on a cliff overlooking Ginura Bay, wrestling with her impossible choice. She knows that stealing dragon blood and scale is the gravest crime in the East, punishable by brutal execution. She refuses to mutilate Nayimathun and decides instead to confess everything to the Sea General, accepting the loss of her position and her dragon if it might save Susa.

Before she can act, Nayimathun appears and insists Tané fly with her. They dive into the sea and soar into the sky in a breathtaking first ride without a saddle. Tané falls asleep on dragonback and wakes in a tidal cave. There, Nayimathun asks to hear her confession. Tané tells her everything—hiding the outsider, breaking seclusion, violating the Great Edict. Nayimathun surprises her by saying there was no true crime: the division between East and West matters nothing against the real threat from beneath. The dragon is disappointed only that Tané acted out of self-interest rather than kindness. Nayimathun declares that the outsider Sulyard must be heard by the Warlord and the Emperor of the Twelve Lakes, warning ominously that "he stirs"—implying the Nameless One is awakening. When Tané asks what she must do, Nayimathun corrects her: the question is what they must do together.