The Mercy Argument
Serath Vale did not recruit in secret.
He spoke in courtyards.
In hospitals where the wounded lay groaning beneath thin blankets. In bread lines that stretched too long under dim lanterns. In temples whose gods had gone silent when the curse fell.
He did not raise his voice.
He did not lie.
That was the problem.
Lumi felt his words before she heard them—truth rippling uneasily, bending rather than breaking. Serath never denied reality. He reframed it.
"Truth hurts," he told a gathered crowd in the western quarter, his tone calm, almost kind. "But pain is not inherently virtuous."
People leaned closer.
"At some point," Serath continued, "constant exposure becomes cruelty. You bleed openly and call it healing. I offer an alternative."
Lumi stood at the edge of the crowd, cloak drawn low, Blake beside her, shadows restless around his shoulders.
"He's teaching them to fear you," Blake murmured.
"No," Lumi said quietly. "He's teaching them to fear endlessness."
The truth stirred—uncomfortable.
They are tired.
Serath lifted his hands. "I propose mercy. We do not deny truth—we choose which truths matter now. Which ones can wait. Which ones should never be unearthed at all."
A woman near the front spoke, voice shaking. "My son died because someone told him the guards would protect him. Was that truth worth knowing?"
Serath did not flinch. "No," he said gently. "And you should never have had to carry it."
The truth did not object.
Lumi's breath caught painfully.
This was not denial.
This was triage.
That night, arguments erupted across Noctyrrh.
In homes. In taverns. In whispers between lovers who had already lost too much.
"Why should we suffer just because it's real?"
"Why does truth get to hurt forever?"
Lumi retreated to the watchhouse, hands shaking.
"He's right about one thing," she said softly to Blake. "Truth doesn't rebuild. People do."
Blake watched the city below, jaw tight. "And he wants to decide which people matter enough to protect."
The Dreadsword pulsed faintly—interested.
Lumi noticed.
"You agree with him," she said quietly to the blade.
Mercy through control is still mercy, it replied.
Her stomach twisted.
Later, Lumi stood alone on the roof, stars dim and distant overhead. The truth wrapped around her—not sharp, not clear, but weary.
"What if I'm wrong?" she whispered into the night. "What if they need comfort more than honesty?"
The truth did not reassure her.
It only answered:
Truth does not promise relief. Only reality.
Below her, Noctyrrh murmured—fracturing not along lies anymore, but along philosophies.
And for the first time, Lumi understood the danger of being right in a world that was exhausted.
Because mercy, when offered at the right moment, could feel indistinguishable from salvation.