The return to Oakhaven felt like crossing into a different century, but the order Deacon had established was fracturing from within. While he had been busy poisoning the Imperial blueprints in Solstice, the cultural friction of the "Oakhaven Standard" had reached a boiling point. The introduction of Railway Time—a mathematical necessity for the safe operation of high-speed iron—had collided head-on with the ancient, solar-based rhythm of the High Church.
As Deacon's carriage rolled into the station, the first thing he noticed was the sound. It was 10:00 by the master clock on the platform, but the Great Bell of the Cathedral of the Ash was silent. A mile away, in the town square, a crowd had gathered around the public sun-dial.
"They've stopped the clocks, David," Julian said, meeting him at the platform. He looked exhausted, his fine wool coat stained with the soot of the valley. "Father Silas issued a decree while you were at sea. He's declared Railway Time a 'sacrilege against the solar witness.' He's ordered the faithful to ignore your bells and follow only the 'Shadow of the Heavens.'"
The result was a gritty, functional chaos. The factory whistles blew according to the Oakhaven clock, but the schools, the markets, and the bakeries operated by the sun. In a mountain valley where the sun didn't even crest the peaks until 09:00 Railway Time, the ten-minute discrepancy was creating a lethal logistical lag.
"We had a collision in the shunting yard this morning," Miller reported, joining them. He gestured to a twisted wreckage of a coal-wagon near the sidings. "The switch-operator followed the Church bell instead of his watch. He thought he had a 'grace period' before the 10:15 Express. He nearly killed three men."
Deacon walked to the center of the town square. Father Silas was there, standing atop the sun-dial's plinth, surrounded by a group of "Traditionalists"—mostly older residents and displaced Guild-workers who felt the machine-age was erasing their identity.
"You seek to chain the day to a brass gear, Lord Cassian!" Silas shouted as Deacon approached. "You tell the sun when to rise and the moon when to set! This is the pride of the Void. We will not live our lives by the 'Iron Lord's' heartbeat."
"The sun-dial doesn't work when it's cloudy, Silas," Deacon replied, his voice flat and projecting over the murmuring crowd. "And the mountain shadows don't care about the speed of a steam engine. If the trains don't move in sync, the boilers explode and the food doesn't reach the tables. Your 'Solar Witness' is going to get people killed."
"Then let the trains stop!" a voice cried from the crowd. "We were happy before the wire and the rail!"
"You were starving before the wire and the rail," Deacon corrected, turning to the speaker. "You were eating sawdust and waiting for the spring thaw to see if your children lived. Now you have fresh greens and warm houses, but you want to go back to a 'Time' that doesn't exist anymore."
The riot broke out when Deacon ordered the station guards to reset the public clock in the square. The Traditionalists surged forward, wielding heavy wooden staves and stones. It wasn't an ideological debate anymore; it was a physical rejection of the modern world. The Oakhaven militia, equipped with steam-assisted riot shields, struggled to hold the line without resorting to lethal force.
Deacon didn't call for the Sun-Guard. He knew that an Imperial intervention would only validate the Church's claim of tyranny. Instead, he retreated to the station and ordered a Synchronized Whistle-Blast.
"Every locomotive in the yard, every factory in the valley," Deacon commanded. "Tie the steam-whistles open. At exactly 12:00 Railway Time, I want the mountain to shake."
The noise was a physical assault. As the master clock hit the noon mark, fifty high-pressure steam whistles erupted in a discordant, deafening roar. The sound vibrated through the stone foundations of the cathedral, shattered the glass in the upper windows of the sun-dial square, and drowned out Father Silas's voice entirely.
The riot stopped. The protesters clutched their ears, cowering as the sheer kinetic power of the industrial valley manifested as sound. For three solid minutes, the "Oakhaven Heartbeat" was the only thing that existed.
When the whistles finally cut out, the silence that followed was heavy and absolute. Deacon stood on the station balcony, a megaphone in his hand.
"That is the sound of your food being processed," Deacon said into the quiet. "That is the sound of the coal that keeps you warm. You can pray to the sun all you like, but the steam doesn't listen to the Church. From this moment on, if you want to work in Oakhaven, you work by Oakhaven Time. If you want to live by the sun, you can find a valley that hasn't discovered the engine yet."
The crowd dispersed, broken not by violence, but by the undeniable reality of the machine. Silas remained by the sun-dial, his face a mask of bitter defeat. He knew that the "Schism of the Seconds" was over, and the Church had lost. The "Iron Lord" didn't just own the ground; he now owned the day itself.
"It was a brutal move, David," Julian said as they watched the square clear. "You've made an enemy of the spirit of this place."
"The spirit of this place was dying," Deacon said, looking at the precision-clock on his wrist. "I'm just giving it a rhythm it can survive. But we have a bigger problem. The telegraph just received a signal from the coast. The Sovereign—the Imperial Shadow-Rail engine—is being loaded onto a barge. They're bringing it here for 'Final Calibration.' The Steward didn't wait for our 'Consultants' to finish."
The "Shadow-Rail" was coming to Oakhaven, and it was bringing the Imperial bureaucracy with it. Deacon realized that the "Poisoned Blueprint" he had planted in Solstice was about to be tested on his own tracks.