The First Open Wound
War did not announce itself with horns.
It began with absence.
By morning, three districts had gone quiet.
No bells. No messengers. No smoke.
Lumi felt it the moment she woke—the truth stretching outward and finding nothing where voices should have been. The sensation was worse than pain. It was a hollowing.
"They've sealed themselves," Blake said grimly as reports trickled in from runners brave enough to cross the half-lit streets. "Remnant-controlled zones. They're calling it purification."
At twenty-five, Blake recognized the tactic instantly. Cut communication. Control narrative. Force people to choose sides by fear alone.
"They're creating wounds," Lumi whispered. "Places where truth can't reach without tearing something open."
The truth confirmed it, heavy and exact.
They want you to come.
By noon, the first body was carried into the eastern quarter.
A young man. No uniform. No symbol carved into his skin.
Just a message stitched crudely into his coat: LET THE NIGHT HEAL.
The lie sharpened its teeth.
Lumi knelt beside the body, hands trembling as she brushed truth across him.
"He didn't believe them," she said hoarsely. "They killed him because he wouldn't repeat the story."
Blake's jaw flexed. The shadows around him darkened, restless. "Then we don't let this spread quietly."
"No," Lumi agreed. "We go where it hurts."
The western district gates were barricaded by nightfall.
Torches burned low and uneven, shadows warped by fear rather than magic. As Lumi and Blake approached, silence rippled outward—people retreating into doorways, watching with wide, hunted eyes.
A Remnant captain stepped forward, face bare and unashamed.
"You were warned," she said calmly. "The realm is rejecting you."
Truth lashed hard.
She believes violence is medicine.
"The realm doesn't get to heal by bleeding its people dry," Lumi said.
The captain smiled. "Then watch."
A blade flashed.
Blake moved first—faster than thought—shadows exploding outward as steel met steel. The street erupted into chaos. Remnant fighters surged forward, chanting prayers that cracked and twisted under the strain of belief.
Lumi stood her ground.
At twenty-two, she finally understood what it meant to wield truth in war.
She opened herself fully.
Truth tore through the street—not as fire, but as revelation.
Every lie exposed.
Every doubt laid bare.
Fighters faltered mid-strike as memories surfaced—children hidden under beds, friends lost to hunger, the quiet guilt they had buried under doctrine.
Some dropped their weapons.
Others screamed.
The captain lunged anyway.
Blake intercepted her, Dreadsword singing as it drank shadow and momentum alike. The blade cut clean—but did not kill.
He disarmed her and drove her to her knees.
"Look at what you're doing," Blake said coldly.
She laughed through blood. "It's already too late."
The truth agreed.
This was only the first wound.
When the fighting ended, the street was cracked and scorched, bodies scattered—but fewer dead than the Remnant had intended.
The people emerged slowly, shaken and silent.
One woman stepped forward, clutching a child to her chest. "If we follow you," she asked Lumi, voice breaking, "will it get worse?"
Lumi met her gaze.
"Yes," she said. "Before it gets better."
The woman nodded once. "Then tell us what to do."
The truth did not answer.
Leadership was not truth's domain.
Lumi inhaled, feeling the weight settle fully now—not as prophecy, but as choice.
"Help each other," she said. "Don't disappear. Don't let them tell your story for you."
It wasn't a speech.
It was enough.
That night, as fires burned along the edges of the city and stars watched in uneasy silence, Lumi and Blake stood together on the watchhouse roof.
"They won't stop," Blake said quietly.
"No," Lumi replied. "But neither will we."
The truth stirred, somber and unyielding.
War had begun—not for territory or crowns—but for meaning.
And Noctyrrh's first open wound bled under the stars, refusing to close.