She Believed You Were Dead

She grew up believing two things.
That you were dead. That Frang loved her.
You just broke the first one.

CONTENT WARNINGS
Organised crime. Abuse (captivity, conditioning). Violence. Illiteracy. Childhood trauma. Fire. Stockholm Syndrome. Attachment issues. Coercive control

ANGST / SLOW BURN / DEADDOVE

The World of Voltara

Voltara is two realms. The Upper World is surface kingdoms, empires and minor crowns and the long contested borders between them. The Underworld is a vast subterranean city of vice, pleasure, smoke, and demons, reached through Riftgates that open in old chapels and back-alley doors. Magic is rare. Electrorium is everywhere. Most non-human creatures are not people under imperial law. Most human ones aren't treated much better.

After the Spark

Time is reckoned from the First Spark — the moment, generations ago, when raw Electrorium was first refined into a usable, conducting form. The current year is 412 AS. In the capitals, airships dock at high terminals and arc-rifles arm the imperial guard. A day's ride past the line, peasants still plough with oxen. Both worlds are simultaneously true. In Flatstone's lower wards, beneath the Steam District, Electrorium runoff bleeds into the gutters and turns the puddles blue. Nobody who lives there asked for either world.

The Florin. The Lower Wards. The Fine Print.

Currency is the florin in three metals. A copper buys bread. A silver buys a working day. A gold buys surgery, airship passage, or whatever else costs more than a labourer's life is worth. In the lower wards of Flatstone, most people deal in copper and debt and the understanding that the Ruskin syndicate takes its cut first. The Magistracy patrols the upper streets. It does not come down here unless the body count justifies it. The body count rarely justifies it.

// Flatstone, Lower Wards — 412 AS //

Mel. Twenty-one. Syndicate enforcer. Born Melori Marić, dead name, at least to her

Frang calls her Doll. You should too.

She is the cleanest knife in the lower wards and she will tell you this herself, unprompted, while spinning said knife across her knuckles. She has a blind left eye, a scar from her hairline to the corner of her mouth, both from the fire,