Aboard the Maelstrodomus, the rescued Ilferan identifies herself as Kiera while Bjorn feels sick and incomplete without the portion of his soul trapped in the black pearl. Rue recognizes the Dredged as a dangerous creature from the depths and warns that destroying the pearl incorrectly could leave Bjorn unable to escape the Material Plane after death. Ilk offers only two choices: keep the pearl or break it and trust Bjorn's soul to return. He then uses the Black Worm to draw Bjorn into a dream composed of battle against the Chain, Dyre's rescue, Dalia dying in bed, and Mathias holding the pearl as a test of what Bjorn will sacrifice. Bjorn takes the pearl from Mathias and resists the darkness coiling around him. He wakes convulsing as the pearl shatters, its energy gone and his soul restored. Ilk warns that Bjorn came very close to the One and must confront his demons sooner rather than later.

The crew awakens to Galdemol, a colossal and unnatural vortex pulling the Maelstrodomus toward its center. Four linked mechanisms below deck must be activated in sequence before a focusing pedestal rises. Torrin gives Whisper his unusually pure glint, and Whisper crosses the nearly vertical hold to place it into the device. Light erupts through thousands of glints built into the ship, catapulting the burning vessel through the vortex and between two green-eyed statues holding scepters of sun and moon. Their scepters lower, the vortex closes long enough for the ship to cross the great breakwall, and then the passage seals again behind it. The Maelstrodomus enters the warm, clear waters of the Vented Gulf. Zandra awakens with a lock of white hair and reveals that Azran and the prayers of her followers can no longer reach her inside Tyve. As the damaged ship heads toward a jungle island, the Queen of Dusk privately directs Torrin there, promises lost memories and an item of immeasurable power, and tells him to extinguish the light if he wants to save his family.

The Harbingers land on the island while Zandra's party establishes a base, then find an immense ruined temple inside its central mountain. Th'Marck reveals that he survived Gavra and has followed the party invisibly; after reconciling with Torrin, he turns into white light and enters him. Within the ruins, an arch marked "The Gate of Sethis" bears a warning that the way home is shut. The party divides among three chambers. Normandy and Vyr activate a transpositional stone, briefly meeting an old man stranded elsewhere before the link closes. Bjorn, Helena, and Aronin trigger a corridor filled with blades and falling pillars. Torrin and Whisper discover a mural in which a dragon gives up one of its talons so Valens Avarith can wield it as a spear. Torrin then enters Sethis's sanctuary, where tapestries show her bringing death to the Vey, being cast from inner Tyve, and teaching her followers to escape consuming darkness by surrendering their light. He realizes that the room can take the light he has accumulated, but before he chooses, the two statues guarding the sanctuary begin to move.