I shut my eyes.
The words stayed.
For a second I thought I'd fainted standing up. People sometimes see strange things before they go down. Lights. Shapes. My mind scrambling for something it could understand.
But I could still feel the stone under my palm. I could still hear Elyra's breath next to me. I could still smell damp earth and smoke slipping in through cracks.
This wasn't fainting.
The letters hovered, thin and pale, like frost across glass.
HEAVENLY LEDGER NOTICE
ACCOUNT STATUS: IN DEFAULT
"What?" I whispered before I could stop myself.
Elyra turned sharply. "What?"
I opened my eyes wider. The words sharpened slightly, then steadied.
Nothing else in the shelter changed. No one else reacted. No one gasped or looked up like something had appeared over their heads.
I swallowed. My tongue felt thick. "Nothing," I said.
The word came out wrong.
Another tremor ran through the shelter. Someone at the back started to sob outright. A few older disciples moved toward the entrance, arguing in low voices about whether the south path was still clear.
The text didn't flicker with the tremor. It didn't shake. It just… existed.
My eyes darted across the shelter, half-expecting to see the same message floating in front of someone else.
Nothing.
No glow. No flicker in the air.
Just people. Frightened. Angry. Waiting.
My heart thudded so hard it felt like it might shake the letters loose.
"What did you say?" Elyra asked, quieter now. Her grip on my sleeve hadn't eased. "You looked—"
"I'm fine," I said too fast.
Her mouth tightened. "Don't lie to me right now."
I almost snapped back. The edge was there, sharp and ready. Instead I forced myself to breathe once, slow.
"I just—" I shook my head. "It's nothing. Just dizzy."
She stared at me like she was trying to pry the truth out by force of will. Then another strike landed outside, close enough that stone cracked somewhere above us, and her attention snapped upward.
Good.
Because the words shifted.
Not dramatically. Just… expanded.
A faint line appeared beneath the first two.
PRIMARY ACCOUNT HOLDER: CLAN OF YOREN
OUTSTANDING BALANCE: UNFULFILLED
Unfulfilled what?
My pulse kicked higher. I blinked hard.
The text did not blink away.
I pressed my fingers harder into the wall, grounding myself. Stone. Dust. Sweat. Real things.
This wasn't something I'd heard from the elders. Not a scripture recitation, not a forgotten clan teaching. The phrasing felt clinical. Detached.
The shelter entrance erupted in fresh shouting.
"South path is blocked!"
"What do you mean blocked?"
"The ridge collapsed— it's gone!"
A ripple of panic tore through the people packed around us. Someone shoved forward. Someone else pushed back. The air thinned instantly.
Elyra cursed under her breath. I'd never heard her curse like that before.
Father said go south.
The south path was gone.
The words in front of me shifted again, as if responding to that thought.
Or maybe that was my imagination.
A new line burned into clarity.
COLLECTION IN PROGRESS
I felt something inside me go cold.
Outside, another impact. Closer.
This one wasn't just lightning. There was a different weight behind it. A sound like stone grinding against stone on a scale too large to be natural.
The elders were still inside the main hall.
Father was still outside.
I stepped toward the shelter entrance without meaning to.
Elyra caught my arm immediately. "What are you doing?"
"I have to see."
"See what?" she demanded.
I didn't have an answer that didn't sound like madness.
"I just— I have to see."
The press of bodies shifted again as two more disciples shoved their way inside, faces pale, hair singed.
"It hit the inner courtyard," one of them gasped. "The altar—"
He didn't finish.
I didn't wait.
I pulled my arm free and pushed forward. Elyra swore and followed, refusing to let me go alone.
We squeezed through the shelter entrance and out into the courtyard again.
The sky had lowered.
That was the only way to describe it. The clouds seemed closer, like you could reach up and press your palm against them.
The main hall was still standing.
Barely.
One corner had caved in. Tiles littered the steps. Smoke crawled upward in a thin column that wavered and twisted in the unnatural wind.
The barrier shimmer around the clan was visible even in daylight now—weak, flickering like a half-forgotten candle at the edge of a room.
And beyond it—
Lightning struck the invisible boundary, not the ground.
I saw it clearly this time.
The bolt didn't scatter on impact. It sank into the barrier, spreading in branching veins of white light before being swallowed.
The shimmer pulsed once. Dimmed.
The words in front of my eyes sharpened again.
DEFENSIVE ASSET: BARRIER ARRAY
STATUS: LIQUIDATION
Liquidation.
I didn't know that word in this context either.
But I understood enough.
"They're taking it," I said before I could stop myself.
Elyra grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face her fully. "Who is taking what?"
Her eyes searched my face.
Behind her, elders were spilling out of the hall, robes scorched, formations half-formed in their hands. I spotted Master Venn limping, blood dark on his sleeve.
Father wasn't with them.
"I—" My voice stalled.
The barrier flared once more as another bolt struck it directly overhead. The air cracked. I smelled ozone and burning wood and something older, like dust uncovered after years sealed away.
The shimmer thinned visibly.
Then the impossible happened.
The barrier didn't shatter.
It faded.
Like ink washed from paper.
Like something being erased carefully.
The courtyard wind shifted instantly. It lost resistance. It moved freely now.
The clan was exposed.
A murmur rose from the elders, low and stunned.
Elder Sovan staggered, actually staggered, then caught himself against a pillar.
Father emerged from the side of the hall at that moment, ash streaking his hair and cheek. His eyes went straight to us.
Relief. Anger. Fear.
"All of you, retreat to the—"
Another bolt descended.
This one did not strike stone.
It struck the inner chamber.
The sound that followed wasn't a crack.
It was a deep, collapsing groan, like the mountain itself had exhaled in surrender.
Every elder froze.
I felt it again, that pressure in my chest. Stronger this time.
The words expanded again.
ANCHOR CORE: SEIZED
PRIMARY COLLATERAL TRANSFERRED
Transferred.
To where?
The clan head stumbled out of the ruined doorway, robes torn, face grey, blood at his lip. He took three steps down the hall stairs—
—and then stopped.
Not from injury.
He stopped because something unseen gripped him.
I could see it in the way his body locked, muscles taut, eyes wide.
Elder Maresh shouted his name.
The air around the clan head twisted slightly. Not visibly warping—just wrong. As if the space he stood in had a different gravity.
His mouth moved.
No sound came out.
The words in front of my eyes pulsed once, steady and indifferent.
HIGH-VALUE ASSET CONFIRMED
My stomach dropped so hard I thought I would actually be sick.
The clan head lifted an inch off the ground.
No lightning struck him.
No chains appeared.
He simply… rose.
Like something invisible was reeling him in.
The elders surged forward as one, formations colliding, commands overlapping.
They couldn't reach him.
He hung suspended for a heartbeat—two—
Then he was gone.
Not burned.
Not torn apart.
Gone.
The courtyard fell silent in a way that pressed against the ears.
The sky above lightened slightly.
Just slightly.
The pressure in my chest eased by a fraction.
The words flickered once.
PARTIAL SATISFACTION RECEIVED
OUTSTANDING BALANCE REMAINS
A scream broke across the courtyard.
Not from the elders.
From the families.
Someone shouted that this couldn't be real. Someone else dropped to their knees.
Father looked at the empty space where the clan head had been.
His face hardened—not with confusion, but with understanding.
"No," he said under his breath.
I didn't know what he was denying.
Another low rumble rolled across the valley. Not lightning this time. Movement deeper in the earth.
The words shifted once more, as if tracking the tremor.
SECONDARY COLLATERAL REVIEW INITIATED
I felt cold sweat bead under my collar.
I didn't know what the Ledger was.
I didn't know how it chose.
But I knew what collateral meant.
I scanned the courtyard without meaning to.
Elders. Masters. Seniors.
High value assets.
Father.
Elyra's fingers curled tightly around mine.
"Kael," she whispered.
I realized I had leaned slightly in front of her without deciding to.
The sky darkened again—just a shade.
The world held its breath.
And the words sharpened into something new.
CANDIDATE IDENTIFIED
My heart stopped.
Then the next line appeared.
ACCOUNT LINKAGE DETECTED: KAEL YOREN
The air didn't change.
No lightning struck.
No one else reacted.
But for me, the ground tilted.
Somewhere beyond sight, something had noticed.