The landscape changed as they traveled. The rocky Wastes gave way to something stranger: a vast expanse of crystallized regret, stretching to the horizon in every direction. The ground here was made of compressed guilt, centuries of accumulated sin turned solid and geometric. It caught the light in unnatural ways, refracting it into colors that shouldn't exist.
"The Dust Sea," Ven said, her voice quiet with something like reverence. "I'd heard stories, but I've never seen it in person."
"What is it?" Devin asked.
The Cartographer knelt, touching the crystalline surface. "When the Severance happened, areas of concentrated guilt solidified. This entire region was probably a city once, millions of people with their sins and regrets. When reality broke, all that guilt crystallized at once. Now it's this."
The crystalline ground extended in all directions, broken occasionally by towers of darker crystal that jutted up like teeth. In the distance, Jiko could see structures, buildings made entirely of solidified guilt, their shapes twisted and wrong.
"Is it safe to cross?" Marik asked.
"Relatively. The guilt is inert, locked in crystal form. As long as you don't break the surface and release it." The Cartographer stood. "Stay on the clear paths. Don't touch the dark crystals. And if you see movement, call out immediately."
They entered the Dust Sea carefully, walking single file along a path that wound between crystal formations. The air here was strange, thick with an atmosphere that made breathing difficult. Jiko noticed the others struggling, but his own breathing remained easy.
"The guilt-density affects the air," the Cartographer explained, seeing Jiko's observation. "Makes it heavy, oppressive. Most people feel crushing anxiety just being here. But you're immune, so it doesn't touch you."
They'd been walking for maybe an hour when Jiko heard it: someone crying. Not the screams of an Echo or the wails of the dead, but genuine human sobbing, desperate and broken.
"Stop," Jiko said.
Everyone froze. The crying continued, coming from somewhere to their left, beyond a cluster of dark crystal towers.
"Echo trick," Ven said immediately. "They mimic human sounds to lure prey."
But Jiko wasn't sure. There was something too authentic about the crying, too raw. "I'll check."
"Bad idea," Marik said.
"I'll be careful." Jiko moved toward the sound before anyone could stop him, navigating between the crystal formations.
He found her in a small clearing surrounded by guilt-crystal walls. A young woman, maybe Ven's age, huddled against a formation and sobbing into her hands. Her clothes were shredded, her skin covered in cuts, and she was missing her right shoe. But what caught Jiko's attention were her arms: completely unmarked. No Marks at all. Another blank.
"Hello," Jiko said.
The woman's head snapped up, eyes wide with terror. Then confusion. "You're... you're real. Not a memory echo?"
"Real. My name is Jiko. Are you hurt?"
"I'm lost." She laughed, but it was edged with hysteria. "I've been lost for two days. I thought I could cross the Dust Sea, find the old trade route on the other side. But I got turned around and now I can't find my way out and the crystals, they show me things. Memories that aren't mine. Guilt that isn't mine. Except I can't feel it because I'm blank and that makes it worse somehow, seeing it without feeling it..."
She was rambling, dehydrated and panicked. Jiko approached slowly. "Come with me. My group has water and supplies. We can help you."
"Your group? There are more of you?"
"Yes. We're traveling to the Forgetting Depths."
The woman's expression shifted to hope so intense it was painful to see. "Take me with you. Please. I'll do anything. I have skills, I can trade, I can work, just please don't leave me here."
"Can you walk?"
She struggled to her feet, wincing. Her feet were torn up, bloody from walking on the sharp crystal without proper shoes. Jiko moved to support her, and she flinched at the contact before accepting it.
"What's your name?" Jiko asked as they moved back toward the others.
"Lyra. I've been alone since I escaped from a merchant caravan three weeks ago. They were going to sell me to the Iron Testimony. I ran." She looked at him. "You're blank too. I can tell. The way you move, like you're not weighed down."
"I don't feel guilt."
"Neither do I. And everyone hates us for it, don't they? Like we chose this. Like we're monsters for not feeling what we can't feel." Lyra's voice cracked. "Are we monsters?"
"I don't know," Jiko said honestly.
They emerged from the crystal formations to find the others waiting tensely, weapons ready. Everyone relaxed when they saw it was Jiko, then tensed again when they saw Lyra.
"Another blank?" the Cartographer said, surprise evident. "That's... statistically improbable."
"She was lost," Jiko said. "She needs help."
Lyra was staring at the group with desperate hope. "Please. I won't be trouble. I can carry things, I can work, I just need to get out of the Wastes. Please."
Ven stepped forward, her expression cautious. "How do we know you're not a trap? Testimony bait, maybe, planted here to lure other blanks?"
"I'm not. I swear. I escaped from them, I'd never work for them." Lyra's voice rose. "Why would I fake being lost? Why would I hurt myself like this?" She lifted her bloody feet as evidence.
The Cartographer examined her with his clinical detachment. "She's genuinely injured. And her story is plausible. The Testimony does capture blanks for study." He looked at Jiko. "Your call. You found her."
Everyone turned to Jiko. It was strange, being deferred to like this. As if his opinion mattered more because he'd found Lyra, or because she was like him.
He examined the variables. Lyra could be a trap, but that seemed inefficient. If the Testimony wanted to ambush them, there were easier methods. She was injured and desperate, which made her a liability. But she was also another blank, which meant she might understand things about Jiko that others couldn't.
"She comes with us," Jiko decided. "At least until she's recovered enough to survive on her own."
Lyra's relief was almost physical. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
Ven shared her water while Devin tended to Lyra's feet with bandages from his pack. Marik gave her his spare pair of boots, which were too large but better than nothing. And the Cartographer watched it all with an expression Jiko couldn't quite read.
"Two blanks," the old man murmured. "Together. This is unprecedented."
They continued across the Dust Sea, now six instead of five. Lyra walked close to Jiko, as if proximity to another blank provided comfort.
"Can I ask you something?" she said after a while.
"Yes."
"Do you ever feel like you're missing something? Not guilt specifically, but just... something. Like there's supposed to be more to being alive and you can't access it."
Jiko considered. "No. I don't know what I'm missing, so I don't miss it."
"Lucky." Lyra looked at her hands. "I remember having parents, though I can't remember their faces anymore. Sold those memories for food years ago. But I remember feeling loved, I think. Or maybe I just remember the concept of feeling loved. It's hard to tell what's real memory and what's just knowledge about what should have been there."
"Does it matter?"
"Probably not. But sometimes I think about it. Wonder what it would be like to care about someone. To miss them when they're gone. To feel anything more than mild preference or inconvenience." She looked at him. "Do you ever wonder?"
"No."
"That's what I thought." Lyra smiled sadly. "You're more consistent than me. I can't feel, but I remember feeling, so I'm stuck in between. You've never felt at all, so you don't have that conflict. I almost envy you."
The conversation disturbed Jiko in a way he couldn't articulate. Lyra was like him, blank and unmarked. But she seemed more troubled by it, more aware of what was missing. Did that make her more human or less?
They'd been walking for hours when the first attack came.
It started with sound: a low rumbling that vibrated through the crystal ground. Everyone stopped, looking around for the source.
"There," Marik pointed.
In the distance, moving fast, were shapes. At first Jiko thought they were human, but as they got closer the wrongness became apparent. They were made of guilt-crystal, animated somehow, human-shaped but transparent and sharp. Their movements were jerky, aggressive, and they were heading straight for the group.
"Crystal shades," the Cartographer said. "Guilt given physical form. They're attracted to living people, try to absorb their moral weight."
"How do we fight them?" Devin asked.
"You don't. They're insubstantial to weapons but solid to flesh. They'll pass through blades but tear you apart on contact." The old man looked around quickly. "We run. Find high ground and wait them out. They're not smart, just persistent."
They ran. The crystal formations made navigation difficult, forcing them to wind through narrow passages and around sharp corners. Behind them, the shades followed, their crystal bodies scraping against the walls with sounds like breaking glass.
"This way," Ven called, spotting a slope that led upward to a platform of solid crystal.
They scrambled up, pulling Lyra after them. The shades reached the base of the slope and tried to follow, but their crystalline bodies couldn't manage the climb. They milled around below, reaching up with transparent hands, making sounds that were almost but not quite human screams.
"How long do we wait?" Marik asked, breathing hard.
"Until they lose interest. Could be minutes, could be hours." The Cartographer was checking his pack, making sure nothing was damaged. "As long as we stay up here, we're safe."
But one of the shades had stopped at the base of the slope and was looking directly at Jiko. Not at the group, specifically at Jiko. It tilted its head, the gesture eerily human despite its crystal form.
Then it spoke.
"Hollow one." The voice was made of broken glass and wind. "We know you. Carrier of guilt without guilt. Container without conscience."
Everyone went very still.
"It can talk," Ven whispered.
"They're not supposed to be able to talk," the Cartographer said.
The shade ignored them, its attention fixed on Jiko. "You carry so much. So many sins, compressed into your emptiness. We can sense them. Taste them. Two hundred and sixty pieces of guilt, stored and inert."
"How does it know that?" Devin hissed.
"Let us take them," the shade continued. "Let us absorb what you hold. Release the guilt into us. We are built to hold it, crystallized permanence. You are just flesh, temporary and fragile."
"Don't listen to it," the Cartographer said. "It's trying to manipulate you."
But Jiko was curious. "What happens if I release the guilt?"
"Then it becomes ours. Part of us. And you become empty again. Truly empty, as you were meant to be." The shade moved closer to the slope's base. "You were not designed to carry weight. You were designed to be free of it. We are offering freedom."
"It's lying," Lyra said suddenly. "I've heard of crystal shades. They consume moral weight and grow stronger. If you give it that much guilt, it'll become powerful enough to break free of the Dust Sea. It could threaten settlements, kill people."
The shade's attention shifted to Lyra. "Another hollow one. But different. You remember feeling. That makes you incomplete." It turned back to Jiko. "This one is pure. No memories of emotion, no longing for connection. Perfect emptiness. That is rare. Valuable."
"Why do you care about valuable?" Jiko asked.
"Because we were people once. Before the Severance crystallized us, locked us in guilt forever. We remember being human. We remember wanting things." The shade's voice carried something that might have been sadness. "You could free us. Release enough guilt and we could reconstitute, become flesh again. We would owe you everything."
"It's lying," the Cartographer said firmly. "Crystal shades can't become human again. That's impossible."
"Is it?" the shade asked. "Many things were impossible before the Severance. The rules changed. Why not this?"
Jiko thought about it. The shade wanted the guilt he carried. In exchange, it offered nothing but claims that might be lies. The rational choice was to refuse.
But there was something in the shade's voice, in the way it spoke of being human, that made Jiko pause. Was there a person trapped in there? Someone who'd been transformed by the Severance and wanted to return?
He'd never know for certain. Which meant he had to choose based on incomplete information.
"No," Jiko said. "I'm keeping the guilt."
"Why?" the shade demanded. "It does nothing for you. You don't feel it, can't be changed by it. Why hold it?"
"Because others gave it to me. Marik, Devin. They trusted me to take it. Returning it to the world, even in crystallized form, would break that trust."
"You can't feel trust. You're hollow."
"I don't feel it. But I understand it. And I understand that breaking trust has consequences." Jiko looked at the shade's featureless crystal face. "You want to be human again? Then understand this: humans keep their promises, even when it's inconvenient. If I gave you the guilt, I'd be breaking mine."
The shade was silent for a long moment. Then it laughed, the sound like wind through broken glass. "You're learning. The hollow one is learning morality without feeling. How amusing. How tragic." It stepped back from the slope. "Very well. Keep your guilt. Carry your burden. But know this: the weight you hold will attract worse things than us. Things that hunger for concentrated sin. You've made yourself a target."
"I'm already a target," Jiko said.
"True. But now you're a valuable target. That's different." The shade turned to leave, then paused. "One more thing, hollow one. The girl who travels with you, the other blank. She lies. Not about being lost, that was true. But about why she was running. The Testimony wasn't trying to capture her. She was working for them. Until she decided she wasn't."
Lyra went pale. "That's not true."
"Isn't it?" The shade's laugh echoed as it melted back into the crystal landscape, the other shades following. "Ask her about the mission. Ask her how many blanks she helped them capture. Ask her why they trusted her to roam free."
Then they were gone, leaving only silence.
Everyone turned to look at Lyra. She was shaking, her unmarked hands clenched into fists.
"Is it true?" Ven asked quietly.
Lyra's face crumpled. "I didn't have a choice. They found me five years ago, said I could work for them or die. I chose life. I helped them track other blanks, acted as bait." She looked at Jiko. "But three weeks ago they wanted me to lure a family into a trap. Parents and their blank daughter, just trying to survive. And I couldn't do it. I warned them instead, told them to run. That's when the Testimony turned on me. That's what I was running from."
"So you did work for them," Marik said.
"Yes. And I did terrible things. I helped capture blanks who did nothing wrong except exist differently." Lyra's voice broke. "I don't feel guilt about it. I can't. But I know it was wrong. I know I hurt people. And I decided I'd rather die than keep doing it."
The Cartographer was watching her with clinical interest. "That's remarkable. You made a moral choice without moral feeling. You intellectually understood wrongness and acted against your self-interest to stop it."
"Does that matter?" Lyra asked. "Does knowing it's wrong count for anything if I don't feel bad about it?"
"I don't know," the Cartographer said. "But it's something."
Ven looked at Jiko. "Your call. She lied by omission. She helped the Testimony hunt people like you. Do we still help her, or do we leave her here?"
Jiko thought about it. Lyra had deceived them, but not maliciously. She'd been trying to survive, then made a choice to stop hurting others even at personal cost. That was morality, even without moral feeling.
"She stays," Jiko said. "She chose to stop. That's more than most people manage."
Lyra looked at him with something like gratitude. "Thank you. I don't deserve kindness from you."
"It's not kindness. It's practicality. You know how the Testimony operates. That information is valuable."
"Ever the pragmatist," the Cartographer murmured.
They waited another hour before descending, making sure the shades were truly gone. As they continued across the Dust Sea, Lyra walked beside Jiko again, but the dynamic had changed.
"The shade was right about one thing," Lyra said. "You're learning. Learning to be moral without feeling morality. I've never met another blank who could do that. Most of us are either cruel or catatonic. But you're building something different."
"Is it sufficient?" Jiko asked.
"I don't know. But it's more than I've managed." She looked ahead at the group, at Marik helping Ven navigate rough terrain, at Devin and the Cartographer discussing the route. "They care about each other. You can see it in how they move, how they talk. And you're part of that, even if you don't feel it."
"I don't understand what that means."
"Neither do I. But I think that's our tragedy. We can see connection, understand it intellectually, but never experience it." Lyra smiled sadly. "We're ghosts, Jiko. Walking through a world of feeling and touching none of it."
Jiko didn't respond. But later, as they made camp at the Dust Sea's edge and the others shared stories around a small fire, he found himself watching them with something that wasn't quite curiosity and wasn't quite longing.
He couldn't feel what they felt. But he could see it mattered to them.
And maybe, in some way he didn't fully understand, that was beginning to matter to him.
The Cartographer noticed his attention and smiled, making another note in his ever-present journal.
The experiment, it seemed, was progressing well.