Lyria finds Ulysses nailed to a tree and, unable to dig through the frozen ground, wraps him in her coat and carries him. Drawn to the village edge, she sees Red Hand reinforcements around the base as Harmony, bearing Victra’s razor, orders captured Victra and Volga dragged aboard ships that depart north, leaving Lyria helpless with an empty pistol.

Summoned by a whispering neighbor, Lyria enters Maeve’s house and discovers Brea laid out, the girl earlier killed during the firefight. Maeve explains the Red Hand’s occupation of a northern mine and the base, their infighting, and a predatory system where a “Picker” selects village girls as “wives.” Mora, Maeve’s youngest, has been taken for inspection. Lyria condemns the villagers’ inaction but stays through nightfall, cradling Ulysses.

In the snow, Lyria digs through Cormac’s burned house to recover Fig’s black orb. Her blood activates it: “Sfaíra access granted.” Diagnostics reveal a cortical implant—Figment—inside Lyria is impaired, with geolocation and uplink unavailable, and a cryptic reference to Astarte. The orb unfolds into compartments of strange tools, drugs, implants, and IDs, but nothing immediately useful; even a magazine of teeth surfaces. The voice coolly replies to her frustration: “Name-calling is a waste of neurons.”

Lyria returns to Maeve’s home, threatens the apathetic husband, and gets details: the Hand keeps girls at the base for inspection and avoids flights when satellites pass, usually moving them by ten. Determined to act, Lyria asks Maeve to make her look desirable enough to pass inspection and requests pliers, setting a plan to infiltrate the base and rescue the taken girls.