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The city of Gearford did not sleep; it ticked. Every cobblestone vibrated with the subterranean grinding of the great tectonic gears that kept the city leveled above the poisonous smog of the Lowlands. Steam hissed from brass vents like the breath of sleeping beasts, and the sky was a permanent bruise of coal dust and twilight.
Elara tightened her goggles, her soot-stained fingers deftly manipulating the delicate tumblers of a lock. She wasn’t supposed to be in the High District. Here, the air was cleaner, filtering through massive copper purifiers, and the streetlamps burned with refined æther, casting a sterile white glow that made her feel exposed.
“Almost there,” she whispered to the mechanical sparrow perched on her shoulder. The bird, a patchwork of tin and quartz, chirped a soft, metallic warning. Its ruby eyes whirred, focusing on the shadow of a patrolling automaton down the alley.
The door clicked. Elara slipped inside the workshop of Master Artificer Vane. Rumors whispered in the scrap yards said Vane had found something—something that didn't belong to this age of steam and springs.
The workshop smelled of ozone and oil. Shelves lined with jars of pickled homunculi and half-assembled limbs towered over her. But Elara ignored them. She moved toward the heavy iron vault at the back of the room. It wasn’t locked with a key, but with a riddle of harmonic resonance. She pulled a tuning fork from her belt, struck it against her boot, and pressed it against the cold metal.
The vault hummed in sympathy, the tumblers falling into place with a sound like heavy rain. The door swung open.
There, resting on a velvet cushion, was the Heart.
It was the size of a human head, but it wasn't flesh. It was a dense, intricate sphere of interlocking gold and obsidian plates. And it was beating. Thump-whirr. Thump-whirr. A soft blue light pulsed from its core with every contraction, illuminating the dusty air.
Elara reached out, her hand trembling. As her fingers brushed the warm metal, a voice echoed in her mind—not a sound, but a vibration in her very bones. "Awaken."
Suddenly, the Heart unspooled. The plates shifted and slid, expanding outward. Elara stumbled back, knocking over a tray of screws. The sphere wasn't just a power source; it was an egg.
With a sound like tearing metal, the thing unfolded. Wings of gossamer steel mesh stretched wide, spanning the width of the vault. A long, serpentine neck uncoiled, topped with a head that looked regal and terrifying. Its eyes were not gemstones, but burning miniature stars.
It was a dragon. Not of flesh and blood, as the old myths claimed, but of supreme artifice. Yet, the intelligence in those burning eyes was undeniably alive.
“You are small,” the dragon said, its voice emanating from a vibrating diaphragm in its throat. “And you smell of carbon.”
“I—I’m Elara,” she stammered, gripping her wrench like a weapon. “I’m a mechanic.”
The dragon tilted its head. “Mechanic. One who fixes. I am Chronos. I am… broken.”
Elara stepped closer, her fear replaced by professional curiosity. She saw it then—a jagged tear in the dragon’s flank, leaking a luminous blue fluid. The main drive gear was misaligned, grinding against the casing. It was a fatal wound for a machine.
“I can fix you,” Elara said, the words leaving her mouth before she could think.
Chronos lowered his head, bringing his starry eyes level with hers. “Why? I was built to burn cities. Vane dug me from the ruins of the First Age to be a weapon of war.”
“Because nothing that beautiful should be broken,” Elara said softly. She reached into her satchel and pulled out her precision tools.
For hours, she worked. She realigned the drive gear, patched the casing with scrap brass from the workshop floor, and refilled the hydraulic lines with her own supply of refined oil. Chronos watched her, his internal gears purring like a giant cat.
When she finished, the sun was beginning to rise, painting the smog a sickly yellow. The workshop door banged open. Master Vane stood there, flanked by two steam-powered sentinels. His face twisted in rage.
“Thief!” he roared. “Step away from the prototype!”
Elara froze. But Chronos moved. The dragon reared up, smashing through the roof of the workshop in a shower of timber and slate. He didn’t breathe fire; he breathed pure, concussive sound. The sentinels shattered into shrapnel. Vane was thrown backward, unconscious.
Chronos lowered his neck, offering a perch. “Come, mechanic. The sky is dirty here. I know a place above the clouds where the sun is white and the air tastes like ice.”
Elara looked at her soot-stained hands, then at the magnificent machine she had healed. She climbed onto his back.
With a beat of wings that shook the foundations of Gearford, they launched into the air. They rose past the smog, past the towering chimneys, breaking through the cloud layer into a blinding, brilliant dawn. For the first time in her life, Elara breathed deep, and her lungs didn’t burn.
The city ticked on below them, unaware that its heart had just flown away.