The roar of the primary reservoir flushing down the drainage flue was not the sharp blast of an explosion; it arrived as a solid, physical wall of black, silt-choked river water that slammed into the stone bottleneck with the kinetic weight of a freight locomotive.
The first impact tore the remaining timber shoring from the masonry walls, sending splintered oak beams and iron tie-rods churning through the froth like toothpicks.
Elara didn't scream. The freezing water hit her waist with a force that knocked the air completely from her lungs, dragging her boots off the slick stone floorboards in a fraction of a second. The cold was instantaneous and blinding, biting through her torn wool coat and turning her skin to ice. Her fingers, stiffened by salt dust and dried blood, instinctively locked around the iron handspike Julian had wedged into the stone masonry overhead.
