Vows of Thunder and Stone

On the night of the winter solstice, as the celebrations in the caldera continued below, Kaelen and Tessa ascended to the highest point of Mount Rainier—the windswept summit crater of Columbia Crest, fourteen thousand four hundred and eleven feet above sea level. The summit was an ethereal realm of ice, steam, and celestial fire. The temperature was twenty-five degrees below zero, but wrapped in heavy wolf pelts before a geothermal…