Anisa ventures into the warped lands inside the Basin, where time and space seem somewhat malleable, as the days, nights and apparent seasons come and go without any clear pattern, and the compass directions seem irrelevant when trying to navigate the forest. What's worse, the plants and animals are all horrifically mutated in bizarre and insane ways that can hardly be blamed on pure happenstance, though they defy any definite purpose. Anisa tries to calm Taer – one of the "wee folk" who has accompanied her – as she finds that he himself has never ventured this close to the Center and thus has not faced its strangeness.

Anisa, Wanda and Taer watch the encampment of Kakkura and her henchmen, and the arrival of a Skreek courier, who takes the book that Royce had, and runs off to take it to Vandringar, as Kakkura is slowed down by wounded prisoners. Anisa, seeing Kakkura's treatment of her younger brother, is determined to act. She tries to formulate a plan to deal with the brutish lackeys of Kakkura, who seem to be under the effect of some sort of magic, but when she touches a strange black tower standing nearby, her plans are interrupted as she finds herself inside the "black tower", and in contact with a sort of collective "intelligence" of several hibernating "Observers".

Anisa overcomes her fears and awakens the Observers, by means of a strange connection that she's established with them, and bids them to take her out and do battle with Kakkura and her followers. In the ensuing battle, Gibson and the others are able to escape, and Anisa sees signs of a larger battle carrying on elsewhere. She leaves her Observer mount to chase after Kurtis (who has fled in terror of the "monster" she's riding), and encounters a wounded Kakkura. Anisa quickly ends the stand-off by slaying Kakkura, but then collapses in shock at what she's done.