"They searched for compatibility." A weak hand lifted shakily toward the portraits, the silver chains around her wrist catching the torchlight and throwing small reflections across the stone walls. "Most failed." Her breathing hitched audibly. "Some died during shaping." Another pause, longer this time, while her eyes drifted across the painted faces with an expression that might have been mourning. "And some survived long enough to become useful."
Marcus felt something deeply wrong beginning to take shape beneath the information, a pattern that his mind resisted completing because the completion was too monstrous to accept. "Useful for what?"
The woman's eyes slowly closed, not in exhaustion but in dread, as though she had been hoping the question would not be asked. When she answered, her voice came so softly that Marcus almost missed it. "Replacement."
