The first bolt didn't hit the training yard.
It missed by a few yards and tore into the outer wall like it had a personal grudge against stone.
For a second, nobody moved.
Not because we were brave. Because the sound took the air out of our chests. It wasn't thunder. Thunder rolls. This was a crack that ended too fast, like a door slammed shut on the sky.
Dust fell in a soft curtain from the wall's top edge. Pebbles followed. Then a fist-sized chunk bounced once and skittered across the packed earth.
Someone laughed.
It wasn't funny. It was the kind of laugh you make when you realize you're about to die and your mouth doesn't know what else to do.
I stood with my practice blade in my hand, sweat cooling on my back, and stared at the hole smoking in the wall like my eyes could stitch it closed.
Master Venn's voice cut through the stillness. "Drop your weapons."
Nobody listened at first. My fingers didn't want to unclench. The blade felt stupidly light, like a toy.
"Now," he snapped, and his tone finally got through to our bodies.
Wooden blades thudded into the dirt. One clattered and rolled. Someone's knuckles were white around the hilt until Master Venn stepped closer and pried it loose without looking at them.
The air smelled wrong. Not just burnt. Like metal and wet stone.
I turned my head, slow, trying to understand the direction the bolt came from. The clouds above our little valley were thick, low, and too dark for midday. The sun was still there, somewhere, but it didn't matter.
This wasn't weather.
The elders always said tribulations didn't come for us. Not for our kind of clan. Not for a place like this tucked between ridges with a few terraces and a stream that ran cold even in summer. Tribulations came for people who climbed too fast or stole too much, for monsters who stepped on Heaven's throat and laughed.
We were poor.
We were careful.
We were forgettable.
Master Venn looked up with the kind of stillness that meant he was listening to something I couldn't hear. Then his gaze snapped to the north ridge, toward the main hall.
His face went pale.
That's when I felt it. Not fear. Something heavier. Like the air itself had leaned closer.
"Inside," Master Venn said. The word came out rough. "All of you. Inside. Run."
No one asked why. The ones who hesitated only needed to see his eyes.
We ran.
Feet pounded the packed earth, kicking up dust that stuck to sweat. The younger disciples stumbled over each other, half-tripping, half-pushing. Someone cursed. Someone screamed when the second bolt struck.
This time it hit closer.
It took the corner of the granary clean off. The roof lifted, split, and collapsed in a slow, ugly way, like the building gave up.
I flinched so hard my jaw clicked. A wave of heat rolled across the courtyard, followed by a smell like scorched grain. You could hear it too, the fire starting, soft at first, then hungry.
"Kael!" a voice shouted, sharp enough to cut through the panic.
I turned without thinking.
Elyra was sprinting across the path from the rear gardens, hair half-unbound, sleeves rolled like she'd been working. Her face was bright with sweat and fear. She was only a year older than me and twice as stubborn, which meant she wasn't supposed to be running toward the chaos.
"What are you doing?" I yelled back. My voice cracked. I hated that it cracked.
She didn't slow down. "Father said get you. He said stay together."
That made my stomach drop in a different way.
Father didn't say things like that unless he meant it.
I grabbed her wrist as she reached me. Her skin was hot. She jerked like she was going to pull away out of habit, then didn't.
"Where is he?" I asked.
She swallowed, eyes flicking past me toward the smoke rising from the granary. "Main hall. They called all seniors. All branches. Even the outer families."
Another bolt struck.
Not near us. Further up the slope. Toward the main hall.
I didn't see it hit. I felt it. The ground shivered under our feet. A low, distant rumble followed that didn't sound like anything breaking.
It sounded like something huge shifting in its sleep.
Elyra squeezed my hand once, hard. "Kael. We have to go."
I wanted to argue. I wanted to say we should help put out the granary, that we should go to the wall, that this was some mistake we could fix if we ran fast enough.
But I was already moving.
We cut across the inner courtyard, past the small shrine by the plum tree that always smelled faintly of incense even when no one burned any. Past the pond where we'd chased each other as kids, where Elyra once shoved me in and I'd come up sputtering and swearing and she'd laughed so hard she cried.
The pond was still. Too still.
People were spilling out of side buildings like ants from a kicked nest. Outer family members in rough clothes, younger kids barefoot, old men who usually moved slow now clutching their robes up and running like their legs remembered youth when given a reason.
No one was yelling prayers.
That scared me more than the lightning.
At the base of the steps to the main hall, someone shoved past us and stumbled. Elyra caught their sleeve and steadied them without breaking stride. Her fingers didn't shake. Mine did.
The main hall doors stood open.
Inside, it was loud. Not chaos-loud. Sharp-loud. Voices overlapping, questions snapping, someone sobbing in the back before cutting themselves off like they didn't have time.
The elders stood in a half-circle near the ancestral altar. The altar candles were out. That had never happened. Even on storm days, even when winds came down off the ridge and made the flames dance like they were trying to escape, those candles stayed lit.
Now the wicks were black.
My father was there, near the edge of the circle. He wasn't an elder. He wasn't high enough for that. But he was senior enough that people listened when he spoke, and today he wasn't speaking at all.
He saw us and his shoulders loosened a fraction, then tightened again as if the relief itself made him angry.
He moved toward us in quick, efficient steps. I'd never seen him walk like that indoors.
"Stay behind me," he said. Not a request.
"We ran straight here," Elyra blurted, like she needed him to know she hadn't wasted a second.
Father's eyes softened for a moment. "Good."
Another bolt hit.
This one was close enough that the hall's wooden beams groaned.
Dust sifted down from the ceiling in a slow sprinkle. A few people flinched. One elder didn't even blink. Elder Sovan just kept staring at the empty candles like he expected them to light themselves if he stared hard enough.
"What is happening?" someone shouted. "Why here?"
No one answered. Not immediately.
Elder Maresh finally spoke, voice tight. "The barrier formation is failing."
That sentence didn't land right.
Our barrier formation wasn't supposed to fail. It had been here longer than any of us. It was old, patched, and a little ugly, like everything else we owned, but it worked. It kept beasts away. It kept wandering spirits from nesting in our walls. It softened storms.
It was the one thing we had that made us feel safe.
"It can't fail," a man from the outer families said, face pinched. "We pay the stones. We feed it incense. We replaced the array flags last season."
Elder Maresh's mouth twitched. Not quite a frown. More like he'd bitten down on something bitter. "It is not failing from neglect."
Elder Sovan's voice came next, quiet enough that people leaned in without realizing they were doing it. "It is being collected."
That was the first time I heard that word in this context.
Collected.
A child began to cry. Their mother hissed at them to stop, a harsh sound that carried more fear than anger.
Father's hand found the back of my neck, fingers pressing lightly, grounding me like he used to when I was small and nightmares got bad.
"Collected for what?" someone demanded.
Elder Sovan didn't answer the person who spoke. He looked toward the altar, toward the candles, toward the carved name tablets of ancestors who had lived and died and never once been struck by heavenly lightning.
"It is not for what," he said. "It is for balance."
That sounded like superstition. The kind you tell kids to keep them from stealing offerings.
Elder Maresh lifted a hand, and the room quieted again in broken pieces. "There has been an adjustment."
"What kind of adjustment?" a woman snapped. "We haven't done anything."
A few people murmured agreement. Some looked guilty anyway, which almost made me laugh. If Heaven was punishing us for petty sins, it had taken its time.
Elder Maresh's eyes scanned the room, not accusing, just tired. "It is not about guilt."
Lightning struck again. This time we all felt it in our teeth.
I found myself counting, stupidly, between strikes. Not because I thought it helped. Because my brain needed something simple to hold.
One. Two. Three.
The interval was shortening.
"Where is the clan head?" someone asked.
Elder Sovan's jaw tightened. "In the inner array chamber."
A hush fell. Even the crying child went quiet as if they'd been slapped by the silence itself.
The inner array chamber was not a place people went casually. It was sealed behind formation locks and family oaths. It housed the core stones, the anchor threads, the oldest parts of the barrier.
If the clan head was in there, it meant this wasn't a patch job.
It meant he was trying to bargain with something that did not bargain.
Elyra's nails dug into my palm. I realized I was still holding her hand. I hadn't let go since we started running.
I squeezed back, once.
Father's gaze flicked down to our hands and up again. He said nothing, but his mouth tightened like he was swallowing words.
"Everyone," Elder Maresh said, louder now. "To the shelters. Inner families first. Children—"
"No," Elder Sovan cut in.
The word wasn't harsh. It was final.
Elder Maresh stared at him. "Sovan, we cannot—"
Elder Sovan looked at the dead candles again. "Shelters will not matter if the anchor is taken."
Taken.
Collected.
My stomach turned over.
"You mean the core stone," someone whispered.
Elder Sovan nodded once.
The room broke again, voices rising, some pleading, some arguing, some threatening as if you could threaten an elder into changing reality.
I watched Father's face as he listened. His eyes were not on the elders. They were on the floor, unfocused, like he was doing arithmetic in his head that he didn't want to do.
He noticed me watching and forced himself to speak, low and close to my ear. "Kael, Elyra. If anything happens, you run to the south path. The one behind the herb terraces. You don't go back for anything. You hear me?"
Elyra's mouth opened.
Father raised one finger. "No argument."
Elyra shut her mouth. Her throat bobbed.
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to be the kind of son who said yes without making his father repeat himself.
But something inside me balked. "What about you?"
Father didn't look at me. His eyes stayed on the elders, on the doorway deeper into the hall that led to the inner chambers. "I will buy you time."
Buy.
He used that word like it belonged here. Like time was a thing you paid for.
Another strike. The hall shook. Someone screamed outside. You could hear it through the open doors, raw and short. Then it cut off.
That did something to the room. The arguments died mid-sentence. People began moving, not orderly, not quite panic either. More like animals finally accepting that fire is real.
Elder Maresh shouted instructions, directing families, assigning seniors to escort the young. Elder Sovan stood still, hands clasped, head bowed like he was listening to something far away.
Father pushed us toward the side exit. Elyra stumbled once, caught herself. I kept looking back over my shoulder, searching for the clan head, searching for some sign that this was temporary.
At the threshold, a blast of cold air hit my face, sharp enough to sting. I looked up.
The sky above the main hall wasn't just dark.
It was moving.
Clouds twisted like they were being wrung out. Lightning crawled inside them, not striking yet, just pacing, impatient.
For a moment I thought I saw shapes in the clouds. Patterns. Circles. Lines.
I blinked hard and the patterns were gone.
Elyra tugged me. "Kael."
"I'm coming," I said too quickly.
We moved down the stone steps into the courtyard again. The granary was burning now, flame licking at the broken beams. People ran with buckets out of habit, then stopped when another bolt hit nearby and turned a bucket into splinters.
A few of the outer wall sections were on fire. The barrier shimmer, usually a faint ripple you only noticed at dawn if you stood at the right angle, was visible now. It flickered like a dying lantern.
That sight made my lungs tighten.
The barrier was alive. Not alive like a person. But alive like a promise. Seeing it fail felt like watching your front door fall off its hinges while you were still inside.
Elyra's grip on my sleeve tightened. She wasn't dragging me anymore. She was keeping herself from running ahead. She always ran ahead.
We reached the inner shelter entrance, a low stone doorway cut into the hillside with old wards carved into it. People were crowding inside, pushing, crying, shoving children forward.
A senior disciple blocked the entrance with his arms spread, face hard. "One at a time. Move. Don't stop in the doorway."
Father shoved us toward him. "They're with me," he said.
The senior's eyes flicked over us, then softened just a fraction. "Go."
Elyra stepped in.
I didn't.
I looked back again.
Father's hand caught my shoulder. "Kael."
"I can help," I said. My voice sounded wrong. Too loud, too thin.
"You can survive," Father said. "That will help more."
It wasn't comforting. It was practical. It made me want to hit something.
Lightning struck near the main hall again, and for a second the entire courtyard went white.
When my vision returned, there was a new hole in the ground where the stone walkway had been. Steam rose from it like breath.
Father flinched, not from fear, but from calculation. He looked at the south path. At the main hall. At the sky. At us.
He made a decision I couldn't read.
"Inside," he said.
I swallowed. My mouth tasted like pennies. "Father."
His eyes finally met mine. They were bloodshot. I hadn't noticed before. He looked older than he had an hour ago.
"Listen to me," he said, low, urgent. "You do not try to be brave today. Bravery gets you killed. You live. You take your sister. You go south. You don't stop."
Elyra was just inside the doorway, half-turned, watching us. Her face was tight, angry, scared, all at once. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to.
I stepped forward.
Father's hand let go of my shoulder. It hovered for a second, like he wanted to grab me again, like he wanted to pull me back into his chest the way he did when I was small. Then he dropped it and turned away.
He didn't look back.
I crossed the threshold into the shelter.
The air inside was damp and smelled like earth and old stone. The light was dim, provided by a few glow stones set into the walls. People pressed close, bodies warm and trembling. Someone whispered prayers under their breath. Someone else whispered a curse, not at Heaven, but at the elders, at fate, at the sky. Anywhere their anger could land.
Elyra stood beside me, breathing too fast, eyes too wide.
We waited.
Seconds passed. Then minutes. Hard to tell. Time in a shelter bends.
Another strike. The ground shuddered. Dust fell from the ceiling. A child screamed. Their mother clamped a hand over their mouth and immediately looked guilty for doing it.
"Is the barrier holding?" someone asked.
No one answered.
I tried to picture the barrier in my mind, the way Master Venn had once drawn it in the dirt with a stick. A ring of stones, anchor points, threads woven through land and blood. He'd said it like a lesson.
Now it felt like a noose.
Something hit the main hall.
Not lightning.
Something heavier.
The shelter shook. Stones groaned. A few people fell. Someone's lantern went out and was relit shakily.
Elyra grabbed my arm so hard I knew it would bruise. "Kael," she whispered.
"I'm here," I said.
That was all I had.
A low murmur spread through the shelter. Not from people. From the wards carved into the stone. They glowed faintly, then faded, then glowed again like they were breathing shallowly.
I stared at them until my eyes hurt.
Then the glow stopped altogether.
The silence that followed was worse than noise.
Somewhere above us, outside, a sound rose like a long breath drawn in.
Then another bolt struck.
This one did not feel like it hit the ground.
It felt like it hit the clan.
Like it hit us.
My knees buckled. I caught myself on the wall. My fingers slid over the carved ward lines, and for the first time in my life, they felt cold. Not stone-cold. Empty-cold.
Elyra said my name again, but her voice was far away.
I pressed my forehead to the wall and tried to breathe.
Something in my chest tightened, not pain exactly, more like a hand closing.
A thought came, sharp and unwanted:
We were being collected.
For balance.
For what we didn't even know we owed.
I don't know how long I stayed like that.
Long enough for my breath to even out. Long enough for the shelter to shake two more times. Long enough for someone to whisper that the south path might still be open.
Then, without warning, the world… shifted.
Not physically. Not like an earthquake.
Like a curtain pulled back behind my eyes.
The stone wall in front of me was still stone. The ward carvings were still there.
But something else hung over it, faint and pale, like writing in the air that didn't belong to light.
My heart hammered.
I blinked.
The writing stayed.
I blinked harder, like that would fix it. It didn't.
Letters, clean and cold, hovered in front of my vision as if someone had etched them directly onto my sight.
I tried to look away.
It followed.
A single line. Then another.
Not a page. Not a flood. Just enough to ruin my denial.
HEAVENLY LEDGER NOTICE
ACCOUNT STATUS: IN DEFAULT