Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

’An Unclaimed Trace...’

Marek remembered the impossible movement from earlier. "And it can use someone’s shadow?"

"It can appear in whatever form matches what was left behind. In this case, the unfinished consequence was movement. Someone kept trying to finish a rescue that had already ended."

That explained the extra step beneath Rhovan.

It also explained the footsteps.

The shadow was not the dead officer’s spirit wandering the road, nor had it belonged to Rhovan or the Aries Astrant. It was the remnant of an action that had never been allowed to reach the conclusion it should have had.

Seven steps.

Then the eighth.

Always one more.

Marek looked back toward the volunteer. "You said everyone was accounted for. Do you still have the records?"

"The evacuation ledger should still be in the booth."

Rafe had already turned toward the small structure beside the barricade. Silas followed him, and the two returned shortly afterward with a damp notebook whose lower corners had swollen from moisture. Several pages were stained, but the entries from the day of the collapse remained readable.

The volunteer took the ledger and began checking the final group.

There was no need for anyone to turn it into a ceremony. They simply verified what had actually happened.

One family was still nearby and confirmed that all four of its members had made it safely across the damaged section. Another name belonged to an older man who had already been transferred to a different shelter. Several volunteers recognized the remaining entries and confirmed that none of those people had been reported missing.

The shadow continued reaching toward the sealed section, but Marek noticed that the pulling sensation from his gray scale had weakened.

"Find the officer."

The woman turned back several pages until her finger stopped near the bottom.

"William Rivera," she read. "Evacuation officer."

Her expression changed as she continued through the entry.

"Final civilian group successfully transferred. Officer injured during collapse." She swallowed before reading the last notation. "Deceased before medical evacuation."

Beside the painted line, the shadow stopped moving.

Marek’s attention immediately returned to it.

For a brief moment, its distorted shape resembled the outline of someone kneeling over the damaged section, one arm still extended toward an absence that had never contained anyone.

Rhovan stepped closer, although he remained outside the area where the shadow had been repeating itself.

"William Rivera," he said.

His voice was not loud, but the strange pressure around him carried it across the evacuation point.

"The last family crossed. Nobody was left behind in the collapse."

Nothing happened immediately.

Marek waited.

The gray scale remained warm beneath his hand, and the shadow stayed frozen over the pavement. Then, the extended arm slowly lowered.

The shape flattened.

Seven footsteps did not come again. Neither did the eighth one.

A strange pressure that Marek had barely noticed until that moment disappeared from the road, and the metallic smell faded gradually.

The foreign fragment inside his scale reacted sharply once before becoming still.

Marek looked down at his shoulder. ’So that’s the ending it never reached.’

Rhovan seemed to know what he was thinking. "Don’t mistake this for curing Black Errancy."

Marek looked back at the corpse. The thin black defect across the dead man’s Astral Mark was still there. It no longer crawled along the Mark, but it had not disappeared.

"And the piece inside me?"

"Still yours to contain until you find a valid way to release or resolve it."

Marek’s expression soured. "Wonderful."

"You opened the Case."

"Thank you for reminding me."

The answer irritated him, but Marek understood the distinction. They had not erased the contamination. They had only given the abandoned consequence its proper ending, preventing the same route from continuing through the evacuation point.

The Aries Astrant was still contaminated when he died. His corpse remained contaminated now. And Marek had deliberately taken one fragment of the same thing into a scale.

The thought brought him back to the stranger he had killed before.

’Shit.’

If Black Errancy could remain after death, then whoever examined that corpse needed to know exactly what they were dealing with. Marek could only hope someone had been careful enough not to treat an unmoving body as proof that the danger had disappeared.

Rhovan noticed where his attention had gone. "Something else?"

"Later."

Marek was not about to explain another dead body in front of an evacuation point full of civilians.

He turned toward the volunteers instead. "Nobody touches this corpse. Not the Mark, not the black line, and preferably not anything that was in direct contact with it until someone who understands this can examine it."

Rhovan gave him a sideways glance.

"What?"

"Nothing. That was surprisingly sensible of you, oh Dear Ophiarch."

Marek ignored him.

The civilians slowly returned to the damaged barricade, although nobody cheered. The injured father still needed medical attention, several people were crying, and the Aries Astrant’s body remained on the pavement as proof that understanding why something happened did not undo the damage it caused.

Marek preferred the silence.

The man had genuinely believed he was rescuing people. Black Errancy had not reduced him into some mindless creature incapable of thinking. If anything, that made the entire thing worse. He had been able to speak, choose, and act while one wrong conclusion became so absolute that hurting innocent people could still feel necessary.

’A False Answer...’

The phrase finally made sense.

It was not an answer that sounded obviously wrong. It was an answer that had lost the ability to admit when it should stop being right.

Rhovan eventually looked down at his coat. One sleeve had collected dust during the fight.

Marek noticed immediately. "Don’t."

"I haven’t done anything."

"You looked more disturbed by that dust than you did when a dead man’s shadow started walking."

Rhovan carefully brushed the sleeve. "One problem has already been contained. This one is currently on my coat."

Dario stared at him before walking away.

Marek would have laughed if the gray scale beneath his clothes had not reminded him that part of the Black Errancy was still sitting inside his Mark. He looked at the ruined barricade, the injured civilians, and the black defect still across the dead Aries Astrant’s Mark.

"And this can get worse?"

Rhovan stopped brushing the dust from his sleeve. "Much worse."

This was yet another time when Rhovan did not sound amused at all.