The wind that blew through the Shattered Crucible now carried the clean, sharp smell of ozone from the eastern horizon.
Across the ruined floor, only two summons remained of the nineteen who had stood at midnight. Above, on his high top stone ledge, Ren-the-Cinder was silent, curled into an impossibly small ball of grey wool. Below, in the center of the nave, Brother Ren remained kneeling on the bare stones, his scarred hands resting lightly upon the rim of his cracked lead purification basin.
The Saint didn’t rise when the Man Who Returned approached.
His bare feet, wrapped in frayed linen strips stiff with old blood, were cold as the floorboards. His burlap habit was torn at the collar. He showed the deep, purple-black rotting seams across his collar bone. Scars left by absorbing the lung-rot of five hundred plague victims in the catacombs of Oakhaven.
The older man stopped two paces before the monk, the jagged gold-silver metal mirror shard held loosely at his knee.
“Brother,” the Man Who Returned said softly. “The Merchant has closed his ledger. It’s time for you to put down the basin.”
Brother Ren looked up. His silver-flecked grey eyes were clear, untroubled by the violence that had shattered the other summons. A faint, gentle smile touched his cracked lips.
