Metal Slinger

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse.

Jovie wakes up in a tent, fully healed. A woman enters and introduces herself as Beau, Acker’s sister and third-in-command in the army. She urges Jovie not to be embarrassed about “[burning] through [her] magic” (270). Beau reports that Messer is being “held” and will be sent to “the Kenta dungeons” (271). Jovie hurries through camp, seeking Acker. She encounters Hallis, who leads her to where Acker is meeting with the legion’s commanding officer, Rango. Jovie demands that Acker stop what he is doing to talk about Messer; her behavior irritates him because she is undermining his control over his soldiers.

Acker explains the ramifications of Jovie’s feat of clearing the Dark Forest, stating that other Heirs have tried and failed to do this for millennia. Her show of power has made the soldiers fear her. She insists that she didn’t know that Blue was Messer, and he believes her. They go to speak to Messer together.

Jovie needles Acker for keeping his royal lineage a secret. They find Messer bruised and exhausted and bound to a beam. His eyes, which were previously gray, as is common in Alaha, are now blue just like Jovie’s.