Corthen’s mech, the *Iron Scourge*, rumbled forward, its articulated limbs sparking with raw resonance. The sheer scale of it dwarfed the remains of the safehouse, casting a metallic shadow over the flagstones. From the shattered windows of surrounding workshops, faces began to appear—grimy mechanics, curious researchers, even a few minor cartel enforcers drawn by the sudden beacon splitting the sky. News passed like grease through the alleys: Corthen was staging an execution in broad daylight. Lidien took another step, the azure pulse in her irises settling into a sharp gleam. The forbidden tether between their opposing affinities hummed behind her ribs. It was a current meant to balance engines, but under her fingers, it answered as an instrument of ruin. Corthen’s voice boomed from the mech’s internal comm-link, distorted and amplified, a mockery of authority. “Lidien. You always were a fool. Fighting for a pauper, when you could have ruled by my side.” “Your side,” Lidien replied, her voice carrying cleanly through the grinding iron, “is where ambition turns to ash.” From behind her, Fennar rose, his initial fluster giving way to a focused intensity. He walked to her side, his gaze sweeping over the colossal machine. “The shell is reinforced with Kel-alloy,” he murmured, his mind already dissecting the enemy. “The knee hinges use standard Arcanite, and the hydraulic lines run bare along the inner thigh. Cost-cutting for fast assembly.” Corthen laughed, metal grating on metal over the speaker. “Still plotting, Lidien? Pathetic. This rig will crush you and your little alchemist. A prototype straight from House Vexxus, built for complete suppression!” Fennar ignored him, his eyes now narrowed, tracing invisible lines on the mech’s hull. “The energy feed for the plasma cannon connects to the primary intake just above the left tracking prism,” Fennar said, his focus sharpening. “Early Vexxus casting flaw. We strike there first.” Lidien caught his hand, squeezing his calloused fingers once before releasing him. She stepped into the clearing as the machine advanced, its iron treads rattling the cobbles. “Till you’re ready, Fennar,” she stated, her voice devoid of emotion, “stay back. I’ll make the openings.” The machine stomped, scattering chipped masonry. Corthen fired a preliminary lance of concentrated heat that scorched the stone where Lidien had stood a second prior. She sprang sideways, blue radiance cutting the soot. Drawing on their shared link, she condensed a lash of brilliant force in her palm, balanced and thin as wire. She vaulted onto a pile of discarded steel beams, springboarding towards the mech. Corthen, overconfident, brought down a massive metal fist, aiming to flatten her. Lidien ducked, the air rushing past her hair as the fist slammed into the ground, leaving a crater. Her lash snapped out, coiling around the uncovered knee hinge. She hauled back, channeling resonant heat through the coil, and Arcanite sheared open with a scream of stressed metal. “The lines!” Fennar shouted, refusing to drop back. He stood yards behind her, tracing numbers into a small wax slate with frantic precision. She felt his coordinates pulse through their tether. With a sharp wrench of her wrists, she drove the line deeper, snapping the pressurized hoses. Dark fluid sprayed across the paving stones as pressure died in the leg. The construct pitched sideways, its left leg buckling. Corthen snarled through the comm, “You think that ends it? The main drive still cycles!” But the damage was done. The mech’s mobility was compromised. Lidien pressed her advantage, scaling the disabled leg, ignoring the hail of close-range aether-bursts from the mech’s secondary defenses. She moved with a fluid, terrifying grace, each movement economical, lethal. She was a predator, dismantling her prey piece by piece. “The targeting prism!” Fennar shouted, scratching another vector into his slate. “It feeds the entire guidance lattice! Smash the lens and he’s blind!” Lidien scrambled up the chest plates, finding handholds in fractured iron. When the right manipulator arm swiped at her, she slipped beneath its arc, cobalt light flaring across her knuckles. She drove her bare, reinforced palm straight into the targeting housing, shattering the glass core in a spray of orange sparks. The primary lens went dark. The machine jerked blindly, treads scraping uselessly against the curb. “What did you break?!” Corthen yelled. “Your oversight,” Lidien said flatly, wrenching off the inspection cowl to reveal the inner gearwork. Spectators gathered at the yard perimeter, murmuring as she stripped the housing down to bare copper. Foundry adjudicators stood near the gateway behind protective barriers. They observed in silence as Lidien uncovered stamped serial numbers from rival workshops, proof of illegal assembly and stolen designs that stripped away whatever commercial legitimacy Corthen possessed. “My patents!” Corthen screamed, his voice raw. “You’ll pay for this! You’ll all pay!” With a desperate, guttural cry, Corthen activated an emergency override. A klaxon blared from within the mech. A flashing red light appeared on its central chassis. “Self-destruct initiated! You want to take my empire, Lidien? Then you’ll burn with it! All of you!” Intense heat rolled off the engine compartment. The furnace inside was runaway, threatening to flatten the square with burning glass, the exact heat that had consumed her past life. But this time, she held the balance. “Fennar,” she called out, not looking, simply knowing. “Sever his link. Now.” Fennar nodded, his slate catching blue fire as he keyed the override sequence. Through their resonant channel, he bridged her frequency straight into the cabin controls. Lidien raised her palm to the ignition valve. With a final, brutal surge of their combined resonance, she found the connection, the thin, invisible thread of aether that bound Corthen to his machine. She pulled, not with brute force, but with a cold, surgical precision. The sapphire light in her eyes blazed. A sharp *crack* echoed through the courtyard, not of breaking metal, but of something far more fundamental. Corthen’s shouts vanished behind reinforced walls. The link was dead. The reaction continued to collapse inward, sealed inside the furnace chamber of his own rig. The steel frame buckled inward with a hollow thump, the interior combustion melting the heavy chassis into black slag. Thick smoke climbed toward the flue-pipes overhead, leaving only a ruined, smoking carcass. Quiet settled over the stones, disturbed only by popping slag and iron cooling in the smog. The adjudicators marked their registries and turned away. Lidien stood in the grit, the blue fire ebbing from her pupils. She turned to find Fennar crossing the open space, soot across his cheekbones and his collar torn. His composure was completely shattered. He stopped an inch short of her, hands trembling before resting on her arms. “Lidien…” he rasped, searching her calm, soot-marked features. He pulled her against his chest, catching her mouth with a fierce, shaking need that demanded an answer. She leaned into him, feeling his pulse jump against her collar, the rigid distance between them collapsing into heat. When he finally broke away, he pressed his brow into the curve of her neck, arms locked tight around her shoulders. “You stayed,” he whispered against her skin, breathless and unsteady. “You actually stayed.” He drew back to read her face. The severe line of her mouth softened into a faint, deliberate smirk. Fennar flushed scarlet down to his collar. “Corthen is finished,” he muttered, his thumb tracing the soot on her jaw. He rested his forehead against hers, regaining his footing. “Tell me... which workshop do we take next?”

Bound in Ash