Queen Scarlet summons the dragonets to a private audience inside her palace. During their time together, Queen Scarlet reveals her plan to gift Sunny to Burn of the SandWings. Queen Scarlet knows that Burn has a collection of “curiosities” (151) and implies that Sunny will be killed and stuffed. Tsunami argues with Queen Scarlet about the morality of the war. Queen Scarlet dismisses Tsunami and the dragonets as naïve and tells them that fighting is in a dragon’s nature. She counters Tsunami’s argument with a reminder: “You should know—you attacked me when you barely even knew me” (150). Before she sends them back to prison, Clay talks Queen Scarlet into putting him into the arena and to save Starflight for the events celebrating her “hatching day” (152). Queen Scarlet agrees and sends Clay to the arena at the end of their meeting.

In the arena, Clay must fight an IceWing named Fjord, who has already survived the arena twice. As the battle begins, Clay tries to remember everything he can about IceWings. He learns the hard way that they breathe deadly ice instead of fire.