Morning Chaos

Rumi pressed her nose against the crystal window of her bedroom tower. Below, dark clouds swirled like angry soup, dumping sheets of rain on the villages far beneath Crystal Cloud Castle.

"Another storm," she whispered, watching lightning crack through the gray mess. The castle should have been making gentle morning mist, not these wild tempests.

Her bedroom door burst open. Master Nimbus, the Weather Maker, stumbled in with his usually perfect silver beard now dripping wet and his blue robes torn at the sleeves.

"Rumi! Thank goodness you're here." He clutched a soggy scroll in his shaking hands. "The main weather chamber is completely flooded. Every control crystal is underwater, and I can't get the door to seal properly."

She turned from the window, her two necklaces catching the strange purple light filtering through the storm clouds outside.

"What does that mean?" she asked, though her stomach already knew the answer.

"It means," Master Nimbus said grimly, "we can't stop the storms."

The Heart-Powered Station

Rumi stared at Master Nimbus's torn robes, her mind spinning. "How long until the villages flood?"

"Three days, maybe four if we're lucky." He dropped the soggy scroll on her desk. "But there's something else. The backup weather station in the east wing—it's been abandoned for decades, but it might still work."

"Why don't we just use that then?"

Master Nimbus's eyes grew worried. "Because it's not like our modern controls. The old station runs on pure emotion. One angry thought, one moment of fear, and you could create a hurricane instead of sunshine."

Rumi felt her stomach drop. She'd always been terrible at controlling her feelings, especially when she was scared.

"I've seen you work with the weather crystals in practice," he continued. "You have natural talent, but this old system... it's like piloting a spaceship with your heart instead of your hands."

Thunder crashed outside, shaking the castle walls.

"We have to try," Rumi said, surprising herself.