On the island of Seiiki, a young woman named Tané encounters a foreign stranger emerging from the sea on the eve of Choosing Day—the most important day of her life. She has broken seclusion from the South House to swim in the sea, hoping the great Kwiriki would favor her boldness. Instead, she finds a sunburned, golden-haired outsider who has been smuggled onto the island and is begging for help, asking to see the Warlord. Tané understands his language but dares not reveal this, recognizing that his presence threatens everything she has worked for: if she reports him, she must admit she broke seclusion, potentially canceling Choosing Day and destroying her chance to become a dragon rider.

Tané decides to hide the outsider rather than report or abandon him. She wraps cloth around his face to guard against the "red sickness" and leads him through the night markets of Cape Hisan to Orisima, an artificial island serving as a Western trading post for Mentish merchants. Unable to enter Orisima herself, Tané enlists an unnamed woman who smuggles the outsider through the landing gate and delivers him to the home of Doctor Niclays Roos, a Mentish expatriate living in the trading post.

Niclays Roos, a disgruntled, aging surgeon drowning his frustrations in rationed wine and burdened with gambling debts, reluctantly takes in the stranger after the woman promises silver as a reward and leaves before he can protest further. The outsider reveals himself as Triam Sulyard, a young squire from the household of Queen Sabran Berethnet of Inys, who has come on what he calls a mission of utmost importance. He is astonished to find Niclays, whose name was given to him by a friend. Niclays, who harbors bitter resentment toward Queen Sabran, refuses to hear Sulyard's mission, knowing that harboring an outsider in Seiiki is punishable by death under the Great Edict.

The chapter ends with a dramatic interruption: the residents of Orisima witness enormous dragons rising from the sea and ascending over Cape Hisan. Niclays watches in awe as the luminous, moonstone-scaled creatures take to the skies, and he wonders aloud what has brought them here.