The first death reached Mercy as a name, not an estimate.
Iven stood beside Tavin’s receiving board while the clerk copied the seven-o’clock return. Three thousand new arrivals alive. One dead during medical transfer. Dumal, from the lower care rooms. His daughter received with him, the clinical account attached.
A separate opening line held the four Mercy workers already at the Sill: Elian, Thessa, Oren and Anja. Temporary work had put them there before the civilian movement. They remained inside the same one hundred and eighty thousand, counted once, with no invented crossing added because a register wanted a neat starting point.
Three thousand and four alive on the receiving side. One confirmed dead.
Iven looked at Dumal’s name long enough to remember it, then read the clinical line. The attendants had done what they could. The man had chosen the transfer knowing his condition. Neither fact made his daughter’s morning less ruined.
“Send Sera the full account,” he said.
“Already sent,” Tavin answered. “They need you at Needle House.”
The captain pointed to a different sheet.
