When the centerline keel-strake snapped, the Vitreous Giant beast ceased to be a ship and became two thousand four hundred tons of falling scrap metal.
The total fracture began at frame thirty-two, directly above the buried harpoon. The twelve-inch forged iron backbone of the vessel tore in half with an explosive sound blast that blew out every leftover pane of curved quartz glass in the forward watching gondola.
A gale of freezing, high-sky wind rushed into the conservatory, instantly shredding the delicate orchids. It ripped the velvet curtains from their brass rods, and scattered thousands of pages of royal navigation charts into the sky.
“Ren! The cable!” Lord Ren roared over the screaming wind, grabbing Ren’s shoulder with iron grip. “The load-bearing shear is propagating aft! In sixty seconds, the boiler deck will collapse into the deep pit!”
Across the tilted, shattered floor of the gondola, Lord Malakor lay pinned beneath his overturned wheelchair. His ermine furs were soaked in engine oil and sulfur salt water. His gold-trimmed breathing mask had been torn from his mouth by the inrushing gale. His withered throat worked wildly, sucking in the freezing mountain air in useless, rattling gasps.
The old oligarch looked up at Ren Vale, his watery eyes filled not with arrogance, but with the hollow, animal terror of a man who finally understood that his gold couldn’t buy gravity.
