“The aristocrats owned our farms,” says Pyatnitsa, “they owned our houses, our food, and the clothes off our backs, our very children they divvied among them like spoil. Kings floated above us, as distant and uncaring as the clouds.

“When the Source opened and the Aether Wind blew, the fires of industry were lit all over the world. They said it was an age of expansion. An age of freedom. An age of airships and journeys through the skies. But there was no freedom for us. We traded one master for another. Bourgeoisie scum like Baumgarten chain us to factories where we breathe smoke and eat coal till our very blood turns black. We are born in the mud, we toil in the mud, and into the mud we sink when we die without even a stone to mark our resting place. But judgment is coming.”

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Pyatnitsa laughs, blood flecking her teeth. The bullet went through her lung, it won’t be long till the end. She fumbles in the pocket of her dress.

“The Aether Wind gave us a gift, a gift it hid from all the kings and all the bourgeoisie. They don’t know fire as we do. They don’t bleed like us. So they are blind to the true power of the Aether. A new fire is being lit, the people are rising, and all over the world, we hear the ringing of chains being struck off. Fire is coming.”

She holds out a little glass vial to you, a dark liquid seething inside it.