A razor-thin whistling sound split the silence of the clinic, descending from the smoke-stained ceiling rafters like a falling icicle.
The projectile was not forged from iron or bronze, completely ignoring the anti-metal wards carved into the stone lintels.
Carved from pure enchanted ceramic, the non-metallic blade glided forward on a whisper of inverted thermal draft.
It did not aim for the fortress guards standing at the door or the captured mercenaries bound in chains.
The weapon tracked the faintest residual trace of amethyst soul-mana, zeroing in on a canvas cot in the corner.
Upon that narrow cot lay five-year-old Mera, her chest held completely motionless by a delicate suspension seal.
A falling roof timber shattered three of her ribs earlier that morning, leaving jagged bone splinters hovering millimeters from her beating heart.
"Do not disrupt the suspension ward!" Vella screamed, her exhausted voice cracking with desperate, raw panic.
