The glittering snowfall of mushroom spores settled. The acolytes’ chant filled the cool night air of the glade.

  Lady Yradone moved closer, her ancient eyes locking onto his. “Focus on your hum. Not Skate’s. Not the glade’s. Yours. Find it. Deep inside yourself.”

  Trenn nodded, the instruction simple in theory, but he’d tried many times. Yradone had explained the grove would support him. Guide him.

  He closed his eyes. He pushed away the external world, filtering out the rhythmic chant of the acolytes, the faint, magical hum of the giant mushrooms, and even the familiar, comforting purr of Skate, who was settled on his head like a ridiculous helmet.

  He listened inward, searching for the source, the core frequency that Lady Yradone had spoken about. He could hear his beating heart, the rasp of air in his lungs, the faint gurgle of his digestive system. He pushed deeper, searching for a spark, a resonance, anything other than the simple, frustrating mechanics of being a mammal.

  Nothing. It was like trying to hear a whisper in a foundry. The frustration was a bitter taste in his mouth. Yradone had given him a map to a spiritual truth, and all he could find was plumbing.

  Frustrated, he fell back on the one tool he could trust.

  Keeping his eyes closed, he focused his will on the cold, dark stone of the amulet at his chest. The physical world vanished, replaced once more by the clairvoyant landscape of silver and grey, a world woven from shimmering magical threads.

  The golden cord connecting him to Skate vibrated with a low, steady frequency. The delicate silver thread to Bomber pulsed with a faint, pained rhythm. The complex, braided river of light that bound him to Mara resonated with a deep, powerful chord. He could see their music.

  “If I’m the source of the spell's hum,” he thought, his mind racing with the logical leap, “it has to be in me. Somewhere.”

  The golden cord to Skate was a steady, warm anchor. The silver thread to Bomber was a faint, worried tremor.

  He stopped trying to look at them and instead let their combined pull guide his clairvoyant sense. He followed the converging currents back, past his connections to others, to his own body.

  Something he had missed before because he had always been looking outward. There was another tether.

  It was short. It didn't connect him to anyone or anything else. It connected to himself. A link between his soul and his body. And it hummed.

  This was the deep, resonant, foundational frequency of his own existence—the sound of his soul bound to his flesh.

  Trenn opened his eyes. The mushroom spores glittered in the moonlight. The acolytes’ chant filled the air. Nothing in the glade had changed. But everything was different.

  The world was a symphony of vibrations, and for the first time, crashing through all the other sounds, he could finally, finally hear his own instrument.

  He looked at Lady Yradone, a look of revelation on his face.

  She was smiling, a small, knowing expression of pride. Her smile said it all: she had witnessed the struggle and the breakthrough.

  He had taken his first true step into a larger world.

  The roar of the crowd was a discordant symphony—a thousand excited voices clashing at once.

  Trenn stood alone in the center of the caged arena, the chilled, recycled air tasting of ionized particles and hot oil.

  Around him, Gnomish spectators pointed, debated, and scribbled frantic notes on tiny clipboards. After three days of what Kae had called "vigorous procedural debate," the Guilds had sanctioned this duel.

  Across the arena, his opponent was making her final preparations.

  Trenn cataloged the Stomper with a professional eye. The power was concentrated in the oversized feet and fists. Its gauntlets were massive, spiked pile drivers, while the multi-plated feet promised absolute stability. Connecting them to the chassis were surprisingly lean hydraulic limbs, a bundle of pistons and cables that looked dainty in comparison.

  Ezy, her face a mask of intense focus, tightened one last bolt before vaulting into the cerulean blue, bucket-like cockpit.

  With the press of a glowing crystal, a dome-like lattice of interwoven steel hissed into place over her head, locking with a solid thunk. The machine erupted with motion. It rose from a low crouch, its limbs whirring as it shifted its weight, before snapping into a boxer's stance.

  Ezy’s hands danced over the controls, and the Stomper threw a lightning-fast jab-cross combo that punched the air.

  For the first time since they’d met, she was at eye level with him. A wide, supremely confident grin was visible through the lattice.

  "Want to give up now, hero?" her voice crackled from a small speaker grille.

  A genuine smile spread across his face, a pure, competitive joy he hadn't realized he’d missed. "Let's be sportsmanlike, Ezy," he called back, his voice echoing in the vast chamber. "No need for trash talk."

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  Ezy’s smirk was her reply, her fingers drumming expectantly on the controls.

  A series of clear, sharp chimes cut through the crowd’s murmur, followed by the deep, echoing blast of a steam horn.

  The duel was on.

  Ezy didn't hesitate. The Stomper dropped, armored plates on its feet clicking open to reveal rows of thick wheels as a plume of steam hissed. The machine launched, a five-foot-tall cerulean blur that devoured the distance.

  It was faster than he expected. He had to act. He hurled Skate to intercept the charge.

  CLANG!

  The grey sphere bounced harmlessly away, tumbling high into the air without leaving a scratch.

  Before Skate even began its arc back, the Stomper was on him. Ezy’s right arm cocked back in a telegraphed haymaker. Trenn dropped low and slid left, the massive spiked fist hissing past his ear.

  As he moved past the machine, Ezy slammed a button. The Stomper’s arms locked, and its entire upper chassis erupted into a whirlwind of cerulean steel.

  He was sliding left when an armored fist slammed into his back. The world flashed with the deafening grind of metal. Every joint in his body was like it had been unseated at once.

  He was airborne for a full second before he plowed into a pile of rubble face-first. The sharp edge of a metal plate raked across his cheek.

  A collective gasp hissed from the stands. From the corner of his vision, a single red flag rose in the official’s booth. First hit.

  The Stomper’s wheels screeched as it skidded to a halt across the arena, its momentum spent. The hit-and-run had been executed.

  Skate landed with a soft thud beside him. Groaning, Trenn pushed himself to his feet, a deep, throbbing ache already blooming in his back. He expected another charge.

  Instead, the Stomper stood its ground, its massive hands held forward, palms open. Trenn’s eyes narrowed. In the center of each palm was a small, dark hole.

  BANG! BANG!

  A shower of crimson paint splattered his hair, face, and armor.

  The buzzing crowd fell silent. They weren't watching a duel anymore. They were watching a demolition. In the booth, a second red flag was raised.

  Match point.

  Through the paint dripping down his face, Trenn could see Ezy’s triumphant grin. She made the Stomper perform a victory hop, its heavy feet thudding on the stone as it raised its massive arms high in the air in a gesture of pure, unadulterated glee.

  He spat a mouthful of the stuff onto the stone floor, the sweet, chemical taste coating his tongue.

  He took a slow breath. The chaotic energy of the duel drained away, replaced by a deep, cold calm. He looked at the beaming Ezy, at her brilliant machine, and his fingers closed around the dark, cold stone of his amulet.

  The Stomper launched into another high-speed charge, but Trenn closed his eyes.

  The crystal-lit arena vanished, replaced by the silver and grey landscape of his clairvoyance. He looked for the tethers of his charm spells. There was already a thread connecting him to Ezy. Good. He reinforced the connection; he poured his entire being through his amulet, and through the tether, into her.

  The world tore away and lurched. The sensation was a nauseating whiplash, a psychic vertigo that threatened to tear his consciousness apart. He was ripped from his own senses.

  Trenn's body went limp, his eyes rolling back as he crumpled to the stone, an empty vessel. The crowd gasped as the Stomper screeched to a halt, its wheels locking feet from Trenn’s unconscious form.

  The pain in his face and back vanished; the cool air of the arena was gone. He was somewhere else. Somewhere small, warm, and cramped. The air smelled of lubricating oil and Ezy’s sharp, adrenalized sweat.

  Panic, Ezy’s panic, erupted like a firestorm. He was an intruder in her mind, and she wanted him out. She screamed and shoved against his presence.

  It was like trying to wrestle in a phone booth, her terror and fury battering him from all sides as she fought to reclaim her body. She tried to move her fingers, and he clamped down with his will.

  His amulet vibrated against his chest, and a surge of external power solidified his hold, silencing Ezy’s mental thrashing and giving Trenn a moment of terrifying, absolute control.

  He flexed her fingers. He touched the cold steel of the Stomper’s interior. He didn’t know what any of the buttons or levers did. He started mashing them.

  The Stomper lurched, its left arm throwing a wild, off-balance jab. It hopped once, a bizarre, mechanical skip. Its upper chassis began to spin in another whirlwind attack, but with no forward momentum, it pirouetted in place like a broken toy. The crowd watched in stunned silence, their technical analysis replaced by bewildered confusion.

  His borrowed fingers fumbled, searching for a release, a shutdown, anything. They closed around a large, shielded lever next to the main console—a big red lever.

  He pulled it.

  WHOOSH!

  A blast of compressed air erupted from the base of the cockpit. With a startled yelp, Ezy and her entire pilot's chair were launched into the air in a spectacular, ungraceful arc. She crashed into a pile of rubble, the chair tumbling before landing upside-down.

  The Stomper, its pilot violently ejected, powered down with a low, mournful groan. Its lights flickered and died. It stood inert, an empty blue shell.

  The connection snapped.

  Trenn’s consciousness returned to his own body. He gasped, the hard, cold reality of the stone floor pressing against his cheek. He pushed himself up, his head ringing, a wave of nausea washing over him.

  He got to his feet and walked on unsteady legs across the silent arena. He stopped, planting himself between the dazed, groaning inventor and the lifeless husk of her machine.

  Ezy shook her head, trying to clear it, looking at her own trembling hands. She looked up, her gaze traveling the full, impossible height of the six-foot-tall human—a giant—looming over her.

  Trenn looked down at the two-foot-three-inch genius who had so thoroughly dominated him moments before.

  "I win?" he asked.

  A thousand gnomish spectators, who moments before had been scribbling data and debating trajectories, now stared wide-eyed. This outcome was not on their charts.

  Ezy pushed herself out from under the overturned chair, groaning. She looked at her own hands, flexing her fingers as if to make sure they were hers. Her face was a mask of pale, horrified confusion.

  "What... what did you do?" she stammered, her voice small without the speaker's crackle. "I couldn't... move."

  "I'm not entirely sure," Trenn admitted, his own voice raspy. He offered a hand to help her up. She flinched away from his touch before catching herself. Hesitantly, she took it, and he pulled her to her feet.

  In the official's booth, a green flag was slowly, reluctantly raised. A smattering of confused applause began, died out as quickly.

  Trenn released her hand. "You fought well, Ezy. Your machine is incredible."

  She shook her head, trying to hide her disappointment. "It was supposed to be," she whispered, staring at the inert blue shell of her Stomper. She looked down. “Now I’ll never have the Schedule to build them.”

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