The Rite of Unwinding was a Sharran ritual designed to create an ever-expanding dead-magic zone by slowly suppressing the Weave (as destroying it would also destroy the Shadow Weave). The disruption to the Weave caused by this ritual reacted violently to users of silver fire, causing them to be hurt badly every moment they spent within the ritual's radius. The closer one got to the source of the ritual, the worse its effects became, with the worst being a dead-magic zone that allowed the Shadow Weave to still function.