Wynn's crew finished the last tasks without ceremony and walked out through the main entrance. Aestrith heard the door close and the corridor outside go quiet, which was the signal that meant she had the foundry to herself.
She moved to the cast table and ran her eyes across the current batch, checking for what needed attention before she started.
The ceiling beams had gone darker in the weeks since the first pour, each cycle adding another layer to what was already there.
She had stopped noticing the smell of iron and hot stone about a week after she moved into the citadel, the same way she had stopped noticing the smell of the Badlands when she was crossing it. It was just what a place smelled like.
On the far side of the room, lined against the wall below where the new beam assembly was resting, there were six rough iron cylinders.
Each one was about two feet long, thick-walled, with a hole bored through the center.
