Chapter 85

The narrator witnesses Essi's apparent death in a fall, then is grievously wounded by a Moltenmaw while Maell fights for her life against larger dragons. Poisoned and dying in the snow, the narrator experiences a hallucination of an Elding Bird before Essi—alive—appears and saves them by feeding them her blood, which ignites a searing internal fire.

The narrator falls to their knees in anguish watching Essi plummet from a skybridge into the Ditch far below, triggering memories of another loss—their mother Mah's suicide years earlier. As Moltenmaws converge on the burning carnage below, a dark-purple buck Moltenmaw dives at the narrator. Maell intercedes, colliding with the larger beast, but two purple Moltenmaws overwhelm her in combat while the narrator, frozen in fear for Maell's safety, fails to defend themselves. The foreign dragon's poisonous tail barb slices diagonally across the narrator's abdomen, exposing their innards and introducing Moltenmaw venom into their bloodstream. Paralysis creeps through their muscles as they collapse into the mud. Resigned to death, the narrator lies on their back staring at the moons when movement in the flames draws their attention—an impossible vision of an Elding Bird, a mythical creature from childhood stories, erupts from the fire. Then, impossibly, a figure emerges from the smoke: Essi, alive, her red hair unmistakable despite the ash and muck covering her. She kneels beside the narrator, horrified by their wound. When the narrator begins to lose hope, Essi straddles them and forces them to feel her living heartbeat, proving she is real. She bites her own wrist and feeds the narrator her blood despite their confusion, commanding them to trust her. As the narrator swallows, Essi's blood ignites inside them like molten fire, and the narrator falls into darkness.