Manon beats Asterin in the breakfast hall to punish her disobedience. Duke Perrington orders Manon to select a Blackbeak coven for the next round of breeding. The Thirteen is also ordered to bring Perrington, Kaltain, and the duke’s men to a nearby town Manon’s recently scouted for rebels. On Perrington’s order, Kaltain kills most of the townspeople with shadowfire; Manon and the Thirteen are required to kill the rest.

Aelin tells Aedion that she plans to free magic, and kill the king and Dorian. When Aelin and Lysandra learn that the new Shadow Market is in the catacombs beneath the city’s sewer tunnels, they bring Chaol, Rowan, and Aedion to the remains of the old Shadow Market, where a now-dead opium dealer of highly flammable hellfire kept his stores. Aelin wants to use the hellfire to destroy the castle’s Wyrdstone tower.

The hellfire supply is in the underground temple dedicated to the forgotten God of Truth—the same god who blessed Gavin, the first King of Adarlan, and his sword, Damaris. Wyrdmarks engraved at the back of the temple tell the true story of how Gavin defeated the Valg.

Everyone believes that two of the three Valg kings were banished from the realm, and the last—Erawan, who can take on any form, but normally appears as a handsome, blonde man with gold eyes—was killed.