Vis begins by remembering a month of training with Emissa on Suus, especially a moment when she found him discouraged and reminded him that improvement happens step by step. In the present, he sits with Caeror in Qabr and asks how soon he must attempt the mission to reach Ka. Caeror admits they cannot wait for certainty because the overdue Cataclysm could kill millions, but he also does not want to send Vis to his death too early. Vis mentions that Nofret warned him the mutalis door is cursed, and Caeror dismisses the warning as old fear, encouraging Vis to ask her more and hoping contact with Nofret might help the other Qabrans trust him.

That night, Caeror wakes Vis in darkness with urgent news: Gleaners are sweeping through Qabr. Caeror, Vis, and Tash try to reach the hidden garden refuge by moving through the dark without light, but they soon spot a scouting Gleaner carrying red-burning blades. After hiding and pressing on, they discover the route is blocked. Red lines mark the floor near the garden, dozens of Qabrans lie wounded or dead between them, and Gleaners are using their blades to torture survivors into revealing information.

Realizing they are trapped and that the Gleaners already know about the settlement, Vis asks what happens to captives and learns they are impaled with Vitaeria and flown back to Duat alive. Because the original plan to isolate a single Gleaner is no longer possible, Vis proposes a desperate alternative: he will control one Gleaner, have it spear him without killing him, and let it carry him into Duat disguised as a corpse. Caeror knows the plan is horrific but sees no better option, so he and Tash create a distraction while Vis hides in a tomb and waits for a lone Gleaner.

When the Gleaner enters, Vis successfully imbues it despite its resistance and establishes control. He learns the tongueless iunctus is identified by a neck tattoo reading Duodecim, meaning twelve, and orders it not to alert the other Gleaners. Caeror refuses Vis’s idea of using Duodecim to save him and Tash, judging that any larger interference would risk the mission to Duat. He gives Vis his Vitaerium for survival, embraces him, and withdraws with Tash into the darkness, leaving Vis to carry out the plan alone.

Vis orders Duodecim to find him and act normally, including stabbing him in a spot that should miss his heart and lungs. Duodecim wounds Vis’s arms to match the other bodies and then drives a blade through Vis’s chest, causing unbearable pain before the Vitaerium begins to keep him alive. Through Duodecim’s senses, Vis watches himself laid among the bodies until the swarm departs. Duodecim impales him again for transport, and Vis endures a long, agonizing flight across the desert while pretending to be dead. Still barely conscious, he finally reaches the moonlit obsidian of Duat, achieving the infiltration at the cost of the massacre in Qabr.