Chapter One: Copper Blood and Rooftops

The sprawl of Kavessra groaned with life — not the quiet pulse of peace, but the restless churn of a machine older than its memory.

From above, it looked like a fractured mirror: glass domes like teeth, terraces of stone and steel stitched by cables and rail-lines. River-ships coughed smoke into air heavy with ash, oil, spice, and something faintly sweet.

Somewhere in the Copperward, a vent hissed and stalled.

Again.

Zali Cheng stood on a catwalk above it, scarf flicking in the wind, soot gathering in the creases of her courier jacket. Her boots were patched, her braid loose — but her eyes missed nothing. She leaned over the railing and sniffed.

That's new.

Not burnt metal. Heavier. Almost magical.

She tugged the string on her wrist — old habit — and turned for the stairwell.

"If something’s bubbling this early, I’d better start running now."

She ducked through a tunnel under the tramline — a shortcut only couriers and gutter kids knew. Aether veins glowed faint blue in the walls. Her fingertips brushed them. They buzzed. Not like nearby spells. Slower. Older. Like the weave had been left open too long.

Her brass signal token warmed.

Zali grimaced.

"One thing at a time, jackass."

The tunnel spilled into the Messenger’s Nest — a plaza crammed with courier hubs, bird posts, pneumatic relays, and arcane link booths. Organized chaos.

She slipped through crates and flyers, tossing a nod to the blindfolded receptionist at Cinderhook Dispatch.

"You’re late, Cheng."

"I’m never late. Time just moves funny when I’m broke."

He slotted her coin into a socket. A panel clicked open. She stepped through.

Private booth. Velvet-lined table. Sealed box. Hooded client. Aether steam curled off the package.

Zali raised an eyebrow.

"No name? No destination?"

The figure nodded once.

She picked up the box — warm, too light.

"It’s not to be opened. Not to be delivered. Not until you’re contacted again."

Zali frowned.

"So I’m being paid to babysit?"

"You’re being paid to keep your head down and eyes open."

She slid the package into her satchel. Fine. She didn’t like mystery jobs. But money was money.

Back in the plaza, the box pulsed once.

Like a heartbeat.

She stopped. Hand over the satchel.

Nothing.

"Nope," she muttered.

"Not my problem. Yet."

Above the plaza, Zali bounded onto a rooftop, clearing a gap between crumbling apartment blocks. Kavessra unfolded in haze and smog below — domes, steam towers, rail-lines, and wards.

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The city was ugly and alive.

Just like her.

She ran.

This was her real job — moving. Staying ahead of questions. She passed a rusted turbine, a rooftop garden of dead herbs, and two sun-bleached solar panels that hadn’t worked since the last blackout. She leapt a cable, rolled across a duct, and laughed to herself.

Kavessra wasn’t built. It happened. Cities merged. Slums grew up. Towers fell down. Entire districts formed because someone didn’t want to walk ten blocks for tea.

Zali lived in the Nest. Half-legit, half-sinking. Her apartment above a bakery smelled like cardamom and fried batter. Rent was paid in threats and errands.

She wasn’t proud of her past — her family of grifters and petty thieves. She’d tried to join them once. Failed. Too soft. Too stupid. Too dreamy.

What she wanted wasn’t power or reputation.

Just enough coin to vanish into the sky.

Aeralis.

Cities in the clouds, glittering like constellations. No grime. No debts. Just air, light, and a chance to start over — maybe love someone who didn’t see her as baggage or a risk.

She collapsed on her bed, breathing hard.

"Just a few more jobs," she told the ceiling.

"Then I’m gone."

She didn’t believe it. But saying it felt better than silence.

Zali’s apartment was less a home and more a collection of strategic conveniences: half-kitchen, half-sinkhole, one working light crystal, two cracked windows, and a door that only locked if you kicked it just right.

But the water ran warm sometimes, and the bakery downstairs threw away bread late enough that she rarely went hungry.

She peeled off her jacket and dropped the satchel on the floor with a soft thud.

The pulse from the package had stopped — but it still sat like a weight in her thoughts.

Overhead, pipes groaned with the rhythm of a city pretending to sleep. Zali reached beneath the bed, pulled out an old tin box, and flipped it open.

Inside: a handful of folded sketches.

Of floating towers.

Of gardens threaded with light.

Of her — in someone’s arms. Laughing.

The linework was messy. Untrained.

But the dream was clear.

"I don’t care if it’s stupid," she whispered.

"I’m gonna get there."

A sharp click from the satchel made her freeze.

Zali sat up slowly.

It hadn’t opened. But the latch had moved — ever so slightly. She crept forward, pressed her palm to the bag, and felt… nothing.

No pulse. No heat.

Still, she re-latched it firmly and shoved it under the bed. She wasn’t about to let some weird magic box ruin her night.

The next morning, Kavessra roared to life before the sun even cracked the eastern dome.

Zali was already out the door, braid tied tighter, boots freshly sealed with wax against the morning slush.

The streets spat steam as she darted through alleys and sky-bridges. Horns blared. Wards flickered. She vaulted a collapsed stairwell and landed clean on a fishmonger’s awning, earning a string of curses and a half-thrown eel.

The hustle never stopped — and neither did she.

Zali moved fast because pausing meant thinking. About her busted family. About debt. About the loneliness of being surrounded by a million people who’d all made peace with living in the gutter.

She’d never made peace.

Her first run of the day was a rush scroll for a tower judge in the Tinpoint district — sealed with gold wax, probably some political pissing match.

The second was a blueprint tube wrapped in six aether locks.

"Don’t shake it," the sender warned, eyes darting.

Zali shook it exactly once after she left.

No explosion.

Disappointing.

By midmorning, she was halfway up a clocktower when she felt it again: the hum.

The package, miles away in her apartment, reached out like a sigh in her skull.

She stopped climbing. Her breath caught in her throat.

It wasn’t painful. Just… known. Like someone thinking about her from very far away.

Zali forced her hands to keep moving.

Not my business, she reminded herself. Not until they pay me more.

The bells tolled from the tower’s peak as she dropped off the last delivery of the morning.

Twelve gongs. Noon.

She sat on the ledge and let her legs swing over the city.

From here, Kavessra was almost beautiful — if you squinted past the rust. The far reaches of the city blurred into haze, domes glittering, airships crossing overhead. Somewhere high above, Aeralis drifted on currents she could only dream of reaching.

She pulled a crumpled sandwich from her pocket. It was a mess of egg, saltfish, and pickled onions — spicy and awful.

She took a bite anyway.

Someone sat beside her.

She nearly threw the sandwich off the tower.

It was Juno — another courier, older, always in a raincloak whether it rained or not.

"You got a look on your face," he said.

"What kind of look?"

"The kind you get before everything changes."

"Yeah," she said quietly.

"Well. Not if I have anything to say about it."

He didn’t push further. Just lit a stub of a cigarette and passed it over.

She declined. He smoked in silence.

Back home that evening, the light had shifted. The package still hadn’t moved. Still hadn’t pulsed.

But she knew it was awake.

Zali stood at the window and stared out at the street below.

She didn’t know that in forty-eight hours, she’d be halfway across the city with three strangers — hunted, lied to, and on the edge of something much bigger than a courier’s paycheck.

All she knew was that tomorrow, she’d do it all again.

Run. Deliver. Survive.

And maybe — just maybe — get one step closer to the sky.