The party leaves the Faroth Forest and approaches Tch’nev, a fortified settlement that appears almost deserted. After Cass fires a warning arrow from the central keep and lights a signal fire, twenty Grey Knights of Ithelias return from a hunt carrying an Ursinon slain by Jonathan. Elos del Mortez recognizes Bjorn as a Nornian pilgrim and escorts the travelers inside. Knight Reverend Calum del Mortez welcomes them after Bjorn truthfully recounts his people’s flight from Norn, their years in the archipelago, and the purpose of his pilgrimage. Calum remembers Magda and the Nornian refugees who passed through roughly twenty-five years earlier. He explains that the Grey Knights were the first mortals to bend the knee to Sethis, but now worship Phaedras and protect the Tome of Stars. Only about forty knights remain, their vows have left them without descendants, and their order is slowly dying.

Calum provides four warm coats and directs the party toward Ilanar, warning that paranoia grips the settlement and that his knights are forbidden from venturing beyond it. Although Bjorn may hope to commune with his ancestors, Calum believes only silence and the dead await upon the Veng’namar Plateau. That evening, the knights prepare a feast from the Ursinon and share Dragon’s Milk with their guests. Bjorn and Calum exchange Nornian Blood while Aronin’s music gives the travelers their first genuinely peaceful celebration in many days. Cass, an Ilanari squire and gifted archer, takes an interest in Whisper and offers him a private liaison. Whisper admits his attraction but refuses because of his promise to Lily. During Vyr’s watch, lightning strikes the keep and illuminates a shadow with star-like eyes. The apparition warns that death awaits in the ice, declares that the travelers have brought hope to the knights, and commands Vyr to seek the Tome of Stars. It also tells Vyr that she was not chosen by it, but carries the presence of another power.

Vyr awakens Whisper, and the two enter the keep in search of the Tome. They find Calum praying for their journey but refuse to steal his keys, then fail to open the locked dungeon themselves. The next morning, Calum initially rejects Vyr’s account because Phaedras has never spoken to her followers. Elos nevertheless vouches for the outsiders and permits the Tome to judge one of them. It chooses Vyr, who descends past cells containing previous readers driven mad by its pages and meets Angelos, the Keeper of Secrets. When the chained manuscript opens, Angelos’s eyes, ears, and mouth seal shut. Vyr witnesses Phaedras as a mortal scholar serving a woman capable of moving mountains, her discovery of knowledge that bends the stars, her murder by the knights, and her transformation into a living shadow with eyes of light. The vision shows the party selected by the same ancient woman, a mountain door releasing Mathias, the Tangled One, and other shadows, and a frozen keep where blue eyes and a skeletal hand wait in darkness. Phaedras warns Vyr that excessive knowledge reveals what should never be seen, while Angelos declares that the truth within the Tome is why the Grey Knights believe their order must die.