The girl was still alive, and she was still crying and reaching for her mother, even though her mother was no longer there. What kind of inner strength and pain would push a body to this extent? From the smell and the rot, these people should have been killed days ago, but for anyone to survive for this long was either a curse or a miracle.
I knelt beside the girl and slowly shifted the woman who had covered her child, even when she was dead. I used a bit more force than I thought I would, because even in death, there was a stubborn rigidity in the body of the mother that refused to stop defending her baby.
At the moment, it was as if a knife was being stabbed into my heart, as I looked at the girl and gently placed my hand on her head. Her eyes found mine, and I saw the shape of a question in them, a question I could not answer.
"You’re safe now," I whispered, trying to make sure that my voice did not crack; that was not something she would want to see. "I’ll get you out of here."
I felt the girl trying to speak, but no sound came out of her throat. I realized that she barely had any throat left, as someone had slashed across her neck, but somehow ensured they did not touch much of the veins carrying blood to her head... they were torturing the girl to die very slowly.
However, I could see from the shape of her wound that it would eventually lead to her death in the next few minutes if she was not treated.
I could not save her; she had lost too much blood, and the terrible stench of infection was already emerging from her wound. Even with my Endurance and Mortal Shell, I could not fix what was broken inside her, since I could not share these gifts, and my threads were far too potent for mortal flesh.
I slowly lifted the girl, and I held her in my arms, surrounded by my domain, and I pulled the essence around us, shaping it into something that would let her pass without pain. Her eyes found mine in the end, and I tried to give her comfort as she died.
The only spell that was in my head at the moment that may offer even a margin of comfort to the child was Clean, and my fingers moved as I began to gently cast the spell over and over again on her body.
I did not know if it helped. I did not know if she could even feel it anymore. But I kept casting, kept whispering the word, kept holding her as her breath slowed and her eyes grew distant. The smell of blood and infection faded, replaced by something cleaner that had no place in this city of ash and bone.
Even the wounds on her body seemed to be slowly closing up, and extending for several meters around me, the stench and the blood began to slowly vanish. Perhaps if I had been a day earlier, I may have been able to save her, but I was always too late... always too damned late.
My status screen vibrated, but I did not care to even check what I had acquired, as I had my eyes only on the dying girl and the knife in my heart was slowly being twisted.
Her hand, which had been clutching my robe with the desperate strength of a child who had nothing else to hold, went slack... and something inside me broke, and now I no longer held back the tears and my voice,
In the streets of this dead city, I began to cry.
I held her for a long time after she was gone. I did not know how long. Time had stopped meaning anything in this place. But eventually, I laid her down beside her mother, arranging her body gently, as if she were only sleeping.
The surroundings for several meters were now clean, void of blood or the smell of rot and death that pervaded this city, as if it was a small oasis of calm inside a place of madness.
I stood up, and the rage that I had been holding back since the moment I saw the road of bodies settled into me like a cold, hard thing. My tears were gone, and what was left was this... coldness.
I looked at the city, at the bodies, at the blood that still ran in rivers through the streets, and listened to the distant screams that still echoed from somewhere deeper in the ruins.
"Find them, and save who I can," I whispered, and the words were a promise. It was all I could do at this moment, else the coldness in me would consume everything.
I began to move into the city, and quickly discovered that it was not empty. I began to hear sounds that were not the last gasps of the dead. I had discovered that the people still twitching in this puddle of blood were in the same state as that girl, although she had held on longer than they did, since their minds were gone, and only their bodies still fought for the last spark of vitality in their chest.
I heard footsteps in the distance, then voices, the sound of laughter and the clatter of metal accompanied by the crackle of magic. I followed the sounds, keeping to the shadows, my domain wrapped around me like a second skin. I did not want to be seen, at least, not yet. I needed to understand what I was dealing with before I acted.
The sounds led me to a square, and I stopped at the edge of it, hidden in the shadow of a collapsed building.
There were people there, living people, and they were not the victims. It was a group of Conclave mages, perhaps two dozen of them, standing in a loose circle around a group of prisoners.
From their familiar garb, I easily identified these prisoners as Aldenmere Adepts and acolytes, their robes torn and bloodied, their hands bound behind their backs. Some of them were on their knees, others lay on the ground, too injured to rise.
A long spike had been driven into the chest of every Adept here, most likely a sort of seal to stop them from accessing their Anima.
One of the Conclave mages, a tall man with cold eyes and a staff that glowed with dark light, was walking among the prisoners, examining them the way a butcher examines cuts of meat.
"These are the last of them," he said, his voice carrying across the square. "The rest have been dealt with. We have gathered a sizable bunch this time, and our contributions should be nearing the top hundred."
"Oh, that is impressive, Captain, especially when you consider the fact that we were given all the smaller cities. Let us submit this bunch and move towards the Academy; there should be better targets there."
The prisoners stirred at this, and I saw some of them cry out, their voices raw and broken. The Conclave mages laughed, as if the sound of grief was something they had come to enjoy.
I stood in the shadows, and I watched, and I felt the cold thing in my chest grow heavier.
I sighed and stepped out of the shadows.