Guards were directing families to their homes, away from windows. I saw Baleck and Mierva emerge, their eyes wide with shock.
“Stay inside,” Rezor ordered them. “Away from the outer walls.”
“What’s happening?” Mierva called after us.
“The storms have increased,” I shouted back. “Get somewhere safe.”
We burst through the doors into the council chambers, where half the members were present. Their voices were raised in argument. Guards clustered near the windows, watching the storm with expressions ranging from terror to grim determination. And in the corner, Zelana and two other seers sat in a circle, eyes closed, hands clasped, completely still despite the pandemonium around them.
“Lord Rezor!” One of the council members, an older male named Torak, rushed forward. “The forest sectors are flooding. We’re getting reports of structural damage across the eastern quarter.”
“Casualties?” Rezor’s voice cut through the noise like a blade.
“Minor injuries so far, but if this continues—”
Another lightning strike, close enough that the building shook. Someone screamed. Through the windows, I could seea tree in the plaza split down the middle, half of it crashing to the ground in a shower of sparks.
“We need to evacuate to the underground chambers,” one of the guards said, his eyes crimson with urgency. “Get everyone below ground where the storms can’t reach.”
“The underground chambers can’t hold everyone,” a council member argued. “And we’d be trapped down there. If the valley floods—”
“If we stay up here, we’ll be killed!”
“The mountain tunnels,” someone else suggested. “We could move people to the northern pass—”
“And abandon the valley? Everything we’ve built?”
The arguments escalated, voices overlapping, panic spreading through the room like wildfire. I watched it all, my engineer’s mind trying to make sense of what was happening.
The valley had been protected for generations. The natural formation created a microclimate that kept the worst of the storms at bay. So why was it failing now? What had changed?
The timing was too coincidental. The storms had been encroaching for cycles, yes, but this sudden escalation, this complete breach of the valley’s defenses, right after we’d learned about emergency transmissions from outside…
“Cleo.” Rezor’s hand found mine in the chaos. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking this doesn’t make sense.” I had to shout to be heard over the wind howling through cracks in the windows. “The valley’s protection has held for how long?”
“Hundreds of generations.”
“And suddenly it fails completely? In the span ofmoments?” I shook my head. “That’s not a natural degradation. That’s a catastrophic system collapse.”
“System?” Torak looked at me with confusion. “The valley’s protection is geographical, not technological.”
“Is it?” I thought about the fallen tower that was overgrown by the forest. “What if the geography is only part of it? What if there’s technology we don’t know about that’s being manipulated to supercharge towers outside this valley?”
Rezor’s eyes widened with understanding. “The weather tower that collapsed generations ago is only one.”
I grabbed his arm, thinking about the rest of the crew out there, somewhere. It was highly possible that some of them found themselves taking shelter in one of those towers. And tried to use the controls. Controls that they had no idea how to use, or worse, where rigged to go nuclear when touched by unauthorized hands. I thought about Zara, who would never, ever,evernot try to get into one of those systems. “I have a bad feeling that—”
But before I could get the rest of my words out, the storm intensified. Rain hammered against the windows with enough force that cracks formed in the transparent surface. The wind screamed like something alive and furious. Lightning struck so frequently that the room strobed with white light.
This was it. The valley was going to be destroyed, and we were going to die here.
Rezor moved to the center of the room, his voice cutting through the chaos with the authority of command. “Quiet. Everyone, quiet.”
Slowly, the arguments died down. All eyes turned to him.
“We need to make a decision,” he said. “Moving underground or to the tunnels would protect us from the immediate danger, but we run the risk of flooding that…”
