Chapter thirteen: Tracks Through Steel
Tales of Aether and brimstone
The Lower Ring wasnât kind to the careless, but Sasha Barnett had never been careless. Every step she took across its rain-slick rooftops was a calculated negotiation between gravity, momentum, and muscle. Below, the streets hissed with aether exhaust, whispered curses, and the slow, mechanical breathing of a city long past saving. Above, a web of rusted beams and forgotten scaffolding twisted through the skyline like skeletal branches, daring anyone to race them.
Sasha pulled her worn gloves tighter, leather creaking softly. Her fingers flexed, ready. The city wasnât a place you conquered. You learned to survive it. You learned to run.
Todayâs route was known as Shatterglass Circuitâa cursed stretch through the northeast quarter where even veteran runners hesitated. There were no safety lines. No friendly rooftops. Just old tension cables, failing supports, and sheer drops into a churning pit of steam and shrapnel. But the payout was high, and the Deathline always paid those willing to risk.
Sasha crouched low at the edge of a fractured catwalk. Rainwater glistened like oil on the rusted mesh. Thirty feet ahead, the scaffolding drooped downward, the far end twisted like a snapped bone. Below: a six-story plunge into a junkpit of half-dissolved chassis and ruptured mana cells.
She didnât blink.
She ran.
Boots slammed metal. The edge leapt to meet her. She sprang forward, air howling past her ears as she soared. The moment stretchedâa single, breathless instant suspended between certainty and death. Then the far railing slammed into her palms. She grunted, swung a leg up, rolled.
Pain flared in her shoulder. She didnât stop.
Beneath her, steam burst from a cracked valve, bathing the alley in a white-hot hiss. Sasha dropped through it, landing on a narrow drainage pipe and sprinting across before it could buckle. This part of the run was called the "Vein" for a reasonâone false step, and you'd rupture with it.
She passed the first checkpointâa flickering sigil etched into a half-collapsed antenna. Her aetherglass pinged. Still on time.
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A blur moved to her left.
"Incoming," came a voice in her earâPatch, another runner, lean and fast with a streak of green hair and a reckless grin. He passed her overhead on a tension line, waving like they were out for a stroll.
"Show-off," Sasha muttered, picking up speed.
The next segment was a climb. She launched onto a rusted fire escape, boots slipping on wet metal. Hands gripped the rails. She pulled herself up, past laundry lines, glyph-scrawled walls, and a pair of startled alley cats. At the top, another runner waited: Jexa, taller and heavier, built more for brute strength than speed. She nodded at Sasha, then leapt away.
Runners werenât teammates. But they werenât rivals either. In a city that didnât care if you lived or died, you carved a kind of kinship from proximity and peril.
Sasha vaulted from the roof into the upper spineâa series of old tram rails strung like veins across the district. The wind slammed into her. The rails buzzed with old power, barely stable. One wrong step here could send her tumbling onto electrified glass. But Sasha didnât stumble.
She ran.
Every movement was calculated, instinctual, rehearsed. This wasnât just a run. It was ritual. She ran for the Hollowgrove.
Her people didnât belong in cities. They hated the metal, the closeness, the stink. But they needed supplies the wilds couldnât give. And Sasha? She ran to bridge that gap. Every cred earned, every parcel shippedâthey were offerings. Firewood and metal, grain and spices, clean boots and knives that held their edge. Little things that meant survival out where the forests moved and the beasts didnât care what you believed.
A rusted beam broke underfoot. Sasha dropped, caught a lower pipe, swung.
Ahead, the final stretch opened like a blade: two towers with a chasm between. She knew this jump. Feared it. Loved it. No margin for error. No second chance.
She sprinted.
Time shattered.
The wind screamed. Her heart punched against her ribs. For one long, infinite second she was nothing but motionâa line drawn between rooftops by breath and will.
She landed. Rolled. Came up crouching.
The finish line was marked by a pulse-light embedded in a drainpipe. Her aetherglass chirped.
Run complete.
But the night wasnât over.
Sasha made her way through the low corridors beneath the Ringâdamp stone, scrawled walls, the faint sound of distant humming. The fixerâs workshop was behind an old arcade stall with no name. The door buzzed open. Inside, the fixer grunted and handed over a pouch. No small talk.
Creds jingled softly as Sasha tucked them away.
Enough to send home.
Enough for boots that wouldnât rot. Blankets that wouldnât tear. Dried fruits for the children. Spices for her mother. Maybe even thread for new tents.
Outside, the wind shifted.
The city didnât thank her. It didnât even notice.
But Sasha Barnett had run another Deathline.
And sheâd lived to run again.