Chaol waits impa­tient­ly for Yrene’s arrival, frus­trat­ed by her tar­di­ness and his own phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions. To pass the time, he engages in stren­u­ous exer­cis­es, push­ing his body to its lim­its despite his injuries. His thoughts drift to Dori­an, his absent king, adding to his agi­ta­tion. When Yrene final­ly appears, she looks vis­i­bly dis­tressed, though she avoids explain­ing her con­di­tion, focus­ing instead on Chaol’s work­out and mak­ing a point­ed remark about the khagan’s rugs. Their inter­ac­tion is tense, marked by Chaol’s stub­born refusal to engage with the palace guard, reveal­ing his unre­solved emo­tion­al wounds.

Yrene’s demeanor is unusu­al­ly with­drawn, and she devis­es a ruse to send Kad­ja away, claim­ing Chaol has a rash. Once alone, she reveals the shock­ing news: a heal­er was mur­dered in the library the pre­vi­ous night, and Yrene believes she was the intend­ed tar­get. The victim’s body was drained of life, resem­bling a des­ic­cat­ed corpse, a detail that imme­di­ate­ly alarms Chaol. Yerne explains that the killer like­ly mis­took the oth­er heal­er for her due to their sim­i­lar appear­ance, and the books she was read­ing about Chaol’s injury mys­te­ri­ous­ly van­ished after the attack.

Chaol’s instincts point to the Valg, ancient ene­mies he has encoun­tered before, as the like­ly cul­prits. He press­es Yrene for details, try­ing to piece togeth­er the threat. Yerne, exhaust­ed and fear­ful, admits she was research­ing the dark pow­er that injured Chaol, sug­gest­ing a con­nec­tion between his pres­ence and the attack. The real­iza­tion that some­one is tar­get­ing healers—and pos­si­bly Yerne specifically—heightens the ten­sion between them. Chaol’s pro­tec­tive instincts kick in, though he strug­gles with his phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions and the grow­ing sense of dan­ger.

The chap­ter ends with a chill­ing rev­e­la­tion: Yerne’s research into Chaol’s con­di­tion may have drawn dan­ger­ous atten­tion. The mur­der in the library sug­gests a larg­er con­spir­a­cy, and Chaol’s arrival in the city seems to have trig­gered it. Their con­ver­sa­tion leaves both char­ac­ters unset­tled, with Yerne’s fear pal­pa­ble and Chaol grap­pling with guilt and con­cern. The stage is set for fur­ther con­flict as they con­front the loom­ing threat togeth­er, their part­ner­ship now tinged with urgency and shared vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.