Alptraum, while alone in the woods on the backslope of Mount Sunala, is visited by Yodhsunala Nekara. She indicates that she does not know the whereabouts or fate of Autumn-Storm, and Alptraum surmises that she sides with Sutrana.

Alptraum also receives a visit from Yodhsunala Mariamara – the one who had taken care of him as an infant. He privately confesses to her the matter of his being a vampire, and she takes this news with some shock, but does not condemn him for it. She instead tells him much of the story of his infancy, and how he came to be delivered to the Reisenders, who raised him in the relative safety of distant Sylvania.