Chapter 71

The narrator, wearing a disguise and gifted mask, encounters Pyrok at a festival in a seaside city. They attend a celebration featuring three domed venues representing different dragon nesting grounds, with Pyrok explaining that Kaan is in the Gondragh dome. The narrator deliberately chooses to enter the Netheryn dome instead, hesitating at the threshold before forcing herself inside.

The narrator meets Pyrok at a stone wall, where he serves as her escort to a festival. She wears an elegant, custom gown made from silver fabric with sparkling wing-like panels, and Pyrok is dressed in red leather with a Moltenmaw feather mask. He reveals that Veya painted warnings on the walls after Kaan lost control following the narrator's departure. Pyrok indicates he remembers the narrator from before, though she has no memory of him—knowledge she plans to suppress when she erases Kaan from her mind. They make their way to an esplanade filled with elaborately masked celebrants, children with ribbon-tipped sticks, and vendors selling Molten Mead. Pyrok consumes multiple drinks as they approach the shore, where three massive domed structures rise from the water like bubbles, each representing a different dragon nesting ground: Netheryn (silver and frost), Bhoggith (colorful feathered), and Gondragh (thorny and scorched). When Pyrok indicates that Kaan is in the Gondragh dome, the narrator impulsively chooses the Netheryn dome instead, wanting Kaan to search for her. As they approach the entrance, she becomes unexpectedly hesitant and anxious, though she denies this to Pyrok before steeling herself and entering the dome's swirling darkness.