Chapter 46

The narrator, consumed by violent energy and unable to sleep, descends into an underground training arena to fight Grihm, a scarred warrior who rarely speaks. Their brutal combat serves as an outlet for the narrator's rage and confusion over recent events involving Raeve and Rygun.

The narrator moves through tunnels filled with sconces, sensitive to the fire-spirits within them and their desperate hunger. They have not slept in cycles since Raeve pinned them with a blade while riding Rygun across the plains, and they are driven by violent urges and turbulent emotions—particularly confusion over a tender moment they glimpsed in Raeve's eyes that suggests her original memories may still exist within her altered mind. After Rygun carried them across three auroras, the narrator's restless energy remains unabated. They descend into a deliberately crude training arena of their own construction, deliberately unsophisticated and designed solely for combat. The narrator summons flames to light the torches, and Grihm, a warrior with a heavily scarred back that resembles melted and resolidified flesh, enters the arena with them. Despite the narrator's shock at hearing Grihm's rarely-used voice, they engage in brutal hand-to-hand combat, their blood mixing in the iron-peppered sand as they purge their violent impulses through pure physical aggression.