Shadow of the Returned Chapter 4: The Price of Silence
The fires burned until morning.
The wind dragged smoke across the plain, heavy and bitter with iron. Nothing of the Watch remained except their masks, a dozen black faces staring sightless at the sky.
Mira stood among them while the camp buried its dead. The work was quiet. No one spoke to Ashen. No one looked at him for long. When they did, their eyes slid away, as if afraid that even sight might draw his shadow closer.
He helped anyway, digging until his hands bled. Every shovel of earth felt like penance and not enough. The bodies were light—too light. The Nightmare left nothing to rot.
When the last mound was done, Mira set a small lantern on top. Its flame flickered, struggling against the wind.
“Don’t you say prayers?” she asked the man beside her, a farmer with soot on his face.
He spat into the dirt. “Not for them. Not for him.”
Mira looked toward Ashen, who stood a little apart, head bowed. “He saved what’s left of us.”
The farmer’s jaw clenched. “Saved or cursed—it’s the same cost.” He walked away before she could answer.
She stayed there, watching Ashen’s shadow shift against the soil. It moved slower than before, but it still moved. Always alive, always hungry.
When the sun reached its highest point, a new sound came across the wasteland—a low hum that made the ground tremble.
Mira turned west.
On the horizon, a convoy crawled toward them: black vehicles armored like insects, their wheels kicking up plumes of dust. The Dominion.
Someone in the camp began to cry.
Ashen came to stand beside her. “They’ll smell blood before they see it.”
“They’ll see everything.”
He nodded. “Then I’ll go.”
“You won’t make it far. They’ll track you.”
“I can draw them off.”
She turned to him. “And when they catch you?”
He didn’t answer. His silence was reason enough.
Mira thought of the Watch soldiers swallowed by his power, of the scream that hadn’t been a scream, and of the shadow that had almost devoured her when he lost control. She thought of the people behind her—scared, starving, trying to pretend the world hadn’t already ended.
She stepped in front of him. “If they find out what you did, they’ll burn the whole camp to the ground. They won’t risk contamination.”
“I know.”
“Then let me talk to them.”
He looked at her, uncertain. “You’d lie for me?”
“I’d survive for them.”
The convoy stopped a hundred paces away. Dust rolled over the camp, thick as fog. Doors opened. The Dominion emerged—eight soldiers in dark exosuits, masks humming with the same mechanical breath he remembered. Behind them came a man in a white coat, hands gloved, face bare.
He didn’t look like a soldier. He looked like someone used to ordering them.
“Step forward,” the man called, voice even, almost kind. “By decree of the Dominion, this zone is under quarantine.”
Mira stepped forward before anyone else could. “We’ve already contained it. The breach was handled.”
The man’s eyes flicked over the camp, then to the fresh earth behind her. “I see the cost of your containment.”
“There was no other way.”
“And the Returned?”
Mira hesitated.
Ashen stood in the shadow of a tent, hood drawn low, face unreadable. The soldiers had already noticed him; weapons shifted slightly in his direction, a subtle tightening of grips.
The man in white smiled without warmth. “You’ve been very lucky. Few survive a breach of this scale.”
Mira met his gaze. “Luck had nothing to do with it.”
He studied her, then the people behind her, then finally the disturbed ground at her feet. “We’ll need to examine the site. And all witnesses.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
He gestured to two of the soldiers. “Search for anomalies. Energy traces, shadow residue, anything that breathes wrong.”
They moved toward the wall.
Mira’s heart thudded. Every step they took brought them closer to where Ashen’s power had scorched the earth black. She had seen the marks; they pulsed faintly even now, like bruises on the world.
The man in white turned back to her. “What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t.”
He smiled again. “Then say it.”
“Mira Solen.”
He considered it, as if weighing the name. “I’m Doctor Kael. Dominion Recovery Division. I appreciate your cooperation.”
His politeness was a blade without a handle.
The soldiers reached the far side of the wall. One of them knelt, running a scanner over the ground. A tone sounded—sharp, rising.
Kael’s head tilted. “Residual signature. Shadow frequency, high density. A Returned was here.”
The camp tensed.
Mira felt every pair of eyes turn to her. Some pleading, some accusing.
Kael stepped closer. “Where is he?”
The silence stretched.
She could feel Ashen watching her from the tent’s shadow. She could feel the weight of the decision pressing down like a hand on her throat. If she spoke, they would kill him. If she lied, they might kill everyone.
Mira took a slow breath. “He’s dead.”
Kael blinked. “Explain.”
“He stopped the breach. The energy burned him out. What’s left is under the wall.” She gestured toward the blackened soil. “You’ll find residue, not a body.”
Kael studied her face for a long time. “How convenient.”
“Nothing about this is convenient.”
He looked toward the wall again, then back at her. “Show me.”
She walked ahead of him, leading the way to the place where the shadow had first torn loose. The ground there still shimmered faintly, a thin mist rising from it.
Kael crouched, brushing a gloved finger through the dirt. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“It’s not residue. It’s alive.”
He stood, his eyes colder now. “Whatever was here isn’t gone.”
Before she could answer, one of the soldiers shouted. “Sir! Movement—east ridge!”
Kael’s head snapped up.
Ashen was already gone.
Mira turned in time to see him moving through the far tents, his cloak dragging a trail of dust. He didn’t run. He simply walked into the rising wind, and with each step, his shadow grew longer.
Kael barked an order. “Stop him!”
The Dominion raised their rifles.
The first volley lit the camp white.
Ashen turned once, eyes catching the sun. The bullets never reached him. They curved away, drawn into a darkness that wasn’t his shadow anymore—it was the world itself bending, like paper catching fire.
Then he vanished into the haze beyond the wall.
Kael lowered his weapon slowly. “So he lives.”
Mira said nothing.
Kael looked at her, something almost like admiration crossing his face. “You lied well. I’ll remember that.”
He turned to his soldiers. “Seal the camp. No one leaves until I have him.”
When they were gone, Mira stood alone at the edge of the wall, staring into the mist where Ashen had disappeared.
She wanted to be angry. She wanted to call him a fool for saving them, for making her part of his secret. But all she felt was fear—fear for him, and for the truth she had just helped bury.
Because Kael was right. The shadow wasn’t gone.
It was growing.
And somewhere beyond the wall, the man she had chosen to protect was feeding it.
