“You’re too slow.” “I triggered it in one point three seconds.” “And in a real fight, one point three seconds gets you crippled,” Voren replied flatly. “Again.” I exhaled sharply and reset his stance. My pet crouched beside me, wings twitching once as the bond pulsed between us. “Release sequence,” Voren ordered. I moved instantly. The resonance anchor flashed and a ripple of energy passed through the bond. “Point nine,” Voren said after a pause. “That is better.” I rolled my shoulders. “You always sound disappointed no matter how fast I do it.” “That is because you are not fast enough yet.” I muttered something under my breath. “I heard that.” “I know you did.” Voren ignored me and tossed Eli’s diagram onto the table nearby. “Your semifinal opponent.” “Cael Doro,” ai said immediately. Voren gave a slight nod. “Tier eight point five.” “One tier above me.” “By registered numbers.” I looked down at the diagram again. “Granite Bounder.” “Durability

Not from my pet — from the space between us, which was no longer a space. A warmth that expanded outward from the point where my hands touched its sides and did not stop at the edges of either of us but kept going — into the arena floor, into the air above, into the shared perception that was no longer a layer beneath my own senses but simply my senses, whole and doubled and immeasurably clearer than anything I had felt before. The crowd went silent. Three thousand people. Silent. My pet rose. It did not rise the way it had been sitting. It rose the way something rises when it has decided, for the first time, not to hold anything back. The partial shifts I had watched over weeks — the wing extensions, the edge of the dragon form bleeding through the silhouette at high-stress moments — were gone. Not absent. Incorporated. What stood in the arena was not a rat with dragon traits bleeding through the edges. It was a dragon. Small — still small, the size and proportion of somethin