Skyfall: Beyond Impact

In the training yard, Ember’s last shot from earlier in the day still sat embedded in the wrong target — low, left, surrounded by three other arrows and mocked with a chalk X. Branka had drawn it there herself.

As she glanced at the other targets in the yard, she noticed her own arrows ringed around a bullseye — one on each side, almost forming a perfect square. Four more belonged to the trainee she'd been working with — barely on the target at all. She shook her head, mumbling something about more training.

She stood now, dusting snow from her gloves, and glanced toward the outer wall where Kaelen’s voice still carried. Ember was always listening, even if he never admitted it.

Her gaze shifted again, toward the shadowed corridor leading into the lower vaults...where the strange one had gone. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a flicker of lightning in the distance.

Vexx didn’t like the cold.

Thunder cracked a breath later — a slow, low echo that seemed to rattle the pipes more than the walls.

He’d taken to sleeping near the wall-furnace beside the old cistern, where steam pipes groaned and copper valves hissed with strange rhythm. Some said he didn’t sleep at all...just closed his glowing eyes and waited for the next pattern to emerge.

He was there now, gears softly whirring as he rearranged loose components in midair. Not fixing. Not fidgeting.

Rearranging time. Or trying to.

"Second shift returns in thirteen minutes," he muttered aloud, though no one had asked. "Snowfall pattern: erratic. Probability of event spike: rising."

No one responded.

Not because no one heard.

But because no one understood.

The Storm?
Whitemarch Watch, late evening. The last quiet moment.

The wind had begun to change.

Up on the outer wall, Bryce Auwen narrowed his eyes. The snow devils were gone now...swept away by a new current in the air. Not colder. Not stronger. Just... wrong.

Even Reaper felt heavier at his side.

"Was that lightning?" muttered the older man beside him, pausing his whittling mid-cut.

Bryce didn’t answer as thunder echoed in response. His eyes were fixed on the horizon.

Kaelen paused mid-sentence on the lower parapet. “Do you feel that?” she asked Ember, who had already stopped moving.

Ember said nothing, one hand hovering above his crossbow trigger. His jaw clenched.

Branka heard it too, though she wouldn’t admit it yet — a faint pressure in her ears, like the beginning of an avalanche just waiting for its cue.

Vexx didn’t look up. He simply stated, “Pattern deviation detected.”

And then the sky opened.

Three violent flashes of lightning split the clouds, each chased by thunder like a war drum.

A boy on the wall laughed and pointed, excitement rising around him.

And then... it changed.

It wasn’t lightning. It wasn’t fire.

Something massive was tearing through the clouds — not spinning, not falling, but descending with purpose.

A glowing scar carved across the heavens.

Then came the impact.

The ground didn’t shake...it struck. A full-body blow that made stone tremble and lungs hitch. Snow leapt from the ground in a shimmering wave. Boots staggered. Eyes widened.