Chapter 81

Arkyn reads aloud from Elluin's diary, revealing the truth of the narrator's past: she is Elluin, former princess and queen of The Shade, who bore Kaan's daughter Kyzari while bound to his brother Tyroth. As Arkyn torments both Kaan and the narrator with these revelations and threatens their suffering daughter held captive below, the narrator makes a dark bargain—offering herself to Arkyn to spare Kaan further pain while secretly preparing to access a dangerous power she has long suppressed.

Arkyn forces the narrator to confront her true identity by reading passages from Elluin Neván's diary. The entries detail her forbidden love affair with Kaan, their daughter Kyzari's birth under false paternity, and her family's poisoning by their father. When Arkyn reveals that their daughter is imprisoned in the narrator's former cell and near death from his torture, Kaan thrashes against his chains in anguish. The narrator, seeing him flayed by Arkyn's flame whip, breaks her silence and makes a terrifying offer: she will give herself to Arkyn willingly and dance in the Pits for him if he stops hurting Kaan. Though Arkyn does not intend sexual assault—his obsession is control and domination—the narrator is bound to a table while Arkyn begins burning her flesh. She retreats into her mind, accessing suppressed memories of Fallon, a companion who died in her cell, and finally confronting a dangerous power she has long hidden—a stone-bound force connected to the Creator who has enabled her suffering through Arkyn.