The streets of the Iron Dominion reeked of smoke and horse-dung, the air thick with the metallic bite of coal dust. Carriages rolled past, their wheels splashing through puddles of soot-stained water.
Elara walked with the crowd, plain as ever, her ledger satchel pressed to her side. Few spared her a glance. Those who did forgot her face moments later.
But her eyes did not forget.
At the edge of the market square stood Lord Rynne, velvet coat gleaming even beneath the gray sky. He barked at a trembling merchant, voice sharp enough to carry across the square.
"Fifty crates, and not a nail less. I don't care what the docks report—you'll deliver, or I'll see your license stripped!"
The merchant bowed again and again, pale with fear. Rynne turned on his heel, striding back toward his carriage with all the arrogance of a man convinced the world belonged to him.
Elara paused beside a baker's stall, feigning interest in a tray of hard bread. Her ears caught every word, her eyes following Rynne's men as they hauled crates into the carriage. Stenciled on the wood was the mark of Kether & Sons Ironworks.
Strange. She had copied the ironworks' shipment records just yesterday. According to the ledger, Kether & Sons was weeks behind quota, claiming flood damage at their foundry.
Yet here was Rynne, taking delivery by the cartload.
Elara broke off a piece of bread, chewed slowly, and turned away. She slipped down a quieter street, into the narrow alleys where smoke curled from rusted chimneys.
At a bench beneath a broken lamp, she drew out a small pocketbook—not the official ledger, but her own. Each page was neat, her handwriting precise. She wrote:
Rynne. Kether & Sons. Flooded foundry? False.
The page already held a dozen other names and notes, each a thread in a web only she could see.
The bread was tasteless, but it helped her think.
Rynne's arrogance.
Kether's lie.
Workers at the docks complaining of no pay.
The pattern was forming.
When she closed the book, her lips curved faintly, almost like a smile.
Some threads snapped easily. Some needed only the smallest tug.
And when they did, whole houses fell.