Lightning was not an act of divine revenge.
It was an ungrounded static-electric charge seeking the path of least spark pushback.
Lord Giles Croft stood at the base of the towering overhead frame crane, his coat whipping in the freezing squall.
The sky above Haven-Hold was an angry cooking pot of churning purple and black clouds.
Arcs of jagged sky static crackled across the cloud base, with low, nonstop rolls of thunder that shook the teeth in Giles’s jaw.
Beside him, Master Borin Bronze-Lung held his heavy copper grounding rod. His eyes were wide as he stared up at the four-hundred-foot steel crane boom.
St. Elmo’s fire danced along the lattice roof beams in ghostly tongues of violet light.
“The Wrath of the Sky Father,” Borin rasped, his voice trembling against the wind.
