The Grand Orrery's grand unveiling was a spectacle of light and self-congratulation.
King Theron gave a speech praising "human ingenuity and the triumph of will over mysterious arts," a clear and clumsy attempt to bury Kaelen's legacy once and for all.
For a week, the machine worked perfectly, its brass planets moving in their silent, majestic dance.
Then, on the eighth day, a low, grinding groan echoed through the square during its noon display.
The central gear slipped, just for a second, causing the model of the moon to shudder in its orbit.
The engineers, led by a frantic Corbin, assured everyone it was a minor teething problem.
But the problem was not minor.
The flaw Kaelen had engineered was now propagating through the metal.
The groans became more frequent.
A month in, the Orrery was consistently losing time. Within two, it was a public joke.
People called it "The King's Folly" and "The Stuttering Star." The failure was a constant, visible reminder that the foundations of Theron's reign were not as solid as they seemed.
The public, once adoring, now looked at their king with a hint of doubt.
Queen Elara watched the Orrery's failure with a growing sense of dread.
To her, it was not a simple engineering fault; it was a symbol.
Something, or someone, was systematically dismantling her husband's world.
She redoubled her efforts, her investigation now leading her to the few surviving court mages who had analyzed the energy residue at the Sunken Keep.
They spoke, in hushed, fearful tones, not of a "Grand Dissolution," but of a "catastrophic structural feedback," a description that perfectly matched the melted clasp in her possession.