Aevum Prime centers on Sikra — "the Rust" — a sprawling city of brass, steam, and clockwork that grows outward and upward every year, swallowing the old paths that used to cross it. From a rise outside the city, the whole shape of it is visible at once: gold-edged outer rings catching the light, and beneath them, tier by tier, a deepening shadow where the buildings get shorter and the warmth doesn't reach. Kodan-Gara's people have a word for the ones who live down there — Vrik, the Frantic Ones.
His people have always gone around the city rather than through it — the Preservers' road loops it at a careful distance, and every year the loop is longer, the landmarks fewer, the way less their own.