Aethelgard had changed in the weeks Elara was gone. The skyline, once defined by the elegant spires of the library and the modest roofs of the residential quarters, was now dominated by the monolithic structure of the New Registry. Massive pipes snaked through the streets like the veins of a dying leviathan, pulsing with a rhythmic, sickly golden light. The city no longer hummed with the sound of human industry; it clicked, whirred, and groaned with the precise, soul-crushing cadence of a clockwork god.
Elara kept her head low, her hood shielding her face from the patrol drones that buzzed through the air like hornets. She clutched the iridescent key inside her sleeve, feeling its faint, cold vibrations. The boy-echo had been right. This was not a world preparing for a sovereign; it was a
