With a storm raging, Lyria, Victra, and Volga plan to leave their fisherman hosts at first light to avoid Red Hand suspicion. Volga departs alone to find the transmitter, confiding to Lyria that she was made without a womb and dreams of costly reversal. Victra, exhausted after childbirth, finally rests while Lyria stands watch.

Fetching ice for Victra, Lyria notices Cormac’s mute “daughter,” Brea, urgently signaling through a window with a bloody hand. The household springs an ambush: Alred attacks with a slingBlade and Lyria, reacting fast, guns him down. Particle fire erupts from the bedroom, igniting the house. Victra emerges with her razor as Lyria identifies Red Hand involvement.

They push into the bedroom to find Cormac gut-shot and disarmed. Victra brutally interrogates him about Red Hand strength and transport, then kills him when he refuses to help. Lyria discovers Brea grievously wounded—revealed by context to be Cormac’s wife, not his daughter—and tries to save her, but Brea dies. Prioritizing survival and reinforcements, Victra takes Ulysses and flees into the storm.

Lyria attempts to track Victra through woods and ravines but loses the trail, fearing she might lead pursuers to the mother and child. When the wind eases, she circles back toward town, avoiding open ground, and finds a churned-up copse marked by blood, felled trees, and a melted landing patch—evidence of a shuttle extraction.

Concluding the Red Hand seized Victra, Lyria presses deeper and encounters a horrific scene: Ulysses nailed upside down to a tree, blood trailing down the bark. The murder confirms the Red Hand’s brutality and suggests Victra’s capture, leaving Lyria isolated and the stakes for the Julii family catastrophically heightened.