Days blurred in the factory’s din, a haze of steel and sweat. Elias’s hands, once deft with care, grew rough from the the’s —each piece a dull echo, a shadow of the craft he’d known. The maes’ rhythm thrummed steady, a cold hymn could sing.

  He watched the workers, husks of men—eyes dim, motions rote, lost to the grind. A chill gnawed his spine—how long till he joiheir ranks, a shell unmade? His father’s scowl fshed, a ghost of s for this iron tide—gone, yet his shade judged still. Could Elias stand where pride was dust?

  Voices drifted near as he worked—one weary, low: “Maes don’t care what we shape. They’ll run till we’re naught.” The words struck, sharp as a bde—truth he’d felt but shunned. His craft, once a fire, was chaff here; the factory craved speed, not soul.

  Night found him abed, the shop’s loss a weight on his chest—sold, shuttered, its quiet a wound unhealed. He gripped the chisel beh his pillow, its edge notched from steel—a tether to hands that shaped, not broke. The d’s curse rang in his ears, raw from that day’s ble at a beast that fed on men.

  Was this his eo their will, a cog in their iron hymn? Elias’s breath hitched, dread a knot withi a spark stirred, frail as dawn. The maes rose tall, but he felt his father’s gre, the d’s defiahread u amidst their roar.

  He rose, fists tight, the hum a foe beyond his walls. The faight cim his days, but not his core—not yet. Thomas’s faed in his mind, grim from their st talk—could he rouse a stand against this tide? The chisel pressed against his palm, a vow not of craft’s old fme, but of men it might yet wake, a fight he’d not forsake.