The scent of white ink solvent and charred cedar had barely cleared from the Ledger House before the temperature in the lower city dropped again. It wasn't the seasonal frost—though the coastal sleet was currently thickening into large, heavy flakes that turned the black river slips into sludges of grey ice—but the distinct, heavy silence that descended when an economy completely stopped breathing.
Elara stood by the high iron grate of the palace treasury workshop, her fingers lightly tapping against a cold brass casing. Her charcoal-grey wool coat was damp at the shoulders, her collar turned up against the draft that whistled through the stone floor-vents. Down below, the massive iron flywheels of the minting presses had finally ground to a halt. They had exhausted the silver reserves salvaged from Vaughn's clearing vaults; every single ounce of the raw commodity had been converted, stamped, and pushed into the market district.
