Chapter Ten: The Canopy and the Gutter

Day One – Kavessra, Gilded Wards

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The welcome pavilion should’ve been ceremonial.

Instead, it stank — copper, mold, and a half-choked cooking fire nearby.

Leona Belottie stood beneath a soot-streaked arch of metal and magic, banners drooping beside her. Her armor gleamed: polished, diplomatic, ceremonial. Not made for war.

But Kavessra didn’t care.

The stares she earned weren’t reverent. They were calculating. Heavy-lidded.

Like someone wondering how much her shoulder plate would sell for.

A trolley coughed past on whining tracks. Her steward stood one step too far left.

“You’re off center,” Leona said without looking.

Eylin adjusted at once.

“The platform’s uneven.”

“So is the city. Adjust.”

They waited.

No escort. No parade. Not even a bored clerk in half-uniform.

Just a cracked platform, dying glyph-lights, and two local guards sharing smoke and disinterest near the edge.

A message.

Delivered loud and clear.

Leona didn’t blink.

Consulate Quarters – Gilded Wards, Midday

The building was called a “Sylvaen Diplomatic Hub” on paper.

In reality, it was a three-story glorified seed pod wedged between a glass refinery and a forgotten philosophy dome. Vinesteel lines crawled up the shell, brown and wilted. The growth enchantments had failed years ago.

Inside: cold. Wrong. The translations on the walls flickered. One said “mutual thriving.” Another said “please restraint feet.”

A clerk met them at the door. Nervous sweat. Mid-forties. Already apologizing.

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“Your Highness—there was some confusion, the calendar cycle—”

“You had six months’ notice.”

He fell quiet. She passed him without another word.

“Eylin,” she said. “Assess the wards. If they’re shallow, we reinforce. If breached, we move.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

She stood under a cracked skylight — dust filtering down like tired snow.

It would do.

Not because it was ready.

Because she was.

Two Hours Later

She sat alone at the negotiation table. Barkstone etched with forgotten trees. Her collar was unfastened, one hand curled around a cooling cup of untouched steam.

The man who finally entered smiled too wide.

Velvet coat. Council sigil. Teeth like diplomacy.

“Envoy Belottie,” he said, bowing just short of proper. “Tolen Harrex. Civic Liaison for Interward Affairs.”

Leona didn’t rise.

“You’re late.”

“Only by city clocks. We count time in pressure cycles here—”

“Then you’ve already lost half the war.”

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You justify chaos. Normalize insult. Pretend absence is culture.” Her voice didn’t rise. It cut.

“You didn’t greet me with trust. You greeted me with caution. That tells me everything.”

Harrex faltered. Then smiled again, tighter.

“You’ll forgive Kavessra’s mess, I hope. Most visitors take a week to stop flinching at the pipes.”

“Let them flinch,” Leona said. “I’m not here to surrender.”

A beat.

Then Harrex inclined his head. Slightly deeper.

“Shall we discuss the council’s expectations?”

“No.”

“We’ll begin with mine.”

That Night – Consulate Roof

Leona didn’t sleep.

She stood beneath Kavessra’s tainted sky — stars veiled in smoke, moon smeared across a curtain of pollution. The wind carried spice, rot, and the last gasps of burning parchment.

It wasn’t a forest.

But it was alive.

Eylin approached with a cloak.

“You should rest.”

“I didn’t come here to rest.”

“Then to conquer?”

“That’s not our way.”

“No. But it would be easier.”

She allowed the faintest smile.

“Ease is the garden of cowards.”

Eylin placed the cloak over her shoulders.

“Then you are the wind between roots.”

She turned back toward the skyline.

“They don’t know what they’ve invited. They think I’ll send reports home.”

“You won’t?”

“I’ll read the bones of this city. Name its ghosts. And when it burns…”

“…I’ll decide what grows in the ash.”

A tram screamed across steel tracks.

A vent pulsed once — aetherlight rippling wrong.

Leona’s ears twitched.

She turned sharply. Nothing there. But she felt it.

“...Eylin.”

“Yes?”

“Get me the real maps. The ones beneath the streets.”

“The buried veins?”

“By dawn.”

Dawn – Lower Quarters

She dressed plainly.

No sigils. No crest. Just a bark-brown cloak, a blade, and silence.

The guards tried to stop her. She didn’t hear them.

“I need to understand them,” she said to Eylin. “Not their speeches. Their pressure points.”

“You won’t blend in.”

“I’m not trying to.”

“Then why alone?”

“Because no one watches the hunter when she walks like prey.”

The lift down groaned.

They walked the last stretch by foot — through soot-streaked walls, rusted signs, and half-lit glyphs scrawled in dialects she didn’t recognize.

A courier cursed about a broken meter. A child drew circuits in ash.

No one stopped her. No one bowed.

Perfect.

She let the city wash over her — foul, alive, choking on its own heartbeat.

Kavessra wasn’t a city.

It was a beast.

And beasts could be tamed.

If you knew where the spine met the skull.