The silence that followed the explosion of oily smoke was more deafening than the blast itself. I stood in the hallway, my lungs burning from the acrid scent of rot and old magic. My hands were still outstretched, the silver frost dulling on my skin as if the very air had drained my power.
“Leo!” I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat with a raw, primal agony.
I lunged into the fading mist, my fingers grasping at nothing but cold shadows. He was gone. My son, the boy who had survived a ravine, a frozen forest, and five years of exile which had been taken from the heart of my own fortress.
“Elara, stop!” Silas’s voice was a sharp command behind me. He caught my shoulders as I began to claw at the stone walls, my nails leaving silver gouges in the rock. “The smoke was a displacement
