A young girl, hungry, watches a city she plans on breaking into to steal food. She harnesses the power of an earthquake and directs it towards the city walls, where she hopes to get in while the guards are distracted by the tremors. Her power receives interference, however, and the girl suddenly senses the taste of vinegar. Her interest in stealing food disappears, replaced by her discovery of the vinegar man, a man she seeks revenge towards after he destroyed her city, killing her parents in the process. The city gates open and in order to avoid being caught, the girl runs. Later, the girl wakes with an injured knee in a prison cell located within the city. She first hallucinates a strange statue in her room but her attention is diverted to Ykka, a woman who, like the girl, possesses the same ability to control the earth. The girl tries to kill Ykka but is unsuccessful. Ykka decides to keep the girl and observe whether she can be trained in her powers. When the girl is left alone in her cell, she realizes the statue from earlier isn't actually a statue, it's another being called a stone-eater, who has the ability to move through stone and has stone-like flesh. The stone-eater offers to bring her to a place where she can have better access to the ground so she can draw enough power to destroy the city. Wary of the stone-eater, the girl declines. Later, she is taken to another cell where she has even less access to stone. Over the course of several days, the girl receives food, clothing, and crutches for her leg. The stone-eater appears again and the girl requests for him to take her to the vinegar man whom she kills. Ykka arrives upon the man's death and a crowd gathers. A woman from the city, angered that the girl has killed one of their fellow citizens, steps forward to kill the girl, but Ykka stops her. Ykka asks the girl for an explanation and after hearing the girl's story, offers her the option to stay or leave. The girl chooses to stay. Before walking away with Ykka, she glances back at the vinegar man's corpse and sees the stone eater with his hand on the corpse's shoulder, smiling.