I shot upright in bed.
“…No,” I whispered. “Absolutely not. I’ve been asleep for…”
I squinted at the dark.
“…forty minutes.”
Another THUNK hit so deep the stones hummed.
I threw off my blankets, jammed my feet into my boots, grabbed my cloak, cursed the gods in alphabetical order, and stomped into the hallway.
Static prickled against my skin. The air felt wrong, coiled, humming like a spell winding itself too tight.
This was not weather, this was Atlas-level disaster energy, and I was not paid enough for this. I shoved open the outer door to the courtyard, and the universe greeted me by slapping a fish into my face.
A full-grown river fish.
Right across the cheek.
It slid down my jaw, flopped onto the stones, and accepted death the way I was beginning to envy.
I stared at it.
It stared at nothing, because it was extremely dead.
“…No,” I said again, quieter, more afraid.
A second fish hit the stones beside me.
Then a third.
Then the night sky opened like someone had overturned the entire river straight onto my head.
“OH, COME ON!” I shouted at absolutely everything. “I LITERALLY JUST WOKE UP!”
Fish rained mercilessly.
Wet, slippery projectiles slapping into puddles and each other with deranged enthusiasm. The courtyard became a writhing carpet of aquatic corpses and future therapy bills.
Water rose around my boots.
A trout bounced off my knee.
Something large smacked a guard across the back of the head.
“This is not my job,” I told the gods.
The gods disagreed by dropping a carp onto my shoulder. Before I could fully process my suffering, a massive cracking sound split the courtyard, the same one that had woken me.
Lightning speared down from a twisted knot of clouds, slammed into the ancient sycamore, and split it cleanly in half.
Wood shrieked.
Embers hissed.
Branches rained down.
Something big hit the upper branches with a catastrophic splintering crunch. I stumbled forward, blinking rain out of my eyes.
