The cedar porch planks were cool beneath the soles of Kaelen’s sheepskin slippers.
Night air rushed into his lungs, crisp, clean, and scented with crushed pine needles and distant lightning.
Ten yards ahead, the stone terrace looked like a butcher’s yard.
Shards of red crystallized gravity lay smoking across the flagstones, dissolving into sulfurous mist.
Elder Sterling knelt in the center of the debris, his straight sword jammed into a stone seam to keep his body upright.
His left shoulder armor was gone, replaced by a jagged mess of twisted iron and torn flesh.
Dark crimson blood dripped from his jaw, spattering against the white linen of his tunic.
Beside the kneeling elder stood Sera Thorne, her Storm-Pike humming with faint golden sparks, and Mina Vance, whose fingers still held two trembling frost needles.
