Kali:
I climbed from the bed just as my mother left to retrieve the others. A warning had been sent to the army to prepare for battle, and the women who did not want to or could not fight and the elderly members took the children into a pocket dimension created to keep them safe. We knew without doubt that Gaia or everyone else involved with them might know about the pocket, but I knew confidently that they could not access it.
I was surprised by how calm I felt and how sure my body seemed of each movement I made despite my brain screaming for sleep.
Crack after crack of thunder rumbled through the kingdom. Even with the storm's proximity, Gaia felt far away, absent in the way the weather sent warning of her rage.
"Something feels off still," I told my mates, who looked as calm as my
