BOOK TWO: THE IRON BRIDGESChapter 92: The Rust of the Soul(Jace’s Perspective)Night fell on Aethelgard not with a sunset, but with a thickening of the soot.In the founding ground, twilight was a time of settling. The birds quieted, the campfires crackled, and the deep sight hummed with a gentle, collective deceleration.Here in the human capital, the dark only meant a shift change. The massive blast furnaces roared louder, casting a hellish, flickering orange glow against the bruised clouds. The psychic noise of the city didn’t sleep; it just changed its pitch from frantic labor to exhausted, hollow dread.Inside the old customs house, it was freezing. We had no fire.The fifty wolves sat in a wide, perfect circle on the stone floor. They were entirely silent, projecting a localized, dense gravity of calm. Torin sat at the head of the circle, facing the heavy iron doors. Valerius stood nervously near the windows, peering out into the smog-choked street.I sat in the dead center."
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