The air in the under-exchange turned from greasy to electric in a heartbeat.
"Kill the big one! Capture the girl!" the merchant shrieked, his three brass arms frantically pointing at us. "The Emperor will pay ten times the boy's weight for a Devourer!"
The dozen thugs closed in, their heavy, steam-powered crossbows clacking as they locked into position. These weren't Imperial guards with honor; these were scavengers who fought dirty.
"Vespera, the 10-meter limit," Xylo growled, his wings partially unfurling to act as a shield. "If we get separated in this crowd, the crossfire will tear the Tether apart."
"I'm not going anywhere," I said.
The first volley of bolts whistled through the air. They weren't tipped with steel but with Mana-Rust—a corrosive agent that ate through magical defenses. Xylo swung his obsidian-gold blade, batting three bolts out of the air, but the sheer volume of fire was forcing him back.
"They're pinning us to the hull!" I shouted.
I looked at the boy, chained to the post. His black eyes were wide, watching the chaos. I could feel his resonance—it was a high, thin whistle, a frequency of pure terror.
"Xylo! "The centrifuge moves!"
Xylo didn't need a detailed explanation. At 28% Sync, he could feel the "shape" of my plan. He grabbed the violet-gold tether with his offhand and began to spin.
I didn't resist. I let myself become weightless, channeling the Void into my feet. As Xylo spun his massive frame, I was swung in a wide, lethal arc around him. I became a living flail.
My body streaked through the air, trailing a wake of violet-black fire. Every time I passed a thug, I didn't strike with a fist—I struck with the hunger. I drained the steam cores right out of their crossbows as I flew past, leaving the weapons to hiss and go cold in their hands.
"What is she?!" one of the thugs screamed, staring at his useless, frosted-over weapon.
"She's your funeral!" I yelled, my voice amplified by the hollow resonance.
Xylo released the tension on the Tether, slingshotting me directly toward the Void-Child's cage. I landed in a crouch, my fingers glowing with the concentrated rot of the mana-rust I'd just absorbed from the bolts.
I touched the boy's chains. They didn't just break; they dissolved into gray dust.
"You're okay," I whispered, reaching for his hand.
The boy didn't move. He looked at my violet eye, then at the glowing runes on my skin. His small hand reached out and touched the tether.
Suddenly, the boy's resonance merged with ours. He wasn't just a passenger; he was an amplifier. The tether between Xylo and me tripled in thickness, turning a blinding, iridescent white.
"Vespera! The Prime Seeker! "Xylo's voice roared over the din.
The roof of the Dreadnought groaned as a massive, blue scanning beam cut through the rusted metal. The Emperor's hunter had found us. It didn't care about the scavengers or the city; it was going to level the entire Exchange to get to us.
"We have to go! Now!" Xylo scooped up the boy with one arm and grabbed my waist with the other.
"We can't fly out," I said, pointing to the narrowing exit. "The Seeker will pick us out of the sky before we clear the canyon."
"Then we go down," Xylo said, looking at the floor of the ship.
He didn't use his sword. He used the amplified power of the Tether. He channeled a burst of golden divinity through the cord, and I met it with a wave of Void pressure.
The floor beneath us simply ceased to exist. We plummeted through three levels of the Scavenger City, passing through kitchens, bunkhouses, and workshops as the very foundations of the city crumbled under the weight of our combined magic.
We hit the canyon floor—a river of toxic, glowing sludge—with a splash that sent a plume of green light into the air.
"Is everyone... alive?" I wheezed, pulling myself out of the muck.
The boy was shivering but unharmed, clutched tightly in Xylo's arms. Xylo's wings were tattered, and he was bleeding gold from a cut on his forehead, but he looked more alive than I had ever seen him.
"We're alive," Xylo panted. He looked up at the rim of the canyon, where the Prime Seeker was hovering, unable to descend into the narrow, toxic crevice. "But we just made an enemy of the most powerful trade hub in the Wilds."
"Add it to the list," I said, looking at the boy. "What's your name, kid?"
The boy looked at me, his black eyes finally softening. He didn't speak, but a single word echoed in my mind through the Resonance Sense.
"Aeon."
"Aeon," I repeated. "Well, Aeon, welcome to the worst road trip of your life."
Xylo stood up, his gaze fixing on the horizon where the first jagged peaks of the Crystalline Wastes were visible through the smog. "The 30% mark has been hit, Vespera. Look at the tether."
I looked down. The violet-gold braid was no longer just a cord. It was beginning to grow vines—wisps of energy that were slowly wrapping around our wrists like permanent bracelets.
"The bond is becoming physical," Xylo whispered. "Soon, there won't be a ten-meter limit. There will only be one soul, split between three bodies."
"Then we'd better make sure it's a soul worth having," I said.