Dominic had been standing by the gate when the first tremor ran through the floor.
He didn't move at first. Didn't breathe.
The runes embedded in the chamber walls flared—once, then again, then settled into a low, flickering pulse. The crystal veins laced through the dome's infrastructure glowed faintly, but there was no system alert, no failure—just a rising hum. Familiar. Controlled.
But the silence that followed—that was the most agonizing part.
Then breath returned from inside the chamber. A soft, shaky inhale. A twitch in the resonance signature. A flicker on the stabilizer's edge.
Dominic moved.
He was through the gate before Kael even reacted, boots hitting stone as he rushed forward, the rest of the world narrowing to a single center point.
His son.
