The dawn following the King's proclamation brought no relief, only a new, sharper form of dread. Captain Eva stood before a map of Aethelburg in her barracks, but the pins she was using were no longer for marking the dead; they were for deploying the living. The city was a battlefield, and the enemy was an idea.
Her strategy, forged in the sleepless, candlelit hours of the war council, was a desperate gambit. They could not crush Ouen's new faith with force; it would only make him a martyr and his followers fanatics. Therefore, they had to fight his poisonous hope with a difficult truth.
"Your orders have changed," she told her assembled officers, Joric at her side. "We are no longer just keeping the peace. We are waging a War of Truth. You will be assigned a Royal Crier and one of the loyalist priests from the Observatory. Wherever The Covenanters gather, you will establish a presence nearby. Their preachers offer bargains; our criers will shout the King's warning. Their prophets promise miracles; our priests will remind the people of the true nature of Qy'iel's grace. We will not engage them with steel. We will engage them with words. We will offer a choice."
It was a messy, uncertain kind of warfare, and Eva, a woman of the sword, felt a deep frustration with it. How did you parry a lie? How did you block a seductive promise?
She learned firsthand that morning. She led her own patrol to the Merchant's Forum, which had become the nexus of Ouen's power. A makeshift, grim temple had been erected around the auction block where the first sacrifice had occurred. The bloodstain on the stone was now treated as a holy relic.
One of Ouen's senior priests, a man with the fiery eyes of a true believer, was preaching from the block. His audience was a vast, captivated sea of desperate faces.
"The King offers you only the cold, empty silence of a lost god!" the priest thundered. "He asks you to suffer and die with honor! But the true God, the God of Bargains, offers you power! He offers you what you desire! Is a life not a worthy price for the end of suffering?"
As he spoke, Eva deployed her forces. On the opposite side of the square, the Royal Crier, his voice amplified by a speaking horn, began his proclamation. "Hear the King's word! The Tyrant's Law is a trap for the soul! Do not trade your life for a fleeting miracle!"
Beside him, the young acolyte Titus, his face pale but his voice steady, began his own counter-sermon. "Qy'iel's grace was a gift, given freely! It was never a commodity to be bought and sold! This new god is a merchant of death, not a shepherd of life!"
The crowd was caught in the crossfire. They turned their heads back and forth, their faces a canvas of confusion, fear, and anger. Some yelled "Blasphemy!" at Titus, while others looked at the Covenanter priest with dawning doubt. It was a chaotic, ugly battle of ideas, and Eva felt they were losing. The Covenanters' promise was a sweet poison, while the King's truth was a bitter, necessary medicine.
Then, the inevitable happened. A man, his face ravaged by grief, pushed his way to the front of Ouen's congregation. "My daughter," he choked out, tears streaming down his face. "The shaking sickness has taken her. The healers can do nothing. I will make the covenant! I will pay the price!"
The Covenanter priest smiled, a look of triumphant piety on his face. He raised his hands to officiate another public miracle, another soul to be fed to his monstrous god. The crowd surged forward, a wave of morbid excitement. Eva tensed, ready to push through, though she knew she would be too late.
But before the priest could speak the deadly words, a new voice cut through the air. It was not loud, but it was clear and calm, and it carried an authority that had nothing to do with rank or religion.
"The God of Bargains offers you a quick death and your daughter a moment's health," the voice said. "I offer you a long night of work, and the hope of a morning."
A path parted in the crowd. A woman walked through it, her expression one of quiet, weary competence. She carried a leather satchel filled with herbs, and her hands were stained with the earth. It was Hanna, the healer from Greenhollow.
Eva stared, momentarily stunned. Hanna had been summoned to Aethelburg a week ago by Praxus, one of dozens of experts brought to the capital for the War of Knowledge. She was meant to be in the Observatory archives, providing testimony about the nature of healing in the Age of Grace. Instead, she was here, on the front lines.
Hanna walked directly to the grieving father, ignoring the Covenanter priest entirely. She looked the man in the eye. "Your god's miracle is a flash of fire that consumes the log," she said, her voice soft but resonant. "The healing I offer is like a seed. It is slow. It requires care. It may not succeed. But it is real, and it is given freely. Let me see your daughter."
The man hesitated, his body torn between the two promises. Before him stood two choices: the instant, deadly miracle of a god, and the difficult, uncertain work of another human being.
The Covenanter priest, furious at the interruption, pointed a finger at Hanna. "Who are you to interfere with a holy covenant? This man's faith will save his child!"
"My name is Hanna," she replied calmly, never taking her eyes off the father. "I am a healer. I do not offer bargains. I offer my help."
Her simple, honest words had a profound effect. It was a reminder of a different way of life, a memory of a world where people helped each other, where skill and compassion were the currency of hope. The father looked from the priest's fiery zealotry to Hanna's steady, capable gaze. He made his choice.
He choked out a sob and nodded. "Please," he whispered. "Help her."
Hanna gave him a single, reassuring nod and then led him away, pushing back through the now-silent crowd.
The Covenanter priest was left standing on the auction block, his miracle stolen from him. His power had been challenged not by a sword or a proclamation, but by a simple act of compassionate medicine. He stared after Hanna, his expression one of pure, venomous hatred.
Eva watched the entire exchange, and in that moment, she understood. She had been trying to fight a faith with a law. She had been trying to counter a sermon with an argument. But you could not reason a person out of a position they had not reasoned themselves into. Ouen's power was not in his logic; it was in his exploitation of despair.
The only way to fight the poison of a false hope was with the medicine of a true one.
She watched Hanna disappear into the crowd, a small, quiet figure who had just won a major victory in the war for the city's soul. The crowd was still tense, still divided, but a seed of a different kind of faith had just been planted. The Royal Guard, with their swords and armor, were not the true army in this new war. The real soldiers were people like Hanna. The healers, the builders, the storytellers, the ones who could remind the world of what it was to be human.
Eva gave Joric a new order, her voice filled with a clarity she had not felt in months. "Follow her. Keep her safe. She is more valuable than a whole regiment."