Kael remained beside the reforged cannon for several moments, one gauntleted hand resting against its dark barrel.
The distant hill was still burning.
Orange flames crawled across its ruined slope, visible even beneath the night sky. Smoke rose in a thick column while fragments of stone continued tumbling down what remained of the hillside. The soldiers around Kael had finally recovered from the explosion, though several still watched him with the cautious expressions of men who had just realized the stranger helping defend their fortress could accidentally erase part of it.
The cannon, meanwhile, looked perfectly fine.
Its mouth had reconstructed itself. The torn metal had folded inward, the split edges had rejoined, and the entire barrel had returned to the shape Kael had forged into it. Even the reinforcing rings sat exactly where he had placed them.
