Winter in Eden

The vanquished Yilane survivors return to Africa. The surviving Daughters of Life jump ship as they near shore, planning to spread their word in other Yilane cities.

Kerrick has difficulty trying to decide whether he feels more at home with the Tanu, or the Yilane, whose ways he knows better. He takes two surviving male Yilane into his protection, and elects to remain in the captured city of Alpeasak, leaving his wife Armun in the north.

Worried about her husband, Armun sets out a lone to travel south to him, but the snows overtake her and she is trapped. A strange furry people with tails, the Paramutan, rescue her and take her to their home in the permanently frozen north, where they hunt huge whale-like creatures.

Vainte returns to Alpeasak, determined to wipe out the Tanu, and especially Kerrick. She forces the Tanu to take refuge in a small farming community in a valley which forms a natural fortification, here they remain, under siege. Many Yilane are killed in the battle, so they decide to withdraw and release a newly developed strain of poisonous thorn bush which will spread, wiping out all other life. The Yilane will then destroy the bush and claim the empty land.

The Daughters of Life have escaped from the city where they were imprisoned, with the aid of a Yilane scientist who wishes to study them. They flee to South America, to set up their own city. They discover a race of primitive Yilane there.

In order to save the Tanu in the valley, Kerrick mounts an attack on the Yilane city in Africa, using cunning rather than force, to force the leader to recall Vainte and the attack force, and extracts a promise from the leader that the Tanu will be left in peace.

Vainte is cast out of the city as punishment for failing in her task, and is marooned on a distant beach.