The Eastern fleet of forty iron-plated ships, accompanied by swimming dragons and their riders, crosses the Abyss toward the West. Loth observes the fleet from the staterooms of the Dancing Pearl, marveling at the dragon riders who stay in the water with their mounts rather than sheltering aboard ship. He reflects that if East and West reconcile, such sights might become common in all seas.

The Unceasing Emperor engages Loth in a card game and asks him to describe Queen Sabran, reasoning that if she is to be an ally, he should know more about her. Loth describes Sabran as loyal, kind-hearted but guarded, and afflicted by periods of deep melancholy she calls her "shadow hours," stemming from witnessing her mother Queen Rosarian's murder when she was fourteen. Loth recounts her coronation at fourteen, the regency of her father Wilstan Fynch and Lady Igrain Crest—the latter revealed as complicit in Rosarian's death—and Sabran's childhood love of dancing, which she abandoned after her mother's death. The Emperor notes parallels to his own life: orphaned young, enthroned with regents, and betrayed by one who grew too power-hungry.

The Emperor then asks whether Sabran has a lover, reading Loth's transparent reaction easily. He surmises that Sabran withheld her hand in marriage for love, and admits he cannot blame her—calling her braver than he was in trying to change tradition. He shares his own story: as a young emperor, he fell deeply in love with a woman of low rank he calls "the Sea Maiden." The Grand Secretariat opposed the match, and the Imperial Dragon herself warned him that there was a dangerous shadow in his lover that power would unleash, urging him to let her go.

The Emperor describes his resistance and eventual submission, fearing the Secretariat might make his lover disappear. He finally told her he had never wanted her, prompting her to vow she would build her own empire and one day drive a blade into his heart, as he had done to hers. He never saw her again. The Emperor closes with a melancholy parable about a beautiful purple bird in the Empire of the Twelve Lakes whose feathers are poisonous to the touch, advising Loth to be thankful he was never born to sit a throne.