Beneath | ON HIATUS

they say baia valontiu was a city of opportunity, once. before the fires came.

the first fire was two hundred years ago. no-one remembers exactly how it started, whether it was an errant spark or an act of arson; what everyone agrees is that it was devastating. three out of four buildings reduced to ashen shells, far more grief than a city could handle. but they rebuilt, covering over their losses and starting anew ― and they almost made it.

the second fire was fifty years ago. two years after the first greatship returned to baia valontiu's harbour. still, no-one knows quite how it began, only that the only surviving buildings were the stone ones. everything else, simply hollow ― but once again, they rebuilt. they raised their city higher, yet again burying the ghosts and grief. this time, though, they left people behind: the people beneath, the lost and forgotten. this time, something was missing from the city above; this time, the city had grown claws.

the third fire hasn't come yet, but they say it will. smaller blazes break out across the city, each stopped, each one lending venom to people's whispers. maybe it's this poisoned speculation that turned the city sour, cut-throat, only offering its sweet opportunities to those willing to spill blood for them. those like beatrice vulpes, a child of the ashes, orphaned in a boat fire. her surname means fox, but they don't call her that; if they have to address her at all, they call her dog. clever, but dangerous too: she leads a gang of thieves and swindlers, running just outside the reach of both the law and the iron circle. it isn't enough.

when a stranger offers her the reward of a lifetime, bea finds herself tasked with a suicidal mission: to venture into the bowels of the city, to venture beneath, to kill the most powerful man in the city. and maybe, just maybe, to find it in her shrivelled heart to save her city.