Chapter 8: First Steps

Coghaven stirred to life around them as they made their way through narrow streets, the city’s heartbeat measured in grinding gears and hissing steam vents. Each mechanical breath seemed to whisper farewell, as if the very pipes and valves that had witnessed their years here knew they wouldn’t return. Hannah kept Thomas close, navigating the familiar paths one last time, letting memory paint itself across their final journey through the only home he’d ever known.

Every corner held stories waiting to be remembered: the crooked lamppost where James had taught Thomas to identify different metals by their ring when tapped, his small fingers learning the secret songs of copper and brass; the small square where their son had sold his first repaired automaton, pride shining brighter than any power crystal in his eyes; the steep steps where they’d sometimes sat to watch airships drift overhead like mechanical dreams, James spinning tales of places where the air ran clean and clear as mountain streams.

Thomas clutched Sebastian in his pocket, the mechanical mouse’s tiny gears clicking softly with their movement like a miniature heartbeat counting down their remaining moments in Coghaven. His other hand held tight to Hannah’s, and she couldn’t help but notice how his fingers trembled slightly – though whether from the morning chill or the weight of their journey, she couldn’t say.

“Look, Mama,” Thomas whispered, pointing upward as they passed the marketplace where James had once sold his repairs. “The sun’s painting everything gold.”

He was right. Dawn had begun to transform Coghaven’s industrial grimness into something almost beautiful, as if the city itself were trying to show them what they’d miss. Light caught on copper pipes and brass fittings, turning ordinary machinery into creatures of myth and possibility. Even the ever-present steam took on a golden quality, spiraling upward like prayers made visible. Hannah found herself memorizing these details, knowing they would live only in memory after today.

They passed the last row of buildings that marked Coghaven proper, emerging onto the harder-packed ground that led toward the Wastes. Dead Man’s Grasp rose before them, its twisted spire of rock reaching toward the brightening sky like a monument to desperation and hope. The formation had always reminded Hannah of a hand frozen in the act of catching a falling star – beautiful and terrible at once, nature’s own testimony to the way hope and fear could crystallize into something permanent.

Thomas’s breathing grew slightly labored as they walked, the exercise and morning air conspiring against his lungs. Hannah slowed their pace, though anxiety pressed at her shoulders, urging faster progress toward their rendezvous. The sun wouldn’t wait for them to be ready, wouldn’t pause in its climb just because a mother’s heart ached with each of her son’s struggling breaths.

“Tell me about the skiff again,” Thomas said between careful breaths, his eyes fixed on their destination. The same quiet determination that had always marked James’s face now showed in their son’s profile, that stubborn refusal to let weakness win.

Hannah squeezed his hand gently, recognizing his father’s technique of using curiosity to push through discomfort. “It has an advanced steam propulsion system,” she began, letting the details draw his mind from the strain of walking. “And special sails that fold away into nothing when you don’t need them, like secrets tucking themselves away until the right moment. The man who built it says it’s faster than anything else in the wastes.”

“Like an airship?” Hope brightened Thomas’s voice, making him sound for a moment like the child he should have been allowed to remain.

“Almost,” she smiled, adjusting their path to avoid a patch of loose ground. “But closer to the earth, riding on runners sharp as sword blades and faster than any airship. Your father would have loved to study its mechanisms, to understand how old-world technology could blend so perfectly with new.”

They continued this way, measuring distance in shared words and careful steps, while Dead Man’s Grasp grew larger against the sunrise. The morning air grew increasingly dry as they left Coghaven’s familiar embrace, each breath carrying more of the wasteland’s parched whisper. The moisture that had always clung to Coghaven’s streets began to fade, replaced by an arid warning of the journey ahead. Hannah felt it in her throat, in the way Thomas’s hand tightened slightly in hers – this first taste of the world that waited beyond everything they’d known.

A glint of metal caught her eye as they approached the formation’s base – the sand skiff waiting in the shadow of the great rock hand, its surface catching dawn’s light like a creature born of sun and steel. Its owner stood beside it, copper rings in his beard catching the same light that made the vessel’s runners gleam like captured lightning. Hannah touched the crystal through her pocket, feeling its answering warmth. Everything they had, everything they hoped for, balanced on what would happen next.

Thomas looked up at her, sunrise painting his face in shades of possibility. In that moment, he looked so much like James that Hannah’s heart caught in her throat – the same quiet determination, the same ability to face uncertainty with hope rather than fear. She saw in his eyes not just their desperate gamble for survival, but the promise of something more: clean air, window boxes full of flowers, a future worth more than just survival.

The crystal pulsed once, strong and sure, as if confirming their path. Ahead lay the wastes with all their dangers, a sea of sand and shadow waiting to test their courage. Ahead lay James’s last gift, waiting in the Iron Mountains’ embrace. But in this moment, standing between the city of their past and the horizon of their future, Hannah felt something she hadn’t dared name until now:

Freedom.