Chapter 72

At a lavish Netheryn-themed celebration beneath domes of ice pillars, Raeve is drawn to a high-stakes Skripi gambling game cordoned off for wealthy players. Using Pyrok's gold to buy in, she instead pledges favors owed to the other players—binding herself through an octimar's magical contract—and sits down to play against four masked male fae and the rare creature itself.

Raeve enters an elaborate underground celebration housed in a dome designed to resemble Netheryn, complete with towering hexagonal ice pillars and auroral light. The atmosphere feels hollow despite the music and masked dancers. She drinks Moonplume's Breath and feels an inexplicable compulsion to investigate something between two pillars. Following this instinct, she finds Pyrok and pushes past the crowd toward a guarded barricade. Pyrok reveals the barrier protects a high-stakes Skripi game table for wealthy elites. Raeve pickpockets gold from Pyrok's pocket—he protests but complies—and the guards part to let them through. Along a winding path between false-ice pillars, they reach a carved cavern containing a hexagonal table with four well-dressed masked males, an octimar (a rare, eyeless creature with vine-like appendages and binding magical powers), and one empty chair. One of the males recognizes Pyrok as "Little Flame" and taunts him about past debts, causing Pyrok visible distress. Raeve seats herself in the vacant chair and dumps Pyrok's gold onto the table. When asked what she'll bet after her coins are taken, she boldly offers favors owed to each player, binding herself through the octimar's tentacles inscribing a magical contract on her skin. Pyrok nearly intervenes but stops at her silent request, though he clearly disapproves. The males condescend to her as "the pretty thing," and as they finalize their bets and begin play, one tosses the dice to start the game.