Commander Orka, Lykos’ older brother, is hauled in front of a mysterious committee of some important people and blamed for the loss of Skylos and all its soldiers. As a result, Commander Orka, his commander Araphne (the blue-haired guy who hurt Ouni a few of episodes ago), and all of the other people who went along with the raid are sentenced to death.
This doesn’t phase Orka however. He proceeds to put the blame for Skylos’ loss on Araphne, and provokes Araphne into shooting Orka’s hand to demonstrate that Araphne is not in control of his emotions. Or rather he’s acting “normally” by our standards, I’d say. Regardless Orka tells the committee that they’re all full of shit, that another world cleansing is coming and if the Empire doesn’t gain control of the daimons then everyone will die. Apparently Orka’s so sure that there’s lots of other daimons in the world, despite having only ever hearing of one (Ouni).
Araphne is hauled off for a punishment to be dealt to him later by Orka, and Orka himself escapes death. He might even be allowed to launch a campaign to capture all of the world’s daimons. But for now he’s alive. And we learned something else: Orka’s obviously in touch with his emotions too, somewhat, and he has thymia as well.
Outside the meeting place Commander Orka has a secret huddle with one of the men on the committee, a young man by the name of Atsali. Like Orka, he too is a Commander-in-Chief. Orka has a request for Atsali: he wants to use the warship Karcharias, and he’s convinced that if Atsali agrees then the rest of the committee will fall in line. Orka gives Atsali some time to think about his answer.
On the Mud Whale, all of the Marked gather together to activate Falaina’s wings using Kokalo (Chakuro’s new furry friend). Speaking of which, where did the original brown one go? The ceremony is beautiful but Lykos is obviously still bothered by something. Chakuro tries to cheer her up, and she puts on a happier face for him. Suou points out that now the Mud Whale can go wherever it wants, even away from the Empire if they so choose.
Later that evening Rochalito finds Suou out in the gardens picking flowers for a medicine he’s making for the Marked. Rochalito asks why there are few adults on the island and Suou says it’s because the Marked lead short lives due to their use of thymia. Rochalito commands that Suou take him to his room; he wants to show Suou the world.
Inside Suou’s bedroom, Suou assembles his aids and together they sit down with Rochalito and his lead advisor. Rochalito wasn’t kidding: he shows Suou a map of the sand ocean and all the known continents. He shows Suou where his country Amonlogia is, and where they found the Mud Whale.
Then it hits everyone in the room: the Mud Whale had been trapped in exile in a region with bad currents, unable to escape because they had no rudder. And the treacherous currents kept other people (aside from the Empire) from breaking through and finding Falaina. Like a bird in a cage, the Mud Whale was kept secret 
from the world. Rochalito wants Suou and Falaina to come with him back to Amonlogia, which is where Falaina is currently headed. Amonlogia is fighting an unnamed enemy further to the west, and they want to protect Falaina. Suou does not give an answer at this time.
Later still, Lykos meets with Rochalito alone and asks him to stop investigating the people on the Mud Whale. She reveals the reason why the Marked live short lives. On other islands powered by nous, people feed their emotions to the nous and in return are able to use thymia. However for some reason, Falaina is different. Falaina eats a person’s lifeforce in exchange for their thymia ability. The more they use their thymia, the shorter a life they will have. Whoa. Now that it’s been pointed out, the correlation seems pretty clear to me and I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on it sooner.
Chakuro, who had spotted Lykos and come over to say hi, accidently overhears this revelation and runs off upset. He had already suspected this, but of course to actually hear it confirmed is quite another thing. Chakuro runs home and goes to bed.
When he awakens, he overhears the dark-haired twins Shikon and Shikoku yelling to a crowd outside his doorstep. The twins are back, and they’re trying to convince the assembled citizens to fight back against the (unmarked) Council of Elders, who up until this point have been making all the rules and decisions. The twins try to pit the marked vs the unmarked, and it seems to be working until Ouni intervenes and tells the twins to knock it off. As Chakuro watches in disbelief, a rebellion seems to be in the works.
Meanwhile Lykos and Rochalito are in a meeting with the full Council of Elders, Suou and his aides. The Council reveals that they already knew that Falaina eats the lifeforce of the Marked, and they kept it quiet from everyone else because they didn’t want everyone on the Mud Whale to know. However Rochalito points out that once Falaina interacts with the outside world, the Mud Whale’s inhabitants are going to learn the truth for themselves anyways. He asks the Council what their decision will be: keep Falaina trapped in its own world, its own prison, or let it fly free for the first time in almost one hundred years?
This series is based on a manga so unless this series is getting its own original ending a la Vampire Knight, I suspect not everything is going to be resolved by the next episode. If nothing else, watching Kujira no Kora has made me really want to read the manga. One more episode to go!
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