The main gate of Vermillion Outpost was less an entrance and more a mechanical mouth designed to chew people up.
It was a colossal structure of black iron and riveted steel, rising fifty feet into the smog-choked air. Steam vented rhythmically from brass pipes running along the walls, hissing like coiled snakes. Beneath the archway, a long line of travelers—mostly dust-caked miners and desperate refugees from the borderlands—waited in the sweltering heat to be processed.
Revas stopped at the back of the line. He looked at the sweating, miserable mass of humanity. He looked at the mud on the road.
"I am not standing in this," he announced, his voice carrying the distinct, bored drawl of the ultra-wealthy. "I refuse to be pasteurized by the body heat of peasants."
Mirabelle adjusted her velvet riding habit. The heat was stifling, but she didn't let a drop of sweat show on her face. She tapped her silver-headed cane on the cobblestones.
