Rix and Tobry are attacked by a caitsthe, a huge shifter cat, and only a brilliant attack by Rix drives the injured beast off. They pursue it into a deep cavern, but are forced to flee from Lyf’s malevolent wrythen. Tobry is knocked out by a rock fall; Rix, after an almighty battle, kills the caitsthe but is immediately attacked by the wrythen, which is trying to possess Tobry. On driving it off, Rix discovers that the wrythen is afraid of Maloch, which it recognises as the sword Axil Grandys used to hack Lyf’s feet off before he was murdered two thousand years ago.
Rix carries Tobry to safety. On the way home they realise that preparations they saw in the wrythen’s caverns presage war, and head across the thermal wasteland of the Seethings to check on the Rat Hole, a shaft up to the surface used by the Cythonians.
Rix and Tobry encounter Tali and Rannilt in the Seethings. Tobry is immediately smitten by Tali, but Rix and Tali clash and, when he recognises her as a Pale, he rides off in a fury — in Hightspall the Pale are regarded as traitors for serving the enemy. Tobry apologises and goes after him. Once they’re gone, Tali has a blinding revelation — Rix is the boy she saw in the murder cellar! He’s her best clue to the killers’ identities, and she has to go after him, though how can she ever trust him?
Tali’s escape causes the Cythonians to bring forward their plans for war. They attack Hightspall, using devastating chymical weaponry and causing great destruction. Hordes of shifters go on the rampage; the great volcanoes known as the Vomits erupt violently; and from across the sea the ice sheets are closing in. It feels as though the land is rising up to cast the Hightspallers out.
After a series of captures, escapes and recaptures, Rix and Tobry rescue Tali from her Cythonian hunters, though even now Tali isn’t sure she can trust Rix. She tells him about her mother’s murder but he doesn’t react — it’s as if he doesn’t remember, though she knows he was there.
Rix returns to the palace, in the capital city of Caulderon, to complete his father’s portrait, a painting he loathes. Lady Ricinus is furious that he has neglected his responsibilities. The portrait must be completed by the Honouring — the future of House Ricinus depends on it — and she confines Rix to his rooms until it’s completed.
Rix’s nightmares and premonitions of doom return, stronger than ever. He works on the portrait as long as he can bear it, and also begins another painting that comes from his subconscious — a haunting cellar, a woman laid on a bench, two people standing by her and a wide-eyed child in the background. He can’t paint their faces, nor work out why the scene fills him with such horror, for in a childhood illness he lost all memory of the murder he witnessed.
Tobry brings Tali and Rannilt to Caulderon and hides them, knowing that Lady Ricinus would never allow a despised Pale in the palace. Tali is also being hunted by the CHANCELLOR, the supreme ruler of Hightspall, since her knowledge of Cython will be invaluable to the war. Tali sneaks into the palace anyway; she has to pursue the clues to her mother’s murder.
The Cythonians besiege Caulderon. Rix, more and more disturbed at what he’s painting, goes to see his old nurse, LUZIA, to ask her about his childhood, but finds her murdered, presumably to stop her talking to him. Rix is shattered. And Rannilt, whom Tobry had left with Luzia, is missing.
Tali gets into Rix’s rooms and sees the painting, which she recognises instantly as the murder scene. How can Rix not know? He goes on with it, working unconsciously, and to his horror Tali’s face appears on the prone woman. It’s his nightmare made real; is Tali the woman he’s doomed to kill? He fights the compulsion with all he has.
The wrythen is pleased. His plans are finally back on track; soon he will tighten the compulsion on Rix and force him to cut the master pearl from Tali. Then he will dispose of Deroe and, with all five pearls, recover king-magery and exact his vengeance.
The war is going badly for Hightspall; the Cythonians are winning everywhere. The chancellor orders Palace Ricinus searched for Tali, and gives Lady Ricinus an ultimatum — find Tali, or House Ricinus will be crushed. She knows he’ll do it, too, because the chancellor has always despised House Ricinus. Lady Ricinus plots the worst treason of all — to have him killed.
Rix and Tali discover the plot, separately, and Rix is torn by an impossible conflict. If he does not betray his mother, he too will be guilty of treason. But if he does betray her, how could he live with himself?
Rix redoes the cellar painting and to his horror, this time he sees what the two unidentified people by the bench are doing — gouging an ebony pearl from the dying woman’s head. Then Tali confronts Rix, screaming at him, “That’s my mother. You were there! How can you not know? And now Lyf wants you to do it to me.”
The chancellor is an unpleasant, vengeful man but Tali can’t stand by and see him killed. She tells him about the treason, though he does not say what he plans to do about it. He also holds Rannilt and has been interrogating her for her knowledge of Cython.
The following day Rix, tormented by his own conflict, also visits the chancellor, who forces the truth out of him. He throws Rix out, saying that he could never trust a man who would betray his own mother.
Rix, now utterly dishonoured, feels that he has only one way out. He completes his father’s portrait then, in a drunken frenzy, repaints the cellar picture from scratch. But this time he paints the faces of the killers — Lord and Lady Ricinus. House Ricinus, and everything Rix has, comes from the depraved, murderous trade in ebony pearls. He staggers up to the roof to cast himself off to his death, but slips, knocks himself out and only recovers as the Honouring is beginning. He’d promised to be there, and he plans to do this last duty before he dies.
Tali, in disguise, goes to the Honouring Ball with Tobry, and begins to feel that she loves him, though she tries to deny it. At the Honouring, Lady Ricinus’s triumph is complete — the forged documents she presents are verified and House Ricinus is accepted into the First Circle. Then Rix unveils his portrait of Lord Ricinus, but to his horror someone has switched paintings, and he actually reveals the painting of the murder cellar, clearly showing both the killers’ faces and the ebony pearl. The chancellor smiles; he’s about to have his revenge.
Lady Ricinus is defiant, blaming everyone else, even her own son, but Lord Ricinus can’t take any more. He confesses everything, revealing that Rix was taken down to witness the murder as a boy, to make him complicit in the family business. And they took Iusia’s blood because it has healing powers.
House Ricinus is condemned, its assets confiscated, the servants cast out and the disembowelled lord and lady hung from the front gates. Rix survives because he’s not yet of age, but is universally condemned for betraying his parents.
GLYNNIE, a young maidservant, begs refuge for herself and her little brother, BENN, and Rix takes them in. That night the three Vomits erupt at once, a sign of the fall of nations. Rix is plagued by murderous nightmares, sent by Lyf, and plans to take his own life in the morning. A colossal eruption causes a tidal wave in Lake Fumerous which washes the city walls away. Caulderon is defenceless and now the enemy attack.
Rix prepares to ride out and die. Tali begs Tobry to stop him, saying that she loves Rix, though this is a lie — she actually loves Tobry. Tobry, in despair, stops Rix.
Tali knows Lyf is coming, and Deroe too; he has been lured to the cellar by Lyf in pursuit of the master pearl. Tali plans to seize the three pearls from Deroe, but he turns the tables on her and prepares to cut out her master pearl for himself.
Lyf wakes the compulsion, using the heatstone, and forces Rix to go to the cellar to kill Tali. Rix fights the compulsion but cannot defeat it. Tobry realises what is happening and smashes the heatstone, which lets off a tremendous blast of force that knocks everyone down and frees Rix from the compulsion.