The carriage ride back from the Neutral Border was silent, the only sound being the rhythmic hum of the silver-threaded wheels against the frost-cracked road. Livius leaned his head against the velvet padding, his eyes closed. Internally, he was still sorting through the fragmented data-bursts Sophia had forced into his mind. Her "Oracle-Engine" was a cold, mechanical god, but it had revealed a terrifying truth: the Federation wasn't just observing the Argentine Empire; they were scavenging it.
"Cian," Livius said, his voice cutting through the gloom of the carriage. "Look at Vaelin's final painting again. The one of the 'Star-Thorn.' Not the portrait of me, but the landscape he finished the night before he collapsed."
Cian pulled the canvas from a protective leather tube. It was a haunting image of the Ironspire Mines, but Vaelin had painted the mountains not as rock, but as a series of translucent, interconnected ribcages. In the deepest gallery, where the iron was the purest, he had painted a single, pulsating vein of silver that looked like a frozen lightning bolt.
"He didn't use normal lead paint for that vein," Cian whispered, running a finger near the edge of the canvas. "He used 'Aether-Dust.' It only glows when it's near a source of Silver Dragon mana. Livius... the vein isn't moving. It's trapped."
"The Federation didn't just build that Oracle-Engine out of brass and steam," Livius said, his golden-silver eyes snapping open. "They needed a processor. A soul that can handle the infinite variables of the future. They've been mining the North for more than just iron. They've been mining us."
The carriage swerved, turning North toward the jagged peaks of Ironspire. Livius felt a pull in his chest—a cold, mournful resonance that grew stronger with every mile they traveled. It was the same feeling he had when he touched his mother's sarcophagus, but this was louder. It was a chorus of a thousand tiny, fading heartbeats.