Emil Retvenko drinks alone in a squalid tavern in the Barrel, the city of Ketterdam’s criminal district. Retvenko fought in the Ravkan civil war before fleeing to Kerch. He is a Squaller, a Grisha with the power to raise storms and calm the winds. He reluctantly serves the Kerch Merchant Council and dreams of paying off his indenture so that he can return home. When the bartender asks if he is Ravkan, Retvenko worries that the barman suspects that he is a Grisha. Although several Grisha have recently disappeared in the city of Ketterdam, Retvenko upbraids himself for his “cowardice” and is “filled […] with disgust—at himself, the barman, this city” (5).

Retvenko reports to the merchant ship he is assigned to protect. Before the ship can set sail, a man and a woman from the nation of Shu attack. The woman survives a gunshot wound to the chest and demonstrates superhuman strength. The Shu man has “two vast wings […] gracefully wrought in looping silver filigree and taut canvas” and carries the terrified Retvenko off into the sky (11).