Historians cannot agree on which side was most responsible for the war. Many claim that there was irrefutable proof that Gausland’s spies leaked the Pzekia Prime Minister’s schedule, leading to the numerous attempts on her life on that day. Certainly, the Pzekia government seemed to agree, as the already strained tensions between those two countries quickly intensified. Others claim that the simultaneous Pzekian alcohol tariffs and Pzekian demands for cheaper Gausland grain imports were a clear sign of aggression. Gausland’s immediate economic recession had a clear target to blame. 

What all historians agree on, was that the war wreaked the most havoc on the border villages.

-Cardinal Drefrick’s Prophecy, Found in Collections of the Pin Dynasty, Written in 244

—

Anna picked through the remains of the collapsed structure. It was impossible to tell from the charred frame what its shape originally was, but the shards of pottery and furniture gave her a clear enough idea. The sunken dull gray bricks, despite being softer from the morning drizzle soaking their coarse texture, still ran her fingers raw as she lifted them, searching for any covered basement doors. It didn’t take long for a particularly jagged block to slice her palm, putting an end to her work. A curse slipped between her lips. It wouldn’t sit well with her if she couldn’t rescue survivors because her hands tore themselves apart. The sun was still nowhere near its highest point, so the work was nowhere near finished.

She tried to calm her rising anxiety by rinsing and applying salve to her wound. The soothing sensation of the herbal mix tingled and masked the stinging, which was a good start. Unfortunately, the salve wouldn’t work properly unless she let it thoroughly soak, and every passing second lowered the survival rates of any survivors. 

Well, now’s as good of a time as any to try this. If I pass out from the pain, I’ve got to wait for the salve anyways. Just breathe… 

The teenage girl concentrated hard, dragging her inner energy to her eyes in an attempt to reveal the normally invisible trails of Aether that painted the world. An unnatural pressure began to build on her temples, and she pulled out her pocket mirror to check herself. Her normally clear blue eyes were stained by the dark red mud of her Mana Blessing. Even through the mirror, she could see the thick crimson aura that poured off her silhouette, suffocating the Aether Currents around her. She felt like if she blinked, thick streams of blood would begin flowing down, resurfacing her earliest memories of —.

Anna snapped herself out of the thoughts and returned the mirror to its place on her belt. It was a rare success, and her time was going to be very limited. Her father didn’t have time to explain the nuances of reading Aether, so Anna relied on her gut to tell her if something seemed promising. The gossips of the village were always happy to loudly discuss how unnatural and uncanny the Mana Blessed were, especially when Anna happened to be running errands nearby. 

If there were ever a truthful statement for the gossips, Anna ruefully thought, hopefully it’s the Mana Blessed being instinctively attuned to the inhumane world.

She scanned the rubble around her, attempting to make sense of the unfamiliar streams of Aether that were now hers to observe. The colors didn’t feel like what she was looking for. There were gentle swathes of pastel blue and green that curled all around. Closer to the ground, rougher strokes of darker green and brown intertwined themselves with the soft colors. Some splotches of faint red ominously hung at body level, mainly lingering where Anna presumed the doorways used to be.

Anna grimaced and took a step back, attempting to squint through the turquoise canvas that shrouded the rest of the wreckage along the street. It was mainly more of the same muddled blue, green, and brown, but the dotted trail of red painted a clear story through the streets. She followed the trail, making sure to thoroughly examine the detours that the red made into any rubble. It wasn’t until her head felt it was going to pop that she finally found a different thread of color. Specifically, a faint swirl of orange peeking out from a large mound of bricks, possibly from the walls caving inwards. She plucked the communicator from its pouch, feeling the slight drain of Mana as it powered itself on. 

“Pa, I saw an irregular orange Aether source under a pile of rubble. There may be people trapped in a blocked cellar. Agh! I think the location is around Street F Sector 7.”

A flash of sharp pain shot through from temple to temple, and the colors faded from her world. Tears flooded her eyes from the sudden intensity. 

“Good job Anna. I assume you just got hit with Aethersight backlash since you activated the communicator. Don’t use Aethersight again today, your eyes will always be more important than your hands – even during times like these.” 

After a short wait, her father trotted over, the heavy eyebags obvious in the bright sunlight. His intense gaze analyzed Anna’s offered observation, before he turned towards a large group of other rescuers roaming the area. 

“Everyone who is available, I need an extraction team here at District E-2, Site F-7. Volunteer Anna has found evidence of Aether fluctuations, so there may be survivors. Anyone with idle hands and a strong body, please come!”

Marcus wiped his hand on his shirt and patted his daughter’s back. They shared a nod, and he directed Anna to another site. She looked over and saw a moderately large group idling around what vaguely seemed to be an inn. It was the first arguably intact building Anna had seen all day.

“Volunteer Anna, over here. Please hold the lantern for us. The building’s integrity is severely compromised. We need proper lightning to see what we’re working with.” Victor, one of her father’s close friends, waved the girl over to her newly assigned site. He gave a knowing look at the pale paste covering her palm — Victor’s awareness was always greatly appreciated. 

Another volunteer handed her a gray Mana Lantern, the countless fresh scars in its metal frame giving it an used and rugged look. Anna wrinkled her nose, recognizing the recent purchase her father had made just a week ago.

The Mana Lantern was a fairly recent invention, patented by the Royal Court of Abalon, a land far across the ocean to the west. Nine indentations on its side marked the nine primary shades of Mana, allowing anyone to freely convert their energy to an illuminating white light, after they found a corresponding Mana conduit. The patent was public, courtesy of the Abalon family’s motto of spreading knowledge to all. And since any blacksmith could get their hands on a copy of the design, the price was significantly more affordable than it had any right to be.

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Which turned out to still be quite expensive for the family’s light coin purse. 

Anna spun the lantern around, placing her thumb into every indentation until she felt the light tug on her inner being. There was some impressed applause as the lantern flared alive, painting the excavated hole with light. The non-Mana Blessed also could use the lantern normally, the intensity of light was just a visibly weaker. In fact, it even became a common service for street peddlers to claim that they could scry a normal person’s mana by utilizing the lantern.

It was, in fact, nearly impossible to see Aether and Mana without Aethersight or an equivalent detection technique. Both of the mystical energies were only visible to the naked eye in extreme concentrations. Anna had experienced the scam firsthand when the peddlers told her that her father had a “Royal Gold Mana”, when she had already seen his faint, yet gentle blue aura.

Of course, the peddler immediately insisted for her father to try his luck at cards afterwards, claiming that his Mana brought great luck. It took no convincing from her end for them to move on from that particular peddler. 

At a brief glance, the excavation progress of the volunteers for the half collapsed inn seemed decent. There was a small opening into the main dining area that some of the smaller volunteers could possibly crawl through. 

However, Victor and the rest of the volunteer group were all veterans, which meant there was a good reason why they were stalling around. It took a bit of close scanning, but she found the compromised structural integrity that Victor had mentioned. The opening was precariously supported by a singular slanted wooden beam, which seemed ready to shatter at the slightest pressure. 

It could have been considered an architectural miracle that the pillar was able to support the immense load above it. There was little doubt in Anna’s mind that the entire wall would have collapsed if a volunteer had made the slightest mistake while shimmying through. 

“I’m not sure if we can build the foundations up to make this safe. The pillar’s orientation is too skewed for us to prop it up. I believe it’s impossible to make this properly safe.”

“We can make it potentially stable enough though. This disaster happened just yesterday. There’s a high chance that there are survivors in there.” 

“Even if we do make it stable enough on the way in, how would we get out. We have no idea what the state of the interior actually is. It could be a one way death ticket for one of us.”

“It’s always a gamble. Remember two months ago? Won took this same risk and managed to rescued three kids.” 

“Okay? Won’s situation was a one time success. Besides, you know what he was going through. None of us here have his mentality from then.” 

An argument broke out between the vocal volunteers, while Victor and some others began to rearrange the surrounding rubble to support the pillar. Anna reoriented herself to give the working group the best lighting for their efforts, simultaneously trying to follow the conversation happening to her side. 

“We don’t allow hero situations. Won ignored that, went in alone, and was forced to immediately retire afterwards. Because of that, we’re still missing gaps in our rescue efforts.”

“I hate to pile on here, but I also must reinforce that particular point. Won was the only Mana Blessed we had, that we could rely on situations precisely like this one. Marcus’s girl is a fledgling, and she’ll be long gone by the time she’s remotely useful for that witchcraft. Because of his selfish actions, we have potentially failed to save dozens of more lives in our recent missions. Our work is meant to save thousands of lives in the long term, not just a few individuals in the moment.”

“Selfish actions? He saved children. How could he ever be considered selfish? Agh! This is why I should have been Mana Blessed. I could work alone and do more than this dirty, selfish, self absorbed group could ever dream of.” 

The man spat at the feet of the others, before storming off. The group collectivereflect ly sighe weaker outputood tangibly lowering. 

A sudden light touch on Anna’s shoulder made her jump, and she turned to see Victor standing next to her. 

“Hello, young Anna. Has the salve properly set yet? I can take the lantern if you are becoming restless.” 

“If you could, Victor! I appreciate your guidance as always.” Anna handed the lantern to the older man, and the lantern’s bright light softened to reflect Victor’s weaker output. 

Free from holding the lantern, Anna walked up to help the rest of the group continue their work with her free hand. Even if she was allowed to use Aethersight, the currents would definitely be too muddled from all of the activity, and likely be impossible for a novice like her to decipher.

It was slow work, and the progress wasn’t great. Eventually, Victor made the judgment call for most of the group to break off and move on to other sites that needed the help. The support beam was simply too fragile to properly restore with available resources that the volunteers had. It wasn’t enough that it was mostly fractured, there were already clear signs of rot, which was a common issue in the area. By the time the sun peaked and the mid-day break was called, even Anna felt completely defeated.

“It’s fine if we can’t totally search one building, even if it looks promising.” Emily, another volunteer who was just a year older than Anna, handed over a cold biscuit, salted jerky, and a cup of water. “Think about it, if there were survivors in there, they should have heard us shuffling around and would have called out to us.” 

The traveling rations were as pitiful as always, which further soured Anna’s mood. She felt the frown uncontrollably contort on her face, which Emily was sure to notice. The two had known each other for most of their lives, which meant that their facial expressions were an open book to one another.

“Here, take this too. We got some donations from the last village.” 

Anna felt a moist wrapped package pressed into her hand. It was most likely a few stalks of celery — Anna’s father had mentioned the local specialty crop while they traveled.

“Our current diets are pretty horrible. Can you imagine that we don’t have enough funds or reputation to get a portable food box? Do the pretentious folks sitting in their cushy big city cushions not understand how important vegetables are for growing girls? Ugh.” 

Emily gave Anna a small wink as she loudly complained for the rest of the line to hear, who all murmured and nodded in agreement. It happened to be that Emily and Anna were the only young women of the group. The rest were either older women or men who were too young or too old to be conscripted.

“I’ll miss you when you’re off to that university, Em.”

“Don’t be silly. You’ll be there right behind me. Anyways, get moving little miss, I have an entire line of dusty old uncles to serve.” 

Anna threw a biscuit crumb at Emily, walking away to the sounds of her mock outrage.

Suddenly, a deep bassy boom rattled her insides. Anna’s ears felt numb — her friend’s playful jabs were replaced by a sharp ringing.

After what felt like minutes of the world standing still, the sounds of what sounded like panicked screams finally reached her ears. Somebody, oh, it was Emily, roughly grabbed her hand and pulled her forward into a run towards the tree line. 

“Anna! We have to run, the Dominion is attacking!”

But, the Dominion isn’t even the country that we’re at war with…

Anna wasn’t able to properly verbalize her thoughts as she was dragged to, what was hopefully, safety.