The air in the lower corridors of the Crimson Bastion was heavy, thick with something unseen, something old, something that did not wish to be disturbed.
It was not just the silence that made it suffocating, but the way the shadows clung to the walls, curling into shapes that did.
Astara Noctis walked the path with the patience of a hunter, the certainty of a blade.
The corridors here were narrow and winding, deliberately disorienting, a maze of iron and obsidian where time seemed slower, stretched thin by the weight of forgotten things. The magitech lanterns mounted along the walls flickered with a weak, violet glow, their light distorted.
She had walked these halls more times than she could count.
And yet, they always felt different.
Perhaps it was the way the floor felt uneven beneath her boots, as if something beneath the stone had shifted in the night. Perhaps it was how the doors she passed, tall, black, unmarked, seemed to whisper as she moved past them.
Most of them led nowhere.
Others led to places worse than death.
But she was not afraid.
Fear had been trained out of her long ago.
She reached the final passage, where two enforcers stood motionless before the entrance to the Seat of Execution. Their armor was obsidian-polished, their visors blank and featureless, reflecting only the dim glow of the lanterns above.
They did not speak. They did not move.
They knew better than to stand in her way.
Astara raised a single hand, and with the mere flick of her wrist, the massive iron doors opened, groaning. The sound reverberated through the stone like the bones of the Bastion itself shifting awake.
Beyond the threshold, darkness waited.
And Astara stepped inside.
The chamber swallowed sound.
It was vast, but there was no echo.
No reverberation of footsteps, no whisper of breath. Even the dim candlelight barely flickered, as if it, too, had learned obedience in this place.
The walls were lined with shelves of scrolls and ledgers, each sealed with wax sigils, untouched by dust or time.
These were the records of those who no longer existed.
Those whom the Dominion had erased.
The Crimson Bastion was not just a fortress, it was a machine of silence, a place where names went to die. The Dominion did not have the power to rewrite history, but they wielded something just as terrifying: the ability to remove a person from memory, records, and existence itself.
Erasure was not magic. It was not a divine act. It was a system, perfected over centuries, enforced with ruthless efficiency.
The process begins when the High Executor, Campion Rizger, inscribes the name into the Book of Severance. This ledger, bound in blackened iron, did not contain spells, only records. But once a name was written inside, the process was irreversible.
At that moment, the person was marked.
They were no longer protected by law. No longer a citizen. No longer anyone.
Every official document bearing their name was destroyed. Government archives were rewritten to exclude them. Identification records were burned. Financial holdings vanished overnight. Any assets, properties, or ledgers listing them were erased.
Personal documents were confiscated. If there was a birth certificate, a contract, or even a letter bearing their name, it disappeared.
For those who lived within the Dominion's walls, paper was truth.
And if the records said you do not exist, you simply didn't.
Erasure was not instant. It was a process, and in the time it took for their identity to be wiped away, the condemned may try to run.
The Dominion's informants, the Watchers, the Grey Cloaks, the Hollow Choir, begun their work:
Witnesses were questioned, then silenced.
Friends and family were taken in for "re-education."
If someone refused to forget the erased, they soon disappeared themselves.
It was not that people could not remember the erased. It was that remembering was dangerous.
So they forgot. Or pretended to.
Which, in the end, was the same thing.
A person may still exist physically, but once the erasure begins, they are already a ghost.
The final step is the Hunt.
If they are not captured, an executioner is sent—a Veilborn assassin, an Umbral Blade, or, in the most severe cases, Astara Noctis herself or in some cases, someone like Lucian.
By the time the body is disposed of, there will be no name left to attach to it. There will be no grave, no funeral, no mourning. Their home will be sealed, resold, or burned to the ground. Their existence will be a rumor, then a shadow, then nothing at all.
At the far end of the chamber, beneath the looming presence of an obsidian monolith carved from the remains of an empire that had once challenged the Dominion and failed, sat Campion Rizger.
He did not look up immediately.
Instead, he finished writing something in one of the ledgers, the black ink gliding across the parchment in perfect, practiced strokes.
The only movement in the room was the slow dip of his quill.
A final stroke. A signature.
Only then did he lift his head, his gaze as cold and weightless as the void itself.
Astara did not bow. She never had to. She stopped a few paces from his desk, her hands at her sides—not resting, not idle, but ready.
Waiting.
Campion set the quill down with a soft, deliberate sound, a sound that carried finality.
"There is a name," he said, his voice smooth, deliberate, undeniable.
Astara remained silent.
Campion exhaled slowly, as if considering his next words carefully.
Then, softly,
"Lucian Vance. Erase him."
The name settled in the air between them, sinking into the walls, into the very foundations of the Bastion.
Astara tilted her head, just slightly.
She had expected this.
Lucian Vance, mercenary, traitor, problem. A man who should have been like all the others, loyal to the coin, blind to the truth.
Instead, he had hesitated. And because of that, he would cease to be.
Astara's fingers twitched toward the twin daggers at her belt—Midnight and Mercy.
A silent oath. A promise made in steel.
Her voice was quiet, unshaken, final.
"As you command."
Campion held her gaze for a moment longer, as if ensuring that the words had been understood.
Then, without another word, he turned back to his ledger, dipping his quill into the inkwell.
The conversation was over.
Astara turned on her heel, striding toward the door.
Lucian Vance's name has just been given to the Book of Severance and he must be erased. Erasure is not instant.
It is slow. It is deliberate. It is cruel.
Even as a person breathes, they are being unraveled, piece by piece.
First, the world stops acknowledging them.
Then, the people who knew them forget.
And finally, they cease to be.
It is not magic. It is not fate.
It is power, wielded with the precision of a blade.
----
Astara emerged into the open night, stepping onto the high walkways of the Bastion, where only the executioners walked.
The city sprawled below her, a maze of twisting alleys and towering spires, built over the bones of those who had come before.
From this height, it seemed almost lifeless.
A city built on obedience. A city built on silence.
Astara pulled her gloves tighter, her breath curling in the cold air.
Somewhere below, Lucian Vance was breathing borrowed time.
She would find him.
And when she did, there would be nothing left of him but an empty space where a name once was.
She smiled slightly to herself, adjusting the leather straps on her wrist.
It had been too long since she had hunted something worthy.
The rooftops stretched endlessly before her.
She took a step forward and vanished into the night.
The hunt had begun.
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