Chapter 4 #2
There’s food to prepare, supplies to sort, routes to check, and work to do. And if I keep moving, I won’t have to think too hard about the fact that the bond in my chest feels strangely hollow this morning.
Or about the Nyxerian commander who walked out of my life less than twelve hours ago.
By the time the sun begins bleeding properly through the upper windows of the warehouse, I’ve shaken the worst of the nightmare out of my system.
Admittedly, not entirely. Those sorts of memories don’t disappear just because the morning comes, but routine helps.
Routine is survival in Terrafeara.
I pull on my boots, shrug into a worn leather jacket, and move through the warehouse with the practiced rhythm of someone who’s performed the same motions hundreds of times.
The place is still half shadowed, the big open space quiet except for the faint creaking sounds of someone shifting in the loft above.
A couple of the residents we’re sheltering here are early risers. I keep my movements quiet anyway.
First thing I do is check the supplies.
The habit is automatic now. Shelves along the back wall hold jars of dried roots, bundles of cured meat, sacks of grain stacked carefully to keep them off the damp stone floor. I run a hand along the nearest stack, checking the seals.
Still dry.
Good.
The two sacks we hauled in yesterday morning sit where I left them, tied and waiting to be portioned out later.
Food’s never something I take for granted anymore. Ten years in this world will teach you that.
I move to the worktable and start assembling what I’ll need for the morning—tool roll, a handful of metal fasteners, a coil of thin wire, two small oil tins. My fingers move easily through the routine, muscle memory from a lifetime of fixing machines and broken equipment.
Funny thing about Terrafeara. The world itself runs on strange energy and alien materials I still don’t fully understand. But fortunately for me, humans have been dragged here through the rifts for decades. And wherever humans go, they bring their junk with them.
Engines, locks, generators, broken plumbing. Metal gates that weren’t built to survive a world with different gravity and humidity and weather that sometimes rains glowing spores instead of water.
Most of it eventually stops working, which is where I come in.
A mechanic is useful anywhere, even in another universe.
I sling the tool roll over my shoulder and grab a small satchel before heading for the door.
The morning air hits me the moment I step outside. Cooler than the warehouse, heavy with the smell of canal water and damp stone.
The district is already waking up.
Lanterns still glow faintly along the upper walkways, though the strange copper-tinted daylight is beginning to push its way through the narrow streets.
Terrafeara’s architecture is a chaotic mix of worlds—Glowranth stone towers leaning beside newer structures haphazardly erected from materials dragged here through rifts over the past two decades, wooden market stalls built from salvaged wood standing under archways that look older than any civilisation I’ve ever read about.
Nothing matches.
Everything works.
Sort of.
The canal runs through the centre of the district, its water moving slowly under a series of low bridges. Barges drift lazily along the current, pushed by long poles or pulled by creatures that look like crossbreeds between horses and lizards.
The city’s alive… and tense. You can feel it in the way people move—quicker, quieter. Eyes watching corners they didn’t used to notice.
The Queen’s patrols have been increasing since the citadel incident. Kael and Sonny’s little infiltration stunt didn’t exactly go unnoticed.
I pull my hood up slightly and start down the street.
A pair of guards stand at the end of the block.
They’re Glowranth. Tall, broad-shouldered, skin the various shades of blue, their armour marked with the black insignia of the Crown, and their bioluminescent markings flare.
They lean against the canal railing like they’re bored, but their eyes track every person moving through the district.
I reach them a minute later, and one of them, Ferigth, straightens. “Pax.”
His tone is neutral, which, in this city, counts as friendly.
“Morning,” I say in Glowranthian, digging casually into my pocket.
Two small silver coins slide into his palm when I shake his hand. The exchange takes less than a second. It’s so routine that his companion barely glances at it.
“Busy day?” Ferigth asks.
“Always.”
He grunts in acknowledgement and steps aside, and just like that, I’m through.
Bribes aren’t glamorous, but they work. Especially when a few of the more influential Glowranth in the district quietly encourage their guards to look the other way when certain people pass through.
It helps that those same Glowranth happen to have mates who are Riftborn.
I continue down the street, nodding at a few familiar faces.
A human woman sweeping outside a small bakery stall raises a hand. “Morning, Pax.”
“Morning, Jessa.”
The smell of fresh bread drifts through the air, warm and comforting in a way that still surprises me sometimes. Ten years ago, the idea of bread ovens operating in another dimension would have seemed ridiculous.
Now it’s just part of the neighbourhood.
Further down the street, I pass a group of Riftborn hauling crates from a canal barge. They move with the quiet obedience of people who know they’re being watched.
Technically they’re employed by one of the trade houses operating under the Crown. In practice…. Well, slavery with nicer paperwork.
One of them catches my eye as I pass. A young human guy with dark circles under his eyes and a healing bruise across his jaw. He gives a small nod. I nod back.
That’s all the contact we allow. Anything more risks drawing attention.
I keep walking.
The district spreads outward in a maze of narrow streets and stacked buildings, the canal branching off into smaller waterways that snake between warehouses and trading halls.
Most of the work I pick up comes from this part of the city. Today’s jobs are simple—a broken water pump behind one of the older market stalls and a rusted gate mechanism that’s been jamming for weeks in a storage yard near the southern canal.
I reach the pump first.
The stall owner—a squat Glowranth woman named Meran—waves when she sees me. “About time.”
“Nice to see you too.”
She snorts. “You said yesterday.”
“Yesterday was busy.”
She gestures towards the broken machinery behind the stall. “Fix it, and I’ll give you bread and two jars of honeyroot.”
“Deal.”
I roll up my sleeves and crouch beside the pump.
The mechanism is unmistakably human. Old. Probably dragged through one of the first rifts and patched together repeatedly with whatever spare parts the city could scavenge.
It takes me about forty minutes to get it running again. While I work, the street noise grows around me. Market stalls open, voices rise, and carts clatter along the canal road.
And underneath it all are whispers.
Rumours travel fast in Terrafeara.
Today’s rumour seems to revolve around the Queen. More specifically her youngest son, Aelith.
I hear the name twice before I finish tightening the final bolt.
“—extending their search—”
“—focussing on the rebel group—”
“—the prince hasn’t been seen in weeks—”
“—with a Rethburg mate—”
“—the Queen’s furious—”
I wipe my hands on a rag and glance towards the cluster of merchants talking nearby.
Aelith, the arrogant Glowranth prince who apparently vanished after bonding with a Riftborn mate—or nearly bonding—not that anyone here knows that for sure—but rumours have started. Some are even close to being accurate. They’ve just got the species of his Riftborn wrong.
From what Shanae said last night, he’s very much alive. And very much not under his mother’s control anymore. That alone is enough to send the palace into a panic.
A Glowranth prince openly siding with Riftborn? That’s the kind of scandal that destabilises entire governments.
I pack my tools and accept the bread and honeyroot Mera hands me.
“Keep your head down today,” she mutters quietly.
“Why?”
“More patrols moving in from the upper district.”
Fantastic.
I nod my thanks and continue down the street.
The air feels heavier now. The tension I noticed earlier hasn’t faded. If anything, it’s getting worse.
I pass another patrol near the southern bridge. There are definitely more guards than usual. More weapons too. There are also more questions for the people moving through the district.
As I slip past them with another quiet exchange of coins, I can’t help wondering how long the current balance will hold.
The Glowranth allies in this area have influence, but even influence has limits when the Queen starts getting desperate. And if the palace is really extending their search for Aelith, then things are about to get very fucking dangerous.
I cross the bridge and head towards the storage yard where the broken gate waits. As I walk, my thoughts drift briefly to something else. A memory from months ago.
I was standing on a rooftop in this same district while a massive figure moved through the streets below. A warrior wreathed in living flame killed a shopkeeper who was “stealing” from the Crown. In other words, the shopkeeper had been feeding Riftborn beggars in secret.
Pyronox.
Solan.
I’d only seen him from a distance. But even then, it had been obvious the male was dangerous in a way most soldiers could only dream of being.
Now he’s part of the rebellion and working with Varek. Fighting for the same cause.
I shake my head slightly. The world has a strange sense of humour.
Ten years ago, I was a mechanic in Western Australia trying not to think too hard about the bruises on my ribs. Now I’m fixing broken machines in another dimension while quietly helping a rebellion that might eventually bring down a queen.
Life’s funny like that.