Chapter 5: The City Above
Valeria left her quarters before dawn. She didn't have to; the Hall of the Three Thrones only expected her at sunrise, and it was at most a twenty-minute brisk walk from Filtrant Street to the Hierarchy District. She had time, but she couldn't lie in bed with her eyes open counting cracks she couldn't see, so she rose, dressed, checked her gear, and went out.
The city was different at this hour. The cobblestones were wet, still dark from the night. Low, oil lanterns in iron cages at street corners cast yellow circles onto the stone and puddles. Between them stretched strips of shadow. Valeria walked down the center of the sidewalk with a steady, measured pace, unhurried. Her boots were quiet on the stone, her cloak fastened at the neck.
The first carts were already moving—suppliers, bakers, grain merchants from suburban warehouses. Horses puffed steam into the cold air. Drivers sat huddled on their boxes, collars pulled up to their ears. No one looked at Valeria. It had always been this way; she had learned in her first year of service that it wasn't about being invisible, but about looking like you were going exactly where you needed to go, with a purpose behind you and a goal ahead, as if you had no time to notice anyone. When you do that, no one notices you.
She turned onto the Avenue of Holy Order and slowed down. The avenue was wide, paved with smooth, light-gray stone that differed from the uneven surfaces of the side streets. On both sides stood tenements with clean facades—no graffiti, no cracks, no damp stains at the foundations. Every hundred paces stood a lamp post with a double fixture, brighter than those on the side streets.
And every hundred paces, there was a checkpoint. Two people in black, fitted uniforms with the symbol of Aurelion on the chest—an open hand holding a scale. Inquisitors of the Iron Law. At the first checkpoint, a queue had formed: five people with bags and crates, likely merchants delivering to the market that opened in two hours. The Inquisitors checked each in turn—documents, bags, questions asked in monotone voices, answers noted in small, leather-bound notebooks.
Valeria approached the side of the checkpoint, away from the queue. One of the Inquisitors looked at her. She raised the left sleeve of her cloak for three seconds. On her wrist was a tattooed symbol—not of the Erynis, but a passage stamp respected by all three Churches. It was a sign telling the viewer not to ask unnecessary questions. The Inquisitor nodded and turned back to the queue. Valeria lowered her sleeve and passed. Behind her, the second merchant in line raised his voice—something about waiting for half an hour, about justice and equal treatment. The voice quickly faded. Valeria did not turn to see why.
The Weavers' District woke louder than the rest. Workshops opened at dawn—heavy wooden shutters fell, and immediately the rhythmic, continuous thrum of dozens of looms rang out, like a great metal heart beating to the rhythm of production. The scent of wool and dyes hung thick and acrid in the air, mixing with the stench of coal from the heating stoves.
Valeria walked through the district along the central street. She passed women in aprons carrying baskets of yarn on their heads and boys running with messages between workshops. She passed a group of older men standing at a corner with cigarettes and short, clipped conversations that went silent as anyone passed nearby. At the entrance to one workshop, a man in an Inquisition uniform stood talking to the owner. The owner was short and bald, with a face clearly older than the rest of his body. He nodded several times, then went inside and closed the door behind him. The Inquisitor took out a notebook and wrote something down.
Valeria moved on. At the corner of the next street, someone had pasted a poster to the wall—thick paper, large letters, printed on a private press, not an official one. Valeria read it from two paces away without stopping:
ETHER IS A GIFT, NOT THE PROPERTY OF THE CHURCHES.
Underneath, in smaller letters:
The God of Silence hears those whom the Erynis does not hear.
Valeria continued. Around the corner, on the back of the same wall, stood a new poster—pasted over the same plaster but fresher, without dampness at the corners:
Whoever sows lies about the gift of the Iron Law will be questioned about their words.
It was signed with the seal of Aurelion.
Trouble began at Butchers' Street. Valeria heard it before she saw it—raised voices, then a short, clipped cry, followed by a silence that was worse than the cry because it meant something had ended too abruptly. She turned into a side alley.
Three Inquisitors of the Erynis—she recognized them by the filter masks at their belts, worn around their necks ready to be donned—were holding a man against the wall. Not by his hands; one stood behind him with a hand on his neck, pressing his face against the brick. The other two were searching his bag. On the cobblestones before them lay several items: a rolled parchment, a pouch of herbs, and a small brass instrument Valeria didn't recognize from that distance.
And three vials. Small, sealed with wax. Valeria recognized them by their color—dark brown, almost black. Not pure Ether; not the kind the Church sells in authorized pharmacies after proper inspection. The other kind—wild, sealed in haste by someone without any filtration.
One of the Inquisitors leaned down and picked up a vial, examining it by the light of a lantern. The man against the wall was speaking quickly and quietly through a constricted throat. Valeria couldn't hear the words, but she saw his entire body trembling—not from the cold. The Inquisitor with the vial turned to the others and said something in a single sentence. The man against the wall stopped talking.
The Inquisitors took the bags and vials. They led the man down the street—not toward the main Station at Hierarchy Square, but sideways, into a narrow alley without lanterns. Valeria knew that alley; she knew where it led. Not to the Station.
She continued down Butchers' Street. Around the corner, a bread merchant stood with a tray full of buns, struggling with a zippered bag and cursing under his breath. A woman in a first-floor window was hanging out laundry. A child ran across the street with a hoop and a stick.
No one turned to look at the man and the Inquisitors. Neither did Valeria.