The western lamps went out one by one.
Zephyr saw them through the prayer-grid, not as lights but as absences where weight should have been. A district in Dunmire ceased its evening rite. Three streets in Bridgepost followed. Then an entire mining ward beyond the northern rail line went quiet with the soft, spreading regularity of frost crossing glass.
Below him, the Eternal Forge held its accustomed dark. Molten channels ran between black stone supports. The great furnaces had no mouths and no fuel doors. They existed because he had made them exist, centuries ago, when a forge had still meant a room with workers inside it.
Now the channels ran thin.
He did not stand in the Forge. Standing was a mortal arrangement. His awareness occupied the vault in layers: the heat beneath the stone, the pressure of twenty-three million prayers, the distant creak of rail bridges under overloaded freight, the small private hungers that had begun to outnumber evening hymns.
