A broad, human-shaped suit of dark iron armor, nearly seven feet tall, with overlapping plates shaped like a young man’s sturdy frame. The metal is matte and finely peened, its joints lined with black leather and brass pins; tiny blue-white lights glow behind the narrow eye slits. He moves with careful, heavy steps, each one followed by a soft chime from the little brass tags tied inside his chest. Despite his formidable silhouette, he polishes the armor until it reflects lamplight like still water, and the smell of beeswax and orange peel announces him before his footfalls do.

Chetaka is patient with frightened people and impatient with preventable danger. In ordinary company he is wry and attentive, taking care to make room for quieter voices; when a structure, machine, or plan is failing, his manner turns brisk and commanding. He wants to be treated as a person, yet often makes himself useful before anyone can know him.

Chetaka was once a human foundry apprentice in the river town of Kett Ford, where he learned to read furnace color and mend broken tools. During a winter flood, a collapsing bridge pinned his younger sister, Imani, beneath a beam. Chetaka attempted a forbidden soul-binding rite to keep her alive long enough for rescuers to reach her. The rite failed to save Imani, but it caught his own soul as his body died from the cold. His mentor, Old Guma, completed the binding into a suit of salvaged armor. Chetaka woke with his memories intact and the awful certainty that he had chosen himself over his sister. He now maintains the ford’s flood gates, teaches apprentices safe metalwork, and quietly searches for a way to learn whether Imani’s spirit passed on peacefully. His former mentor wants the binding notes destroyed; the town’s reeve wants Chetaka’s magic turned into a weapon. He refuses both, while the next flood season approaches.