The Grand Orrery was unveiled to fanfare. King Theron gave a speech praising human ingenuity, a clear attempt to distance his reign from the "arcane sacrifice" of the Tile Wizard.
For a week, it worked perfectly. Then, the first gear slipped. A month later, it was consistently losing an hour a day.
The best engineers in the kingdom were baffled. The "Orrery's Curse" became a popular talking point.
The first seed of public doubt in Theron's infallibility was sown. Kaelen, through a Scout hidden in the royal archives, found a more personal target: Theron's queen, Elara.
She was a historian, a collector of artifacts. He learned she was trying to piece together the true events of the Sunken Keep, troubled by inconsistencies in the official story.
She was a seeker of truth. Kaelen would give her a piece. He had a Scout carefully deposit a single, blackened, and twisted piece of metal on her desk—the melted clasp from his own cloak, a piece he had recovered from the riverbed, scarred by the magical feedback of his betrayal.
It was an artifact that should have been vaporized in the "Grand Dissolution."