The mortar shell split.
The thirty-pound iron canister, half-buried among the rusted stakes at the bottom of the moat, fractured along its pre-scored casing seams. A blinding fan of orange flame and jagged black shrapnel erupted from the shell, expanding outward at eighteen hundred feet per second toward the narrow stone ledge where Ren, Mira, and Cinder stood.
The bone-shaking blast wave was six inches from Ren’s knees when the sound struck.
TICK.
The universe slammed into total stillness.
The active craft engaged: Temporal Loophole [Stasis Envelope]. Operational Window: 2.00 Seconds Subjective Duration. Moving Detonation Frozen: 320 High-Velocity Shrapnel Pieces. Vector Overlap: Total Ingress Corridor Compromised. Mandatory Maneuver: Cross The Frozen Blast Cone. Hazard: Contact With Frozen Shrapnel Collapses Buffer.
The explosion hung suspended in the dark trench of the moat.
It wasn’t an image. It was a physical sculpture of violence. The orange fire was solid, semi-clear as amber, trapping curling ribbons of black kerosene smoke that didn’t drift an inch. Suspended within the fiery sphere were over three hundred jagged fragments of cold-forged iron casing, their razor-sharp edges glistening with dew, frozen mid-flight.
