Night in Iron Hearth had its own frequency.
It wasn't the sound of crickets or the chirping of nocturnal birds—that was far too poetic for a city whose breath was soot. The sound of the night here was a low hum of machines that never truly died, the hiss of steam—Hsssss—from the giant chimneys of factories that stayed awake twenty-four hours a day, and the occasional faint rumble of freight trains on magnetic rails. All of it was muffled, seeping through the gaps in the thick stone castle walls like a mechanical heartbeat.
In the workshop of the Alpha Building, Rianor Sudrath sat motionless.
