They walked through the night, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and Ember's Rest. The old highway stretched ahead of them, cracked and overgrown but still navigable. Pre-Severance construction had been built to last, even if the civilization that made it hadn't been.
Dawn found them exhausted and footsore, huddled in the ruins of what might have been a rest stop once. The structure was mostly collapsed, but one corner remained intact enough to provide shade and cover. Ven declared it acceptable, and they stopped to rest.
Marik distributed what little food they'd managed to pack. Dried meat, hard bread, water that tasted of rust. No one complained. In the Wastes, you ate what you could get.
Jiko chewed mechanically, watching the others. Marik was subdued, his clean arms strange to look at after days of seeing them covered in black Marks. He kept touching his skin as if checking that the Marks were truly gone. Ven was already poring over her cloth map, plotting their route to the Forgetting Depths. And the Cartographer sat apart from them, staring at nothing with an expression Jiko couldn't read.
When the meal was finished, the old man spoke.
"We need to talk. About what happened in the tunnels."
"You mean Jiko feeding a Grief Walker?" Ven asked.
"That, among other things." The Cartographer looked at Jiko. "You gave away every Mark you'd absorbed. Do you understand what that means?"
"I'm empty again," Jiko said. "Like I was before I met Marik."
"Exactly. And that raises questions I should have asked before." The old man leaned forward. "When you absorb guilt, where does it go? I assumed it was stored somewhere in your psyche, inaccessible but permanent. But if you can give it away, if an Echo can extract it, then it's not truly integrated. It's just held."
"Like a container," Ven said thoughtfully.
"Precisely. Which means Jiko isn't destroying guilt. He's storing it. The guilt still exists, it's simply compressed into whatever void exists where his conscience should be." The Cartographer pulled out his notebook. "This changes everything."
"How?" Jiko asked.
"Because if guilt can be extracted from you, then you're not a solution. You're a delay. A very useful delay, granted, but not a cure." The old man tapped his notebook. "The question becomes: what happens to the guilt while you're holding it? Does it degrade? Does it change? Or does it just sit there, inert, until something pulls it out?"
"I don't know," Jiko admitted.
"Neither do I. Which is why we need to test you properly. Systematically." The Cartographer glanced at Marik. "How much guilt can you safely carry right now? After having yours removed?"
Marik flexed his hands, checking his internal state. "Maybe twenty Marks before I start feeling the strain again. I'm clean, but I'm not immune. If I absorb too much too fast, it'll break me same as before."
"And Jiko absorbed sixty from you without any apparent limit." The Cartographer wrote something down. "We need to find your capacity, Jiko. See if there's a maximum to how much guilt you can hold."
"Why does that matter?" Ven asked.
"Because if he has a limit, then his usefulness is finite. But if he doesn't..." The old man looked at Jiko with that calculating expression again. "If he doesn't, then we're looking at something unprecedented. A human being who can absorb infinite moral weight without corruption. Do you understand what that means in a world where morality is currency?"
"It means he could crash the entire economy," Ven said slowly. "If guilt and virtue can be absorbed infinitely without consequence, then they lose their value. The whole system collapses."
"Precisely." The Cartographer smiled. "The Iron Testimony, the Choir Sanctum, the merchant guilds, they all depend on moral weight being scarce and consequential. If Jiko can prove that it's neither, the entire power structure of the Dominions crumbles."
Silence fell. Even Jiko, with his limited understanding of social dynamics, recognized the weight of what had just been said. He wasn't just valuable. He was dangerous. A threat to the established order simply by existing.
"That's why the Testimony is hunting him," Marik said. "Not because he's a heretic. Because he's a bomb waiting to explode their entire system."
"And why the Archive is interested," Ven added. "If they can control Jiko, they control the key to remaking the world's economy."
The Cartographer nodded. "Which brings us to the real conversation we need to have." He looked at Jiko. "You have a choice to make. Right now, you're a curiosity. A blank with unusual abilities. But if we continue down this path, if we prove your capacity is unlimited, you become the most valuable asset in the Dominions. Every faction will want you, and they won't ask politely."
"You're saying I should hide," Jiko said.
"I'm saying you should decide what you want to be. A tool? A weapon? A revolutionary? Or just someone trying to survive?" The old man's expression was unreadable. "Because once we prove what you can do, that choice goes away. You become what others make you."
Jiko considered this. For days, he'd been following the Cartographer's lead, accepting the old man's guidance without question. It had been efficient. But efficiency, he was learning, wasn't the same as agency.
"What do you want me to be?" he asked.
The Cartographer hesitated. For the first time since they'd met, the old man seemed uncertain. When he spoke, his voice was quiet.
"I want you to be free. But I also want to use you. Those desires conflict, and I'm not sure which matters more." He looked away. "I'm a researcher. My instinct is to study, to test, to push boundaries. But you're not a specimen. You're a person, even if you can't feel what most people feel. And I'm beginning to realize that I've been treating you like property."
"I agreed to this arrangement," Jiko pointed out.
"You did. But did you understand what you were agreeing to? Did you have enough information to make an informed choice?" The Cartographer shook his head. "I manipulated you, Jiko. I found you vulnerable and offered you something you needed, and in exchange I claimed ownership of your abilities. That's not collaboration. That's exploitation."
The admission hung in the air. Ven and Marik exchanged glances but said nothing.
Jiko thought about it. Was he being exploited? The Cartographer had given him shelter, knowledge, protection. In exchange, Jiko had allowed testing and followed orders. That seemed like a fair transaction. But there was something in the old man's tone that suggested fairness wasn't the issue.
"You feel guilty," Jiko said.
"Yes."
"Why?"
The Cartographer looked at him then, really looked at him, and something in his expression cracked. "Because I created you. Not metaphorically. Literally. You're my experiment, Jiko. I'm the one who removed your guilt."
The world seemed to pause. Ven inhaled sharply. Marik went very still. And Jiko just stared at the old man who'd been lying to him since they met.
"Explain," Jiko said.
The Cartographer took a breath and began.
"Twenty-seven years ago, I was a researcher for the Archive. One of the best. My specialty was the mechanics of the Severance, how it transformed abstract concepts into physical reality. I theorized that if morality could be made concrete, then it could also be removed. Not transferred or absorbed, but actually excised from human psychology."
He pulled out one of the Obsidian Shards he'd extracted from Jiko's memories.
"I began experimenting. First on animals, then on volunteers, then on people who didn't volunteer. The Archive gave me resources, subjects, freedom. They wanted to understand the Severance. I wanted to control it." His hands trembled slightly. "Most subjects died. Their psyches couldn't handle the removal of moral framework. They became catatonic or violent or simply stopped functioning. But I refined my technique. Found the right combination of surgery, ritual, and Shard manipulation."
"And then you found me," Jiko said.
"No. I made you." The Cartographer met his eyes. "Your mother was one of my subjects. She volunteered, desperate for food for her infant son. I removed her guilt, and it killed her. She couldn't function without it. But before she died, she begged me to save her child. So I took you. An infant, barely three months old."
The words were facts, data points without emotional context. Jiko listened the way he might listen to a weather report.
"I removed your capacity for guilt surgically. Cut away the neural pathways, damaged the regions of the brain responsible for moral emotion, then used Shard techniques to prevent regeneration." The Cartographer's voice was flat, clinical. "It should have killed you. It should have left you a vegetable. But you survived. You adapted. Your brain rewired itself around the absence, creating new pathways that functioned without moral weight."
"And then?" Jiko prompted.
"And then I realized what I'd done. I'd created a child who would never feel guilt, shame, remorse. A human being fundamentally different from everyone else. And I panicked." The old man's hands clenched. "I falsified my research, claimed you'd died, and hid you. Placed you with caretakers who didn't know what you were. Paid them to raise you, teach you, keep you alive. And then I ran. Disappeared from the Archive, destroyed my notes, tried to forget."
"But you didn't forget," Ven said quietly.
"No. I spent eighteen years running from what I'd done. And then, three months ago, I heard rumors. A blank in the eastern Wastes, a survivor with no Marks. I had to know if it was you. If my greatest sin was still alive." He looked at Jiko. "When I found you in that caravan, I knew immediately. The way you moved, the way you processed information. You were exactly what I'd created. And instead of walking away, instead of leaving you in peace, I dragged you back into my research. Because I'm weak, and selfish, and I need to know if what I did to you was worth it."
Silence.
Jiko turned this new information over in his mind. The Cartographer was his creator. The man who'd destroyed his capacity for feeling had been traveling with him, studying him, using him. This should provoke a response. Anger, maybe. Betrayal. Horror.
He felt nothing.
"Why tell me now?" Jiko asked.
"Because you deserve to know. And because we're at a crossroads." The Cartographer gestured at the Wastes around them. "If we continue, I'll test you. Push you. Use your abilities to gather data. I'll protect you, teach you, keep you alive. But I'll also treat you like property, because that's what researchers do with their experiments. Or you can leave. Take Marik and Ven if they'll go, find your own path, make your own choices."
"You'd let me go?"
"I should have let you go the day I found you. This is me trying, very late, to do the right thing."
Jiko looked at Marik and Ven. "What do you think?"
Marik spoke first. "He's a bastard. He used you, lied to you, created you as an experiment." He paused. "But he's also the only one who understands what you are. If you want answers, he's the only one who can give them."
Ven nodded. "Leaving sounds good in theory. But the Testimony is hunting you, the Choir wants you dead, and every warlord between here and the coast will try to claim you. You need allies who understand the stakes. The Cartographer is terrible, but he's competent."
Jiko turned back to the old man. "If I stay, what changes?"
"Honesty," the Cartographer said immediately. "No more lies, no more manipulation. I tell you what I'm testing and why. You get to refuse. And if at any point you want to leave, I won't stop you."
"And what do you get?"
"Data. Understanding. And maybe, if I'm very lucky, absolution." The old man's expression was raw. "I ruined your life, Jiko. I took away something fundamental. I need to know if that can ever be justified. If what you are, what you can do, is worth what I destroyed."
Jiko thought about this. He'd been following the Cartographer because it was efficient, because the old man offered resources and knowledge. Learning that he'd been the Cartographer's experiment changed the context but not the practical reality. He was still Jiko. Still blank. Still trying to understand what that meant.
And the Cartographer, for all his sins, was offering something no one else could: answers.
"I'll stay," Jiko said. "On one condition."
"Name it."
"You teach me everything you know about the Severance. Not just about me, but about how the world works now. I want to understand the system completely." Jiko met the old man's eyes. "If I'm going to be a threat to the established order, I should understand what I'm threatening."
The Cartographer stared at him. Then, slowly, he smiled. It was a sad smile, weighted with guilt and relief and something else Jiko couldn't name.
"Deal," he said.
Ven clapped her hands once. "Great. Now that we've had our emotional breakthrough, can we talk about the actual plan? Because we're three weeks from the Forgetting Depths, hunted by the Testimony, and carrying the most valuable blank in the Dominions. I'd like to not die."
"Fair point." The Cartographer pulled out his own map. "The direct route takes us through three territories. First, the Penitent Wastes, which is lawless but navigable. Then the Gilt Meridian, which means dealing with merchant guilds. And finally the Depths themselves, which is Ven's territory."
"The Testimony will expect us to take the direct route," Ven said. "They'll have checkpoints set up, detection grids, patrols. We need to go around."
"Around means through the Wound's border," Marik said. "That's suicide."
"Not through. Along." Ven traced a path on her map. "There's a zone about twenty miles from the Wound where reality is unstable but not lethal. Echoes are common, but the Testimony doesn't patrol it because their equipment malfunctions. If we're careful, we can use it as a highway."
The Cartographer frowned. "The Wound's border is dangerous. Memory storms, virtue cascades, Echo breaches."
"Less dangerous than the Testimony," Ven countered.
"She's right," Jiko said. "Probability of survival is higher if we avoid human hunters."
The Cartographer sighed. "I hate when the blank is right. Fine. We go along the Wound. But we move carefully, and at the first sign of serious instability, we detour back to normal territory."
"Agreed," Ven said. She looked at Jiko. "Fair warning: the Wound is where Echoes are strongest. Your immunity to emotional manipulation might not help if something physical attacks."
"I'll manage."
"Confident." Ven smiled. "I really do like you."
They rested for a few more hours, taking turns on watch while the others slept. Jiko took the first shift, sitting in the shade and watching the Wastes shimmer with heat. His mind worked through the new information.
The Cartographer had created him. Surgically removed his guilt as an infant. Everything he was, everything he lacked, was the result of one man's experiment.
He should feel something about that. Rage, perhaps, or grief for the person he might have been. But there was nothing. Just the same emptiness that had always been there, now with a confirmed origin story.
Was that a loss? He didn't know. Couldn't know. The question assumed he could compare his current state to an alternative, but there was no alternative. There was only what he was.
The Cartographer's guilt was interesting, though. The old man clearly suffered from what he'd done. The weight of it showed in every line of his face, every hesitation in his speech. He'd created Jiko and then spent twenty-seven years running from the consequences.
But Jiko was alive. Functional. Capable. The Cartographer had destroyed his capacity for guilt, but in doing so had created something unique. Something that could survive in this broken world in ways others couldn't.
Was that worth it?
The question felt important, though Jiko didn't know why. He filed it away for future consideration.
When his watch ended, he woke Marik and lay down to sleep. His dreams, such as they were, were empty. No nightmares, no memories, no guilt-fueled visions. Just darkness, peaceful and vast.
He woke to Ven shaking his shoulder.
"We've got a problem," she said.
The sun was setting, painting the Wastes orange and red. In the distance, clearly visible against the dying light, were figures. Three of them, moving with purpose along the highway.
The Cartographer had his spyglass out, a pre-Severance optical device. He was watching the figures intently.
"Testimony?" Marik asked.
"Worse." The old man lowered the glass. "Choir Sanctum. Strike team, by the look of them. Three Saints, probably sent to intercept any blanks fleeing Ember's Rest."
"How did they find us?" Ven demanded.
"They didn't. We're on the main highway, and there are only so many routes out of the settlement. They're probably checking all of them." The Cartographer collapsed his spyglass. "We need to move. Now. If they have detection Shards, they'll sense Jiko once they get close enough."
They gathered their supplies quickly, abandoning the rest stop and heading toward the Waste proper. The ground here was rougher, harder to traverse, but it provided more cover. They moved fast, trying to put distance between themselves and the highway.
Behind them, the three Saints changed direction.
"They've seen us," Marik said.
"Then we run," the Cartographer replied.
They ran.
The Wastes blurred around them, dust and stone and the skeletal remains of the old world. Jiko's lungs burned, his legs ached, but he kept pace. Behind them, he could hear pursuit. The Saints were calling out, their voices layered with harmonics that suggested Shard enhancement.
"Heretic! Stop in the name of the Choir!"
"Not stopping," Ven gasped.
Ahead, the ground began to change. The dust took on strange colors, purple and green swirling in patterns that hurt to look at. The air tasted metallic. And in the distance, barely visible, was a wall of shifting light.
"The Wound's border," the Cartographer said. "We're close."
"That's the plan?" Marik asked, horrified. "We run into the Wound?"
"We run along it. Use the instability for cover." Ven grabbed Marik's arm. "Trust me."
They plunged into the border zone, and reality immediately became negotiable.
The ground was sometimes solid, sometimes not. Colors shifted mid-step. Sounds echoed before they were made. Jiko saw his own shadow split into three, then recombine. Time felt elastic, stretching and compressing randomly.
Behind them, the Saints slowed. Their detection Shards were sparking, failing in the Wound's influence. But they kept coming, driven by faith or duty or fear.
"Stop running," one called. "The Wound will kill you. Surrender, and we promise mercy."
"Mercy is what you use as a weapon," Ven shouted back. "We'll take our chances."
Something moved in the distortion ahead. An Echo, its form constantly shifting between human and something else. It looked at Jiko with eyes that saw too much.
"Hollow one," it whispered. "You've come to the between-place. How fitting."
Jiko didn't stop running. "We're just passing through."
"No one just passes through." The Echo drifted alongside them, keeping pace effortlessly. "The Wound touches all who enter. Changes them. But you..." It reached out, fingers brushing Jiko's shoulder. "You cannot be changed. You're already broken in the best way."
The Saints were gaining ground, their golden Marks glowing in the distorted light. One raised a hand, and virtue shot out like a spear. The attack missed, deflected by a shift in local reality, but it was close.
"They're going to catch us," Marik said.
The Echo laughed. "Not if you let me help."
"What do you want?" the Cartographer demanded.
"To see what happens. The hollow one interests me. I want to watch him grow." The Echo's form stabilized briefly into something almost human. "Give me a memory. Any memory. And I'll hide you from the Saints."
"Don't," the Cartographer said immediately. "Memory trades with Echoes are dangerous. They take more than they say."
"And yet we're out of options." Ven looked at the Echo. "My memory of my first trade. The day I became a broker. Take it."
"Ven, no," Marik started.
"Done." The Echo touched Ven's forehead, and light flowed between them. When it pulled back, Ven stumbled, her expression confused.
"What did I... why are we running?"
"Later." The Echo gestured, and the Wound's distortions intensified around them. Colors inverted, space folded, and suddenly the Saints were running in the wrong direction, confused and disoriented.
"Go," the Echo said. "Before the effect fades."
They went, stumbling through instability until the border zone began to stabilize. When they finally stopped, gasping and exhausted, the Saints were nowhere in sight.
Ven collapsed, holding her head. "What did I lose? I remember being a broker, but not how I started. There's a gap."
"You traded your first trade," Marik said gently. "The memory of how you began."
"Was it important?"
"To you? Very."
Ven laughed bitterly. "Great. Well, at least we're alive."
The Cartographer helped her to her feet. "We need to keep moving. Find stable ground and make camp. The border zone is survivable in short bursts, but prolonged exposure causes permanent damage."
They walked for another hour before finding a relatively stable area. The ground was solid, the air tasted almost normal, and reality behaved mostly predictably. They set up a minimal camp, too exhausted for anything more.
As they settled in for the night, Jiko found himself sitting next to the Cartographer.
"Thank you," the old man said quietly. "For staying. For trusting me despite what I've done."
"I don't trust you," Jiko replied. "But you're useful, and you have answers. That's sufficient."
The Cartographer smiled sadly. "Fair enough."
They sat in silence, watching the Wound's distant light paint the horizon with impossible colors. And somewhere in that light, Syla watched them and planned her next move.
The hollow one was heading deeper into the strange. Soon, very soon, they would meet properly.
And then the real games could begin.