Location:Zhū'kethara — Mixed-blood medical quarter
Date/Time:Late Emberrise, 9941 AZI
Realm:Demon Realm
The scream was not pain. Pain sounded different — sharper, with an edge that cut through walls and stone and years of medical training. This sound was deeper. Rounder. The specific frequency of a mother who knew something was wrong before anyone told her.
Ren heard it from the corridor outside the medical quarter and was moving before the echo died.
The mixed-blood medical quarter had been established six months ago — Vaelith's initiative, staffed by a rotation of mixed-blood healers trained in the traditions they'd carried through eight thousand years of exile. They handled births, fevers, bone-sets, the ordinary emergencies of a population that was still learning to trust its new home. They were competent. They were not equipped for this.
