In a memory from the Undying Quiet Lands, Vyr serves the Blades of Nas and kills an outsider with an ebony sword. Instead of merely taking the victim's life, she drains the person's essence into herself and creates an Ix crystal containing the stolen soul. The experience leaves Vyr craving the heartbeats around her. Her uncle conceals the crystal, calls her an Ethomancer, and warns her to tell neither the other Blades nor her mother while he prepares their escape from Cada'Vercia. In the present, the travelers leave Ephthalas and follow the Lothaira toward Gavra. Smoke leads them to the ruined farming village of Calgary, where they encounter Magrit Marigold, Tavros, Old Maggie, Bitter Bick Bitters, Elroy "Ego" Derger, and Crumb, the Stalkers whom Whisper and Ernan abandoned when they missed their job in Andros. The Stalkers carry twelve sealed barrels stolen from a Velpan storehouse, each marked with a crest from the Shattered Isles.

The surviving villagers reveal that soldiers wearing the Gavran guard's colors dragged people from their homes and forced them to kill one another. Slim, the only witness left behind by Silas Palligref, has been driven nearly mad by memories of the attack and a green ring burning around his eyes. When the travelers question him, a regal white mage climbs from the shards of a broken mirror, declares that Slim remembers what must remain forgotten, kills him without leaving a wound, and warns the witnesses that they are being watched. Outside Calgary, Ego and Crumb open one of the stolen barrels and expose themselves to black dust and drained glints. The company burns and buries all twelve barrels, but Ego becomes infected. Th'Marck draws the darkness from him, saves his life, and leaves him permanently changed from neutral to neutral good. Th'Marck explains that black glints are light that has lost its way and warns that Tyve itself is dying because the world requires both light and darkness.

The combined company enters the Wintere Woods and is surrounded by stranded pirates led by Snake Eye Joe. The outsiders call themselves the Dread Stalkers and seek a pure light capable of curing the White Lady, whose inner flame began fading after the deaths of her companions. Although they have gold, weapons, and expedition stores, their ship was destroyed by Tyve's vertical Maelstrom and they cannot navigate the forest. The travelers agree to lead roughly twenty Dread Stalkers toward Gavra, where the pirates hope to acquire another ship and continue toward the mainland. During the night, Rue sees a figure carrying a child into the sea, teaches Normandy the first letters of his forgotten language, and unknowingly causes part of that language to ripple back into memory. Elsewhere, the transformed Silas and his remaining black-armored companions intercept another caravan as they continue toward Gavra.