War.
The word looked harmless enough on a page. Three little letters. Compact. Efficient. The kind of word that wouldn't even be noticed in a government memo until it had already ruined your week.
But war, in practice, was not efficient. It was spectacularly messy. It broke buildings, broke people, and occasionally broke the laws of physics when mages and miasma users got too enthusiastic.
War was to be avoided, like poorly cooked pufferfish or blind dates with nobles.
And yet, here we were. Not avoiding it.
Because when it came to miasma species—the vampires, the Red Chalice cultists, the shadowy things with too many teeth and not enough manners—"avoidance" was never really an option. They hated humans. Not in the vague, philosophical way people hated taxes, but in the loud, genocidal, stab-you-through-the-ribs kind of way.
