Dawn scoured against Ashveil like iron against rust. Kael stirred beneath a tarp bound together from oilcloth and coarse sacks, balled up on a stack of crates propped just high enough to preserve the wet from saturating his marrow. Pipes above creaked and spat, dripping hot steam that discouraged the rats from burrowing too near.
He pushed the loose board from beneath the crates — seven Cog Shards. One dented silver Token stamped with the faint Key. Still there. He knotted them in a piece of rag and stuck them deep within his tattered coat.
Outside, Ashveil welcomed him with her familiar kiss: coal smoke, fish oil, old iron, the sour sting of rain and too many people in too little room. Above, rusty pipes snaked along walls like steel vines, releasing warmth in drifting clouds. Half the buildings were sewn together from stone bones and scavenged sheet metal — temples repurposed as scrap lofts, old arches concealed by sagging tin.
Kael ducked into a crooked lane where twisted rails clattered under pushcarts filled with stripped wire. By the corner, under a lean-to of coils stacked and broken boilers, Bran stood with his arms across his barrel chest. His breath puffed white in the cold.
"Kael!" Bran barked, voice like metal clanging in a drum. "You look like a kicked dog. Bring anything to melt down?"
Kael tossed his rucksack in front of Bran's feet. A loose hinge, a half-gotten corroded gear, some bunched copper wire.
"Scrap's junk," Kael said.
Bran snorted, kicking the hinge with his boot. "You haul this from the old freight lots? You'll cut your hand to the bone before you ever get a real Token."
"Better than dying of hunger," Kael grumbled.
Bran let out a brief laugh, rooting around the wire. He tossed Kael a brass Shard — Cog mark partially worn away. Kael caught it reflexively.
"Bring me something shiny next time, huh?" Bran was already moving away. "The smelters don't compensate for rust."
Kael stuffed the Shard into his pocket, rucksack lighter, ribs tighter.
Beyond the junk stall, he turned onto a side stoop — creaking wood, flaking paint, and Nan Kethra sitting on her crate of potatoes. Shrouded in three tattered shawls, her eyes as keen as the junk knife in her lap.
"Sell to Bran, did you?" she croaked as she spotted him. "Don't tell me you let that old bull get you blind."
Kael shrugged. "Junk's junk. He knows."
She clucked her tongue. "Your mother'd whack him over the head with a ladle for half what he says to you."
Kael grinned. "She's not here, Nan."
"She's watching. Don't think she's not." She dug in her basket, pulled out a dried bread heel wrapped in tattered cloth. Forced it into his hand before he could protest.
"Eat. And return breathing."
He folded it in, just like the Shards.
"Thank you, Nan.
She waved him off with her knife, skinning potatoes like the city's skin — layer by stubborn layer.
Steam hissed above. Scrap carts shrieked on rails older than the city's name. Kael stepped back into the flow, boots splashing rainbow puddles, the flavor of salt and old oil hanging from his breath.
Ashveil was cruel. But occasionally, beneath the rust and rain, it reminded itself to be human — for a boy too gaunt for his coat, an old woman on her porch, and a junk dealer who yapped but wouldn't bite.
Seven Cog Shards. One fresh. One Key Token. A slice of bread. A spring of hope so tenuous it might break by sundown.
But hope was hope. And Kael Merin would seize it.