The small transport Aerostat zipped over the arid, steaming lands of the imperial west. Lyall and Elara had moved away from the city but were drawing closer to the heart of the danger. The landscape below was a desert of rock and twisted metal, where the earth seemed to sweat steam.
"The Domain of Cinders," Elara murmured, her gaze fixed. "I grew up here."
Lyall turned to her, surprised. He had thought it was merely an extraction site.
"My father was an idealist. He was one of the first to understand the raw nexium of the Heart of the World. He said we owed a debt to the energy, that we had to coexist, not just extract."
Elara pointed to the ruins, now dominated by the massive, threatening structure of Vane's Mother-Pump.
"It wasn't just a lab, Lyall. It was the Domain of the First, the ancient Finch property. This is where we proved that harmonious extraction was possible. That's why Vane took it."
Her voice trembled with contained anger: "He knew that if the Finch family fell, the myth of coexistence would fall with it. My father died of grief when he lost this place. And I let everything collapse."
The destruction of the Mother-Pump was no longer just a duty; it was the redemption of her family's honor.
The Aerostat made a soft landing far from Vane's main convoys. Lyall and Elara approached the complex. The old Finch manor was a hollow shell, its foundations integrated into Vane's mechanical fortifications.
Elara guided Lyall through a pile of rubble. "The main ventilation shaft. My father built it to ventilate the old house's kitchens. Vane just sealed it off."
They forced the entrance. Lyall felt the weight of Elara's guilt. Every step in the ruins was a silent reproach.
"Lyall, once we're inside, we have to be quick. The Mother-Pump must be shut down for filter maintenance. If it starts pumping again..."
She didn't finish her sentence. Lyall knew: the nexium forced deflagration would be immediate.
Thanks to Elara's intimate knowledge of the place, they managed to slip into the Mother-Pump's bowels. The air was suffocating, saturated with the smell of overheated copper and stale oil.
Lyall felt the enormous rotor. It was silent.
He placed his gauntlet on the metal. There was no pulsation. The pump was indeed shut down. It was a heavy silence, far more menacing than the Discord he had read the first time. The Mother-Pump was a sleeping beast.
"We're lucky," Elara whispered.
"No," Lyall replied, his heart pounding. "Maintenance of this magnitude takes days. Vane hasn't stopped production."
He looked at the auxiliary tanks. "He must have set up a secondary bypass pump to keep feeding his Selithes. If we destroy this, he loses both sources."
Elara pointed to the Main Intake Rotor, the same section Lyall had sabotaged. "The flange gasket. That's the chamber's weakest point."
Lyall scanned the area, reading the metal's intrinsic weakness. He concentrated, sensing the micro-fractures he could exploit. He was preparing to use brute force, an act that would leave him exhausted and defenseless once more. But the need was absolute.
"It has to be perfect," Lyall said. "One strike."
As he raised his gauntlet to concentrate the energy, Elara placed her hand on his shoulder.
"Do it for the Domain, Lyall," she said, tears in her eyes. "Do it for my father."
Their eyes met. This was their last moment before the act of vengeance
Lyall prepared to strike. The silence was absolute, broken only by the hiss of his own effort.
Suddenly, powerful lights snapped on. Lyall and Elara were blinded by a searing flash.
Above them, on a freshly installed maintenance catwalk, stood a figure. It wasn't Vane, but his second-in-command, Captain Volken, a man known for his ruthless calm.
Behind Volken, several armored guards aimed pneumatic cannons.
"Not very smart, Lyall, to return to the scene of so much damage," Volken said, his voice amplified by the steel chamber. He offered a cold smile.
"Archduke Vane bet that you wouldn't run. He knew the little Countess Finch wouldn't let the heart of her heritage be destroyed without one last attempt. It seems we were expecting you."
The trap had sprung. Lyall and Elara were alone, at the center of Vane's mechanical empire.