The pain of the twisted Nexium still echoed in Lyall Osyth's hands, making his bones feel as though they were under immense pressure. He barely had time to hide the corrupted pipe joint before a shadow fell over him.
It wasn't Balton, but two men Lyall had never seen in the forge. They wore the severe black and militarized elegance of the Ducal House agents, their rigid coats lined with brass, their gazes sharp. They weren't here to place an order.
"Master Osyth," one said, his voice polite but cold, slicing through the din like a steam whistle. "Archduke Merikh Silas Vane has slight concerns about the quality of your work."
"My work is always perfect," Lyall replied, clenching the engraved Piston in his pocket.
"No, we fear it may be a bit too perfect," the second interjected, a sneer forming. "A bit too... selective. You are working too slowly. We have heard whispers of you having hallucinations about the metal."
It was a barely veiled threat: an accusation of madness meant to silence him. The Guild hadn't wasted time.
At the same moment, Balton rushed over, his face crimson. He was holding the pipe joint he'd asked Lyall to start. "Where is the rest, you idiot! I saw the metal! It's denatured! You sabotaged the Nexium!"
Lyall understood: there was no room left for negotiation. The Nexium was screaming, the Magnate was striking.
"By the Pressure, no!" Lyall shouted.
He didn't wait to finish his sentence. With an instinctive motion, he activated the emergency valve of the large cooling piston behind him. A blast of scorching steam exploded into the workshop. The Ducal agents recoiled, swearing, the steam billowing past their expensive uniforms.
Lyall, accustomed to the pressure and protected by his leather vest, bolted for the only exit. He dove under a brass conduit and sprinted into the back alleys.
Aethelburg was a spiderweb of pipes. Lyall ran, the sound of his boots mixing with the relentless rhythm of the machines. He was pursued not by police, but by trained hunters reporting to Vane.
The agents yelled his name through megaphones from the rooftops: "Lyall Osyth, Nexium treason! Your gift will be disabled!"
The Nexium was everywhere here, a pulsing energy flow beneath the city's metal. Lyall used his gift, no longer for forging, but for survival. He felt the pressure pockets and pipes under tension.
He vaulted over a sewage pipe, then, remembering the location of primary valves, he stomped his heel onto a faulty regulator valve. Compressed air hissed loudly, creating a wall of sound that disoriented his pursuers for a crucial few seconds. He dashed toward the only place that made sense: the approximate address associated with the spiral symbol engraved on the Piston.
The pursuit abruptly ended in a forgotten district behind the freight tube station. Lyall found himself in front of a crumbling façade, once a clockmaker's shop, its brass sign dark and broken.
He entered, hammer in hand. The interior was dim, smelling of dust and ancient copper.
The room wasn't empty. Sitting quietly on a tattered velvet chair beside a massive, rusty clockwork machine was a woman.
Dame Elara Finch.
She wore an elegant dress of slate gray topped by a soft leather corset laced with copper and an emerald green shawl. She seemed utterly undisturbed by the panic, and the deafening noise of Aethelburg didn't bother her.
"You are late, Lyall Osyth," she said in a calm voice, yet its strange resonance cut through the workshop's Néxium to reach directly into Lyall's mind. "Vane's hunt is deafening."
Lyall lowered his hammer. "You sent me that Piston. Who are you? And how"
"I am the one Vane ruined, and the one the Order abandoned," Elara replied. "The disgraced Countess, the former Veiled One of the Breath. The Order wants no war with a Magnate. I do."
She rose and approached. The air around her seemed to calm, the pneumatic energy stabilizing. "You felt the Néxium's pain in the metal joint. That is the gift of the chosen. But your gift is raw. It is dangerous to you."
She extended her hand, and Lyall felt the difference. Where his own contact with the Néxium was physical pain, hers was an airy caress.
"Merikh Vane's plan is not to make money. It is to monopolize the resource by killing the Heart of the World in the Domain of Cinders. If one source collapses, the Empire is destabilized. I can teach you to master that gift. I can give you the political keys."
Elara looked him in the eye. "In exchange, you help me stop him. You are the only one who can testify to the corrupted Néxium. Do you accept, Smith?"
Lyall looked at the Piston in his hand, then into Elara's eyes. He was a simple smith betrayed by his Guild, facing a conspiracy that could tear the sky.
"I accept," he whispered, a new fire, not of the furnace but of defiance, igniting within him.