On the night before the Harbingers enter mainland Tyve, Torrin visits Simply in the Twilight Temple and gives her two holy books of Eth and an older holy book of Sethis. Simply draws the words into herself and concludes that Eth is a benevolent reinterpretation of Sethis, fashioned in direct opposition to the Tangled One. She warns Torrin to distrust that benevolent facade and the darkness surrounding it. Torrin then shows her the ornate purple book recovered from the burned Arcanium. Simply cannot read its words, but believes the book belongs to him. When Torrin opens it, Veyan script addresses him by name, urges him to aid his family and people, and records his growing knowledge of Sethis and her magic. Simply warns that the closer he comes to the light, the stronger the darkness will become, and tells him not to trust even his own shadow. The following morning, the Harbingers and their companions Aronin, Rue, and Th'Marck pass through the temple portal and emerge at Beklar, a ruined sanctuary high in the mountains. Beneath the cold, hollow radiance of the Ithelion, they see distant Keph, a glaciated plateau, and an apparently abandoned village whose windmill turns below them.

The group descends an eroded mountain path with ropes and pitons, crosses a field of poisonous pink flowers, and enters the village through an arch of branches, roses, and small memorial dolls. The settlement's surviving inhabitants are starving, terrified, and unwilling to trust outsiders. Torrin creates food and water, prompting an unnamed mother and her two hidden children to emerge. The villagers reveal that the Chain promised food in exchange for their children, taking the older children west for indoctrination. The Harbingers discover the cost of resistance throughout the six-house settlement: one dissenter has been stretched across a wall with hooked chains, sixteen adults hang skinned inside the windmill, and other homes contain the dead and grieving. Torrin questions the chained corpse through necromancy and learns that the man died protecting his daughter, that the abducted children were taken toward the Chain fortress, and that other children fled into the forest. A thirteen-year-old survivor confirms that his brothers and sisters have remained missing for weeks. Before entering the woods, Aronin asks Torrin about the compass that has guided him since the campaign began. On the mainland, its light no longer points merely toward Tyve or the Ithelion, but northeast toward an unknown destination.

The Harbingers follow the children's trail into the darkening forest and find a secluded cottage where Atherin has sheltered seven escapees from the village. Her disguise as a large shrouded figure initially convinces Whisper that she is a hag, but Helena's Zone of Truth, the children's testimony, and Torrin's healing establish that Atherin has fed and protected them. She explains that she abandoned the village after its people began making dangerous bargains westward, leaving behind a husband who later contracted the mainland's sickness. The Harbingers discover him quarantined in a locked mountain shack. Knowing he cannot be cured and refusing to let the illness consume him, he asks for a swift death. After Atherin says goodbye, Vyr supplies a lethal mushroom and Torrin sets the shack alight. The group consoles Atherin and prepares to remain near her cottage overnight, but the darkness soon thickens around the distant Ithelion. Helena and Vyr spot a gigantic armored figure crushing trees as it advances through the forest. The being counts eight, corrects itself to seven, and turns toward the cottage where the seven rescued children sleep.