It began at 4:17 in the morning with a tremor—not violent, but unmistakable. It rippled through bedrock and footstones, a whisper through ancient bones. In the Hall of Smiths, unattended hammers rang once, echoing as if in salute to something awakened.

Elder Smith Bromli Ironpost opened his eyes before the quake finished rolling through the lower quarters. He was already dressed—elders rarely slept long—and had been reading an old metallurgical scroll by hearthlight. When the stone beneath his boots shifted, he rose without a word, pulling on his forgecoat with the deliberate calm of one used to responding to things most folk feared.

By the time he reached the Hall of Elders, the others were gathering. Ten of them sat in the stone-circled chamber, beards braided, voices grim.

“It was centered deep,” grunted Morgrin Saltspike, keeper of the mining guild. “Below the cistern tiers. Perhaps lower still.”

“Lower than the Old Vaults?” asked Dame Lothra Steeltoe, raising one white brow. “That’d put it near the Embervaults.”

A pause fell over the room.

“The Embervaults are sealed,” said Darnik Emberglint, head of Dwarfheim's engineers. “They’ve been cold since the collapse of ‘21.”

“No,” said Bromli, quiet but certain. “They’re not cold. I felt heat. Something stirred beneath.”

Grumbles and murmurs rose.

“That place nearly swallowed a generation,” said Morgrin. “We buried twenty-four good smiths under molten stone and broken timbers. You want to go back?”

“We may have no choice,” Bromli said. “You all saw the monthly ore ledger. Iron’s down another twenty percent. We’re into low-grade veins, scattered and brittle.”

“There are other forges,” Darnik countered. “Smaller chambers closer to the active vents.”

Bromli fixed him with a look. “Those forges burn coal, not legacy flame. If the Embervault fire still breathes, it’s not by natural means. And if we find the old workings intact—automata, blueprints, alloys—what might that knowledge buy us now?”

A heavy silence followed.

At last, Dame Lothra broke it. “You’re speaking of reaching back before the Silence. Before the rules.”

“I’m speaking of survival,” said Bromli. “Four years ago, we sent that ore delivery to the red-cloaked surface folk in Santa’s Village. Some called it generous. Others called it foolish.”

“It was both,” said Morgrin. “But what choice did we have? They offered tools, preserves, medicine.”

“And stories,” muttered Darnik. “Tales of children and sleighs. Fairy dust. Magic. Bah.”

“We’ve traded deeper than we admit,” Lothra added, her voice dry. “And now we’re poorer for it.”

“We are what we’ve always been,” Bromli said, rising to his full height—not tall, but unyielding. “We are the forge. We are the flame. And we will not let this city die whispering in the dark while we sit on our pride.”

The room went still.

Lothra finally nodded. “Then we send a team. To the Embervaults.”

Bromli descended before sunrise, accompanied by two journeymen and a nervous apprentice named Elbra. She carried the lantern. The others carried hammers, axes, and an emergency breather mask.

They passed beneath ancient archways, descending past the working levels into the tiers where the rock began to sweat. It grew hotter, damper, quieter. The sound of the city fell away behind them.

The Embervault gate was still sealed, its brass wheel-lock dull with tarnish. Bromli turned it with practiced effort, the old runes on the key glinting faintly in the lanternlight.

When the door finally groaned open, a breath of air rushed out—hot, dry, and heavy with the scent of coal soot and something else… something old.

Inside, they found ash like snowdrifts. Tools long abandoned. Bronze hooks and soot-stained chains. And at the heart of the largest chamber, beneath a fractured stonework arch, the forge still smoldered.

No flame. Just a faint, steady pulsing glow, as if the coals had been dreaming of fire and hadn’t yet realized a century had passed.