Existential Pest. Northern Roseaarde, #3

Ten years. That's how long Loren has been presumed dead. Banished to the South on the day his twins were born, Loren survives in a nightmare realm of crushing humidity, alien predators, and endless exile. While he learns to heal rather than destroy, forging unlikely bonds with the monstrous Nazagora, his wife Damaetra slowly wastes away in the desert-consumed by grief, illness, and the weight of raising children who will never know their father.
Their friends work tirelessly on an impossible machine designed to heal the corrupted Great Tree, but every passing year brings new challenges, including the insidious whisper of something ancient that wants them to give up hope. The reunion Loren dreams of becomes a race against extinction. Defeating an immortal evil requires walking through mental hellscapes and making sacrifices that will reshape their world.
In the space between minds, where nothing is real and everything matters, Loren must choose: embrace the darkness to save those he loves, or lose everything to the existential pest that has devoured their world for far too long