Slowly, the white light in Kael's eyes began to dim. The violent, jagged lines of ice along the walls melted into harmless puddles of water, and outside, the hurricane died as quickly as it had been born, the black clouds parting to reveal the deep, bruised purple of the late evening sky.
Kael sniffled, his small fingers clutching Gwen's tunic as his heavy head fell against her shoulder. "Mama... Kael sorry. Big noise inside my ears."
Gwen held him close, her body trembling with a mixture of profound relief and absolute terror. She looked over his shoulder at Lucien, whose face was pale from the exertion of grounding that much power.
"We are sitting on a volcano, Lucien," Gwen whispered, her voice shaking. "And our son is the fuse."
***
By nightfall, the fortress had returned to a fragile, exhausted state of recovery. The storm had left the outer walls battered, but the structural anchors that Kaelen and Lucien had held during the previous shift remained intact.
