The damage was classified as contained.
That was the word used in the initial report, filed less than an hour after the demonstration hall was cleared. Contained meant there had been no uncontrolled spread, no structural failure, no exposure requiring public notice.
It did not mean unharmed.
The medical wing occupied the lowest level of the fort, where thick stone kept the temperature steady and layered wards dampened lingering resonance. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and scorched metal, with an underlying sweetness that made the handler's stomach tighten the moment they stepped inside.
Three cots stood in a row, separated by folding screens that offered privacy without dignity.
The first practitioner lay motionless, eyes open but unfocused. His chest rose and fell unevenly, each breath shallow and wet. A medic stood at his side, adjusting a stabilizer at his wrist with practiced efficiency.
His anchor rested on a tray nearby.
It had split clean through the central etching.
Light leaked from the fracture in irregular pulses, like a heartbeat struggling to find rhythm.
"Cognitive disruption," the medic said without looking up. Her voice was calm, but tired in a way that suggested long familiarity with this outcome. "Short-term memory loss. Long-term… we'll know more once the swelling subsides."
An overseer standing nearby folded his arms. "When can he cast again?"
The medic paused, then looked up at him.
"Should he?" she asked.
The overseer did not answer.
Behind the next screen, the second practitioner sat upright, wrapped in thermal cloths. Her shoulders were rigid, her jaw clenched. Her hands rested on her thighs, trembling despite her effort to still them.
The skin across her fingers was mottled, blistered where frostbite had taken hold beneath the surface.
The handler felt a slow chill creep up their spine.
"Thermal exposure?" they asked quietly.
"Indirect," the medic replied. "Radiant feedback. Flash extraction."
"There was no open flame," the handler said.
"There doesn't need to be," the medic replied. "Heat doesn't care why it exists."
The woman coughed dry and sharp. When she inhaled again, it was shallow, as if her lungs no longer trusted the air.
"She'll live," the medic added. "But not unchanged."
The third cot was empty.
"Transferred," the medic said before being asked. "Cardiac event. Ground conduction."
The handler swallowed. "From the array?"
"From the correction," she replied. "Residual discharge. Barely measurable."
"Barely," the handler echoed.
The medic wiped her hands on a cloth already stained too dark to be clean. "Lightning doesn't need much."
By the afternoon, the language had softened.
The cardiac death became a preexisting vulnerability.The neurological damage was recorded as transient instability.The frostbite was reduced to peripheral impairment.
No one falsified anything outright.
They chose the least alarming words available.
In a side corridor, a junior ward engineer sat on the floor with his back against the wall, breathing slowly. His hands shook as he stared at them, as though they no longer belonged to him.
"I didn't cast anything," he said when a supervisor stopped beside him.
"I know," the supervisor replied.
"My hands won't stop shaking."
The supervisor glanced toward the medical wing, then back at him. "Go," they said quietly. "Before someone writes that down."
The engineer nodded and pushed himself to his feet, legs unsteady.
That evening, the handler returned to Aurel's room.
The silver line still gleamed faintly in the stone. The wards hummed at a slightly higher pitch than before, straining to maintain balance.
Aurel sat on the bed, counting his breaths.
He looked up when the handler entered.
"Did I do something wrong?" he asked.
The question landed heavier than the day's reports.
"No," the handler said immediately. "You didn't do anything."
Aurel considered that, then nodded. His shoulders relaxed only slightly.
After a moment, he spoke again. "Someone got hurt."
It was not a question.
"Yes," the handler said.
Aurel's fingers tightened once in the blanket, then loosened again. "I don't want that."
"I know," the handler replied.
They did not add anything else. Silence felt safer than reassurance.
Later that night, a sealed report circulated among senior staff.
It contained no images. No descriptions. Only data.
At the bottom, a single recommendation appeared:
Future demonstrations to be limited.Resource expenditure disproportionate to outcome.
The file was approved without comment.
No one suggested escalation.
Everyone understood how close the margins had been.
Aurel lay awake long after the lights dimmed, listening to the hum of the wards. He counted his breaths until the numbers blurred.
Somewhere deep in the fort, a stabilizing ward failed and corrected itself.
No alarm sounded.
The system held.
This time.