The footsteps stopped, and the silence that followed was worse than the sound.
Alucent's hand had already closed around the Journal before he thought to move it, the leather warm against his palm and the micro-runes still dark.
At the fire's edge, Raya stood with her Weaveblade drawn as the amber glow of the blade cast long shadows across the blackstone.
Gryan stood slightly behind her, his mechanical arm humming beneath the dark blue sleeve of his suit as the rune-lines brightened and his brass fingers spread wide.
The calibration rune Raya had placed still held against the cold, a small disc of copper catching the turquoise edge of the firelight.
Joy remained seated by the fire with her hands folded in her lap, but her blue eyes had shifted to the darkness beyond the light as she was already calculating.
Then the figure crawled into the light.
It moved on its hands and knees, dragging itself forward with the effort of something that had crossed a great distance to reach this specific fire.
Alucent immediately recognized the physical form as Shadebinder, noting the red eyes and the shadow-tendrils that should have been coiled and ready.
But the tendrils had partially collapsed, hanging from the shoulders like torn fabric, and from a fracture across the chest, a fluid darker than shadow was leaking into the blackstone
Voidshard-black... It's pooling in the dust and not evaporating... Alucent quickly identified the substance as his grip on the Journal tightened.
The Shadebinder was dying.
It crawled toward the fire with no weapon drawn and no attack forming, and when it reached the edge of the light, it stopped and raised its head. The red eyes found Alucent and held there as the shadow-tendrils shuddered once and went still.
Upon seeing this, Alucent crouched.
He did not think about the decision. His body made it before his mind could intervene, his knees pressing into the cold blackstone as his hand released the Journal and reached toward the dying thing in the firelight.
He heard Raya say his name, sharp and warning, but the sound felt distant, and the Anchor Ring was warming against his finger. Before he could stop himself, his palm made contact with the Shadebinder's face.
Bloodmark activated on contact, firing immediately before he could brace for it and before the Cold Scribe could section the experience into manageable pieces.
A recently-converted Shadebinder carries the Runeforce-impressions of destroyed memories in its tissue... My Silverline perception is reading those impressions directly... The knowledge surfaced automatically, but it didn't prepare him for what followed.
Conversion was memory destruction, and memory destruction left residue.
The residue was still fresh, pressing against his Silverline perception with uncomfortable clarity.
The vision showed him a worker, male and mid-thirties, from one of the Gearfall Canyon settlements and assigned to Core Support Maintenance. That's the role the Iron Vale system assigns workers approaching the end of their productive variance window...
Even as the clinical knowledge surfaced, the vision pressed deeper, and Alucent's chest tightened.
The man had been good at his work. He had a wife in the craftsperson quarter and a daughter who was learning to read, and he had been proud of both in a quiet way, as though he did not expect to keep them. The conversion had taken him twelve days ago.
The process is faster now... Not the months-long shadow-corruption of the old Shadebinders from Eryndral.
Eloha's system has accelerated it. Each Shadebinder is being made faster, which means each one carries less of the original person's imprint...
As the realization settled, the worker's face surfaced clearly in the vision for approximately one second before the memory-destruction took it.
The face had been tired for a long time, and it was still tired when the conversion erased it.
When the vision released him, his hand was still pressed against the Shadebinder's face as the red eyes continued looking at him while the Voidshard-black fluid leaked steadily into the blackstone.
He could not tell if the thing in front of him was still the worker or had already become something else.
Before Alucent could react, Joy ended it.
She moved past him without speaking, the deep forest green of her dress catching the firelight as her sleeve was already pushed back and her wrist already bleeding where she had bitten it.
The blood rose from her skin in a thin line and followed her fingertip as she traced a termination seal in the air above the Shadebinder's chest.
The glyph was precise, silver light that was clean and immediate. It etched itself into the Runeforce channel that animated the corrupted body, and the channel closed as the shadow-tendrils stopped shuddering and the red eyes went dark.
It stopped being a Shadebinder and became a body.
After lowering her hand, Joy looked at the body for a long moment as the blood on her wrist began to clot.
She did not look away, and her expression was not cold but fully present with what she had just done.
In the Hinter Villages, she would have said something afterward. Even something small... Alucent watched her face and saw her lips press together briefly before her composure returned.
The cost was there, but she did not let it stay visible for more than a moment.
Raya sheathed her Weaveblade, and the sound was very loud in the quiet.
"We break camp," Joy said, her voice steady. "Now. John."
John was already moving with the reins in his hands as the horses stamped at the scent of Voidshard-black fluid on the air.
After pulling the calibration rune from his arm, Gryan tucked it into his coat without speaking.
As Alucent pushed himself to his feet, his hand was still warm where it had touched the Shadebinder's face, and the worker's tired eyes were still behind his own.
He did not have time to process any of it because the cart was already rolling and Joy was already climbing onto the bench and Raya was already pulling him up after her.
He had a daughter who was learning to read... The thought surfaced unbidden as Alucent gripped the edge of the cart, but he pushed it down before it could settle.
They drove through the Shadebloom night with the Turquoise Moon high above them, its light bright enough to navigate the main road without lanterns.
The copper rivers glowed faintly with Beautification-frequency light along the roadside, turquoise bleeding into rust-orange where the water touched the mineral banks, and the mesas rose on either side.
The landscape was strange and beautiful.
Iron Vale was never supposed to be beautiful, but here it was, and Alucent did not know what to do with that.
He watched it pass through the cart window while the body they had left behind at the rest stop settled into the blackstone.