The structure

**Kelly Thompson's POV**

The new structure doesn’t blot out the sky—it *unmakes* it.

Where the previous Architects’ spire dissected the horizon with clinical precision, this one *fractures* it. The sky splinters into prismatic shards, each reflecting a different timeline: a world drowned in floods, another scorched by nuclear fire, a third strangled by vines. The air itself feels unstable, vibrating with a dissonant hum that makes my bones ache. The Bastion’s heart still thrums in my chest, its golden pulse now syncopated, erratic, as if panicked.

Ravel kicks a rock at the structure’s base. It disintegrates mid-air. “Phase three,” she mutters. “Because phases one and two weren’t bad enough.”