[The First Day of Destruction,][The Inner District — Triage Station Alpha]
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"Hold the pressure. Do not let go, do you hear me?" Lucina's voice was surprisingly steady, though her hands, slick to the wrists in dark blood, betrayed a fine, uncontrollable tremor.
A young militiaman, a boy who looked no older than sixteen, thrashed on the blood-slicked stones of the cathedral plaza. "It burns! Sister, the fog, it's in my veins! It tastes like copper!"
"Breathe through your teeth," she commanded, grabbing a roll of coarse linen from her apron. "Drink this. Slowly."
A frantic older woman kneeling next to him clawed at Lucina's pristine white robes, leaving dark, muddy smears across the holy fabric. "Why isn't the healing magic working? You're priests! Fix him! Bind the flesh!"
"The miasma resists minor miracles," Lucina said, biting the inside of her cheek to keep her tone clinical and even. "I need to bind the physical wound first before I can channel the light. Hold his shoulders down."
We are going to die here. The thought crept into her mind, a cold, venomous serpent coiling tightly around her heart. The sky above Triage Station Alpha was a bruised, sickly emerald, casting a sickening pallor over the dying. The air was suffocating, heavy with the stench of ozone, voided bowels, and roasting meat. She felt a sudden, primal urge to strip off her heavy, blood-soaked vestments, abandon the wounded, and hide in the deep, dark crypts below the cathedral until the screaming stopped.
Faith is not a shield against pain. It is the strength to endure it. Father Vance's stern, familiar voice echoed in her memory, anchoring her to the bloody flagstones. She clenched her jaw, pulling the linen tight and tying off the tourniquet.
She would not run. She was a servant of the Earth God. She was the stone upon which the fearful could rest.
"Sister! Sister, look at me!"
Another woman shoved through the dense throng of groaning bodies, her face a mask of gray ash and wild, rolling eyes. "My husband... he went back to the tannery for our daughter. They haven't come. Do you have the Seeing Eye? Use a scrying spell! Tell me they live!"
Lucina gently reached out and took the woman's trembling hands. Her own fingers felt horribly rough, smelling sharply of antiseptic oil and charred cloth. "I cannot see beyond the plaza walls, mother. My rank does not permit such complex miracles."
"Then what good are you?" the woman wailed, her desperate grief instantly curdling into a sharp, jagged malice.
"The Six see all," Lucina said softly, maintaining unwavering eye contact, trying to be the anchor in the storm. "If they are walking, the Gods guide their steps. If they have fallen, they are cradled in the earth. Their souls are safe."
"That's not an answer!" the woman shrieked, ripping her hands away as if burned. "That's a burial prayer!"
"She's right! It's all empty prayers and holy lies!"
A heavy, slurring voice boomed over the cries of the wounded. A broad-shouldered man, swaying heavily on his feet and clutching a half-empty bottle of cheap plum wine, shoved his way to the front of the triage circle. His clothes were singed, his face twisted in a sneer of pure, terrified rage.
"Look at the grand cathedral!" he spat, gesturing wildly at the magnificent, illuminated stained-glass windows behind Lucina.
"Where are the Cardinals? Where are the High Priests with their grand resurrection spells? Hiding! They left the outer districts to burn!"
A dangerous, low murmur rippled through the gathered refugees. Fear was a cold, paralyzing thing, but anger was warm. Anger gave them a target. Several men stood up from the pavement, their eyes fixing on Lucina's pristine white collar—the symbol of the institution that had seemingly abandoned them to the slaughter.
"The Cardinals are coordinating the defense!" Lucina shouted back, stepping directly between the towering drunkard and the row of helpless, bleeding guardsmen. "They are holding the inner wards!"
"They are saving their own gilded skins!" the drunkard roared, smashing his bottle violently against the flagstones. Shards of dark glass exploded outward, raining over the wounded.
"We are just meat to them! Meat to buy the nobility time! If the Gods won't save us, we'll take what we need from the holy coffers to buy our way out!"
He lunged forward, his heavy, dirt-caked hands reaching like claws for the silver holy symbol hanging around Lucina's neck. Two other men stepped forward with him, the crowd suddenly surging with a collective, mindless malice. Lucina flinched, raising her bloodied forearms to protect her face, a frantic prayer of protection dying on her lips.
CLANG.
A sound like a blacksmith's hammer striking an anvil shattered the rising riot. A massive, gauntleted fist had driven itself cleanly into the stone pillar mere inches from the drunkard's head, violently cracking the ancient masonry.
The crowd froze. The brewing violence evaporated, replaced instantly by awe and a primal, shivering dread.
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