The Yellow Mage had left his tower.
He was at the edge of the village, patrolling its perimeter.
His walk was neither hurried nor swaggering.
The power surrounding the village was spread too thinly to pinpoint its source, so he did not bother trying.
From the gathering darkness, a lone figure appeared.
Walking.
Slowly.
A staff in hand.
The Yellow Mage recognized her immediately.
The Dread Mage's daughter.
The Blackbird, Sonder.
She emerged, and even against the darkness the world had become, she could still be seen.
But for a moment, he almost failed to recognize her.
Not because her face had changed, but because something else had.
She looked empty.
Tired.
As though every step required strength she no longer possessed.
Her shoulders sagged beneath an invisible weight.
The staff she carried seemed too heavy for her, dragging her arm downward.
The dark shards she had gone to collect were embedded in its weathered wood.
He had expected to see triumph one day. Relief, perhaps. Even hope.
Instead, he saw exhaustion so profound it scarcely resembled a living thing.
Her eyes found him.
The Yellow Mage did not hesitate. He crossed the last few paces between them with the certainty of someone who had already decided what would happen next, or what should.
"Come," he said.
Sonder offered no resistance and followed.
The villagers, on the other hand, were afraid. Curtains twitched here and there. No one wished to discover whether the darkness beyond their windows had teeth.
The Yellow Mage paid them no attention.
Their fear was sensible, but it had not yet become panic.
He led Sonder through the tower's heavy door and shut it firmly behind them.
The moment the latch settled into place, the darkness and cold were contained within the tower. It served as an insulator.
When the Yellow Mage glanced at Sonder again, he saw that whatever had happened on her journey had done more than merely exhaust her.
She stood where he had left her, the staff resting against the floor as though she required it simply to remain upright.
There was something on her shoulder, near her neck, but the Yellow Mage had no time for that.
He reached out a hand.
"Give me the shards."
There was silence.
"I know you still hear me."
Sonder slowly lifted her head.
For several long moments, she simply looked at him.
Then she extended the staff.
Not all the way.
Only a little.
As though some invisible force resisted even that small motion.
The Yellow Mage watched carefully.
He had not spent her absence merely tending to the Dread Mage. He had also studied. He had watched what little influence the shards exerted through the rib he had given Sonder.
They tempted.
He had experienced it firsthand when he first encountered one.
He listened and slowly came to understand their rhythm until he could recognize which thoughts belonged entirely to him and which did not.
Then he practiced refusing them.
Over and over again.
Every day.
The refusal became a habit.
The mind was a muscle, and so was the soul.
If exercised, they became stronger.
He could not guarantee immunity to outside influence. Nothing so clever was ever defeated completely.
But some resistance was better than none.
A faint pressure settled over the room.
Greed.
Possession.
A quiet insistence not to surrender the shards.
It passed through him like cold wind through old stone.
He acknowledged it, then ignored it.
"They're trying hard," he observed. "You've done what you set out to do. You found them. Now give them to me. I do not wish to possess them for their own sake. They need to be made whole, and I can make it so."