The Iron-Tithe Ledger

About this book

In the smog-choked, vertically stratified city-state of Veridia, survival is a transactional commodity. Kaelen Vance is a cynical, morally compromised debt-enforcer for the Gilded Gear Consortium, a man whose left arm was replaced by a vented brass-and-leather prosthetic after a high-pressure boiler explosion. Tasked with crushing early labor organizers and foreclosing on immigrant machine-shops, Kaelen's sole ambition is to forge a permanent name among the ruling aristocracy. His brutal trajectory shifts when he liquidates a condemned tenement and breaches a hidden pneumatic vault containing forged deeds and municipal charters. The documents prove Veridia's ruling class didn't invent pressurized automation—they murdered the immigrant engineers who did and stole their designs. Contracted by the Magistrate to quietly assassinate the surviving heirs of those engineers, Kaelen instead weaponizes the archive. He initiates a calculating campaign of dual-sided blackmail, extorting the heirs for safe haven while demanding a seat on the Consortium's oversight directorate. As Kaelen's scheming shatters the existing caste system, it threatens to institutionalize an even colder, data-driven corporate oligarchy. Ultimately, he must choose between securing a blood-stained dynasty and sacrificing his wealth, status, and prosthetic livelihood to catalyze authentic, irreversible societal change.

Book details

Genres:

Historical Fiction, Steampunk, Grimdark, Political Thriller

Language:

en

Published:

2026-05-09

Content rating:

R