After getting Noli’s soul back in her body, Kanin sets his sights on the same. Spending a month Attuning and Sculpting glass, he builds a body capable of accompanying Zyneth to the country’s capital, where he hopes to learn more about his predicament. In the Library of Miasmere Kanin investigates ways to recover his body. This line of study leads to him discovering a portal in the underwater ruins of Emrox that might lead back to Earth. Only, Kanin isn’t sure if he wants to leave this world anymore. At least the portal might provide an opportunity to retrieve his body.

But the portal to Earth evolves from possibility to urgent need when Kanin is attacked, his core damaged, and a fraction of the predator leaks back into the world. Now, getting to Earth wouldn’t just be a way to recover his body, but could provide an avenue for escaping the predator’s influence as well.

Desperate to rid himself of the predator before it becomes too much to control, Kanin seeks help from an unlikely source: Gillow, a black market dealer Zyneth is indebted to. Gillow agrees to use their magical submarine to take the crew to Emrox, on the condition that Kanin steals a magical artifact from the Library required to power the vessel. Kanin initially hesitates, but when Gillow sweetens the pot—and offers to wipe out all of Zyneth’s remaining debt—Kanin jumps at the opportunity.

But the Library’s curator, Yedzaquib, is not so easily parted from his collection. Zyneth and Kanin sneak into the Library’s underbelly and manage to find the artifact—just as Yedzaquib finds them. Yedzaquib is willing to let Zyneth go, but intends to keep Kanin as payment, in part due to the ‘remnant’ he sees latched to Kanin’s soul. Thinking quick, Kanin uses the predator to take down the magical barriers inside the Library, releasing all the dangerous magical artifacts and prisoners being kept there. The Library is thrown into chaos and Yedzaquib is injured, allowing Kanin to escape with Zyneth, the artifact, and his life. But while his use of the predator facilitated their successful heist and retreat, it also resulted in the creature growing more powerful. The clock is ticking until Kanin won’t be able to suppress it any longer.

While recovering from the Library, Kanin and Zyneth have a heart-to-heart. Zyneth admits burgeoning feelings for Kanin, and while Kanin admits the same, he is reluctant to commit to a relationship given the likelihood of him leaving. The two leave the matter unresolved as they take the artifact to Gillow and prepare for their undersea journey.

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The path to Emrox is filled with magical sea beasts, which the group fights their way through. When they finally arrive, Kanin finds the fabled spell circle that can take him home, but he hesitates on its hearth. Once more Zyneth asks him to consider other options, as they both have a bad feeling that the predator might try to make some move when the portal is activated. Kanin nearly relents—before Gillow launches an attack, damaging his core and summoning the predator’s wrath.

Quickly outmatched by the predator, Gillow attempts to flee in their submarine, which would leave both Kanin and Zyneth stranded at the bottom of the ocean. Seeing only one way to keep Gillow from leaving, Kanin activates the portal, trapping them all on the precipice of two worlds.

While Gillow flees in an escape pod, Zyneth accompanies Kanin to the brink of Between, where Kanin can look back into Earth. What he finds there devastates him: his body in a graveyard, long since buried. There is no way to go home.

While the two are distracted, the predator slips away, breaking the rest of itself out of Kanin’s inventory and overwhelming him. Zyneth retreats back into his world, while the predator uses the link to Earth as a way to collect souls—like Kanin’s—who had died and fallen Between. Zyneth fights the predator in an attempt to free Kanin, and in the process, the trapped human souls are released into the world. Due to quick thinking on Zyneth’s part, and the sliver of control Kanin retained, the two work together to cause an explosion which blows the predator away.

In the settling dust, the Ruins of Emrox begin to collapse. The predator is scattered, but not defeated: now Kanin and the predator’s influence levels are exactly even, neither edging out the other. Kanin helps an injured Zyneth back into the submarine as the ocean collapses back in around them, and the two are sent adrift: aimless, injured, but alive and together.

Kanin no longer wants to try to find a way back home—or a way to recover his body. He was in denial about both of those things, and now he only wants to move on. After all, he has a new mission: find the lost human souls he accidentally brought into this world.