The first time Kael saw the Gilded Spire, he thought it was a trick of the light.
From the refinery's rooftop, where rusted girders clawed at the sky, the distant district shimmered like a mirage. Towers of polished alloy pierced the smog, their surfaces reflecting the dull orange glow of Ironhaven's perpetual twilight. Kael squinted, his good eye watering. He'd heard the name scrawled on slum walls and whispered in the dark—"Spire rats bathe in gold, we bathe in blood." But seeing it? That was different. It didn't look real. It looked like a story.
Gutter nudged his leg, her crystalline fur catching the faint light. She'd dragged a waterlogged map from the refinery's depths, its edges chewed by rats. Kael smoothed it against the roof's corroded metal, squinting at the smudged ink:
The Gilded Spire, the district of the Government, corporate elites, Oblivion-free.
Iron Cross, home of the Middle-class, commerce, Inquisition-lite.
The Forge, the place for Factories, refineries, worker zones.
Sundown Bazaar, the word of Black markets, syndicates, Shard trade.
The Dregs,the lowly Slums. Unmapped. Unseen.
Kael traced the Dregs' jagged outline, a splatter of ink near the map's edge. "We're not even a footnote," he muttered. Gutter sniffed the paper, unimpressed.
Iron Cross
The cough started as a tickle. By dawn, it was a rattling hack that bent Kael double, black phlegm staining the refinery floor. Medicine meant venturing into Iron Cross, where the air didn't reek of acid and the Inquisition's patrols carried stun batons instead of blades.
"Stay close," he told Gutter, though the dog already pressed against his thigh, ears flat.
They slipped through the district's border at twilight, where the Dregs' crumbling alleys gave way to patched asphalt. Kael froze.
Flower boxes.
They sat beneath windowsills, spindly geraniums straining toward the smog-choked sun. A vendor sold skewers of synth-meat, the scent almost sweet. A woman in a faded but clean coat laughed with a man outside a café, their voices light, unguarded.
"Soft," Kael whispered, his grip tightening on Gutter's collar. "They're soft."
A patrol rounded the corner—Inquisition cadets, younger than him, their ivory armor scrubbed to a dull sheen. One whistled a folk tune. Kael's venom surged, claws pricking his palms, but the cadets passed without glancing his way.
They don't even see us.
He found a pharmacy with a cracked window. The antibiotics were labeled For canine use only.
"Same difference," he said, tossing Gutter a pill. She caught it midair, crunching loudly.
The Forge
The Forge was a beast.
Foundries roared, their smokestacks belching acid-tinged clouds that turned the air caustic. Workers trudged in heat-warped suits, their faces wrapped in cloth, eyes hollow. Kael melted into their ranks, his threadbare clothes blending seamlessly.
He'd come for rumors. Jarek's here, they said. Stonebreaker's squeezing the unions.
But the warehouse held only crates of rusted machinery and a foreman's ledger filled with names and numbers. Productivity penalties. Quota deficits. Kael's fingers brushed the page. Lysa M. 12 credits docked. Haran V. 18 credits.
"You lost, rat?"
The foreman loomed, a meaty hand gripping Kael's shoulder. His breath stank of stale beer.
"Shift change," Kael rasped, slipping free. "Just checking the line."
The man sneered. "Line's that way. Miss a bolt again, you'll pay double."
Kael worked three hours. His hands moved automatically, assembling parts he didn't understand. The Shard in his chest recoiled from the machinery's hum, venom pooling sluggishly. When the whistle blew, he palmed a copper coil and vanished.
Gutter waited outside, her fur gray with ash.
"Jarek's not here," he told her. "Just ghosts."
Sundown Bazaar
Nightfall brought the Bazaar to life.
Stalls glowed with bioluminescent fungi, hawking everything from Oblivion shards to bootleg neural chips. A broker in a feathered mask haggled over Husk-Mimic tendons, their filaments still twitching. A child waved a jar of engineered fireflies, their light casting emerald shadows.
"Dregs rat."
Lys leaned against her stall, arms crossed. Her gloves were stained with something Kael didn't want to name. "What's festering in you now?"
"Antibiotics," he said, tossing her the copper coil. "The kind that won't kill me."
She smirked, holding up a vial of murky liquid. "Fermented glowmoss. Burns spores or your gut. Either way, you'll shut up."
He drank it in one gulp. It tasted like battery acid and honey.
"You're welcome," she called as he left.
Gutter growled at a Syndicate enforcer, his jacket lined with Shard-forged thread. The man eyed her fur, calculating.
"Leave it," Kael muttered, steering her away.
The Gilded Spire
They circled the Spire's perimeter at midnight.
Its walls were seamless nano-glass, pulsing faintly with defensive energy. Drones zipped between balconies, delivering packages to figures in flowing silks. A girl leaned over a railing, her dress shimmering like liquid starlight. She pointed at Gutter, mouthing "Dog!" before a servant yanked her inside.
Kael's Shard stirred, venom pooling hot and restless.
We could climb. We could take.
He flexed his clawed hand, the joints stiff. "Not worth it."
The Dregs
The refinery welcomed them with the stench of rust and decay. Kael collapsed against the wall, the glowmoss brew churning in his stomach. Gutter lapped at a puddle, her reflection fracturing in the ripples.
The map lay sprawled before him. Five districts. Five lies.
Iron Cross's flowers. The Forge's quotas. The Spire's glow.
He'd walked their streets, breathed their air, and still couldn't fathom their rules.
A cough wracked him. Black phlegm hit the floor.
Gutter whined, nosing his hand.
"Alive," he rasped. "That's all that matters."
The lie tasted bitter.