Jon led Iven out of the narrow brick conduit, guiding her through the broken iron grille into the vast, dry rotunda beneath the Old Hill.
Sister Oda walked behind them, her lantern beam lowered to illuminate the steps, while Alden Bram brought up the rear, his iron pry-bar tucked beneath his arm like a shepherd’s crook.
The dry, pulsing heat of the chamber enveloped them instantly. Iven stopped five paces onto the granite gallery, her boots frozen against the flags. Her breath hitched in her throat, her gray eyes widening until the whites showed stark against the charcoal soot smeared across her temples.
She was staring at the three stone rings.
In the center of the pit, the dark sphere turned with its slow, agonizing cadence, rotating half an inch with every heavy thrum that shook the foundation blocks. The woven runic wire and brass scales reflected the lantern light in dull, bronze ripples, humming with the high, metallic pitch that vibrated behind Jon’s eyes.
“What is that?” Iven whispered, her voice stripped of every trace of soldierly swagger.
“That is the Hearth Nail,” Jon answered, stepping beside her at the edge of the outer firebrick ring. “The sovereign core of the Crown. The machine that Sir Cael Ardent uses to reset the world whenever his army is destroyed.”
