The Weight of Equilibrium

About this book

In the vertical city-state of Orestia, built within a dormant volcano, society is stratified by air pressure. The wealthy Deep-Dwellers live at the crushingly high-pressure bottom, armored in brass exoskeletons to survive, while the Surface-Strays scrape by in the thin, frigid air of the crater's rim. Elias Vane, a meticulous Master Regulator of the Great Bellows, maintains the delicate atmospheric balance that keeps the city alive. Haunted by his father's ruinous Pressure Debt, Elias adheres strictly to protocol until he discovers an anomaly in the city’s pneumatic logs suggesting the pressure readings are being falsified. His investigation leads him to an unlikely alliance with Lirah Diwa, a Surface-Stray mechanic with an intuitive grasp of the ancient steam systems. Together, they uncover a conspiracy that threatens to either implode the lower districts or suffocate the upper rim. As the Great Bellows falter, Elias must decide whether to uphold the rigid equilibrium he has served all his life or release the pressure to save the people he was taught to despise.