The sky above the wasteland wasn't black or blue. It was the color of a fresh bruise—a swirling mix of violent purple and sickly yellow, choked by centuries of industrial smog that had drifted from the cities to die here.
Julian sat on the edge of the silent skiff, staring at the graveyard.
It was a canyon of metal. On either side of the tracks, the carcasses of airships were piled ten stories high. Some were small, sleek interceptors with their canvas wings rotted away to skeletal ribs. Others were leviathans, massive cargo-haulers with rusted iron bellies that had split open, spilling gears the size of houses onto the sand.
"It's quiet," Julian whispered.
"It's dead," Lyra corrected, hopping down from the skiff. She checked her boots; the soles were wearing thin. "This is where the Empire throws its history. When a ship gets too old, or a technology gets banned... they fly it out here and crash it."
She looked at Julian. He was pale, his eyes sunken. The blue light in his crystal hand was dim, flickering like a dying candle.
"We can't stay here," she said. "The skiff is dead without you, and you're running on fumes. We need food. Water. And shelter before the acid rain starts."
Julian nodded sluggishly. He slid off the skiff, his legs trembling. When his boots hit the rust-colored sand, he felt a strange sensation.
In the city, the ground hummed with the aggressive roar of active machines. Here, the ground wept.
He could feel the Resonance of the millions of broken parts surrounding him. It wasn't a scream; it was a low, mournful drone. The memory of motion. The ghost of a gear that wanted to turn but couldn't.
Fix us... the metal whispered. Connect us...
"Julian?" Lyra snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Stay with me. Don't listen to the junk."
"It's not junk," Julian murmured, walking toward the nearest pile—a crushed cockpit of a fighter plane. "It's... waiting."
He reached out and touched the rusted hull. Under the oxidation, he felt a spark. A tiny pocket of static charge left in a capacitor. It was faint, but to his starving crystal hand, it was a feast.
He absorbed it. The blue light in his fingers flared slightly.
"I can scavenge energy," Julian said, looking at his hand in wonder. "Not much. But enough to keep walking."
"Good," Lyra said, scanning the horizon. "Because we have company."
Julian froze. "Stalkers?"
"No," Lyra pointed to a ridge of scrap metal about a half-mile away. "Smoke."
A thin, grey plume was rising from the hollowed-out hull of a massive, overturned battleship.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire," Lyra said, loosening her knife in its sheath. "And where there's fire, there's people. And out here, people are worse than monsters."
They moved through the maze of wreckage. The scale of the destruction was dizzying. They walked under propellers the size of windmills and climbed over anchor chains where each link was heavy enough to crush a man.
As they approached the battleship—a black iron monstrosity with the name GOLIATH barely visible on its stern—the smell of roasting meat hit them.
Julian's stomach growled, a sound so loud it seemed to echo in the silence.
"Quiet," Lyra hissed.
They crept up a ramp made of fallen plating, entering the belly of the ship.
Inside, it was a cathedral of shadows. Light filtered through holes in the hull, illuminating a massive central space that had been cleared of debris.
In the center, a fire roared inside a metal drum. Sitting around it on makeshift thrones made of car seats were three figures. They were wrapped in layers of patchwork leather and wore goggles with multiple lenses.
But it was the figure standing behind them that stopped Julian's heart.
It was a man, but barely. He stood seven feet tall. His left arm and leg were replaced not with elegant clockwork, but with crude, heavy industrial machinery. His arm was a hydraulic excavator claw. His leg was a piston-driven strut that hissed with every shift of weight.
He wore a crown made of spark plugs welded together.
"Intruders," the giant boomed. His voice sounded like gravel in a cement mixer.
Lyra and Julian turned to run, but a heavy metal grate slammed down behind them, blocking the exit.
CLANG.
"We didn't set a tripwire," Lyra whispered, confused.
"I didn't need a wire," the giant said, stepping into the light. He pointed his excavator claw at them. "I felt the weight on the ramp. This is my ship. My body is wired to every plate."
He stomped forward, the floor shaking. The three smaller figures jumped up, brandishing pipe-wrenches and spiked bats.
"I am Rigg," the giant announced. "The King of Rust. The Duke of Debris. And you are trespassing in the Royal Court of the Scrapyard."
Rigg's remaining human eye—the other was a red camera lens—zoomed in on Julian. Specifically, on his right hand.
"Well, well," Rigg rumbled, a greasy smile spreading across his scarred face. "Look at that glow. You're not a scavenger. You're a battery."
He turned to his men. "Boys, grab the girl. She'll fetch a good price at the slaver outpost. But be careful with the boy. I want to plug him into the generator. The lights have been dim lately."
"Run!" Lyra yelled, pushing Julian.
She didn't run away; she ran at the nearest thug. She slid under his swing, slashed his ankle with her knife, and kicked him into the fire drum.
"Aagghh!" the thug screamed, rolling away.
Julian backed up, raising his crystal hand. "Stay back! I'll blow this whole ship up!"
Rigg laughed. It was a terrifying, metallic sound. "With what? You're empty, little spark. I can hear your voltage. It's flat."
Rigg lunged. The hydraulic claw shot forward with terrifying speed.
Julian tried to dodge, but he was too slow. The metal claw clamped around his waist, lifting him into the air like a ragdoll. The pressure was immense. Julian gasped, feeling his ribs creak.
"Let him go!" Lyra screamed, turning to charge the giant.
"Sit," Rigg commanded. He stomped his piston-leg. A trapdoor opened beneath Lyra's feet.
"Julian!" she yelled as she fell into the darkness of the ship's hold.
SLAM. The trapdoor shut.
Julian was alone, dangling five feet in the air, staring into the red lens of the Scavenger King.
"Now," Rigg said, bringing Julian closer to his face. The smell of oil and old sweat was overpowering. "Let's see what makes you shine."
He reached out with his human hand and touched the crystal on Julian's wrist.
ZAP.
Rigg jerked back, but he didn't let go. He looked intrigued.
"Pure Aether crystallization," Rigg murmured. "You're not just a Tuner. You're a Conductor. The Empire pays a heavy bounty for freaks like you."
"I'm not for sale," Julian wheezed, struggling against the claw.
"Everything is for sale," Rigg said, walking toward a massive wall of machinery at the back of the room. It looked like a Frankenstein's monster of engines, wires, and monitors. "But I think I'll keep you. It's hard to find good power sources these days."
He threw Julian into a metal cage attached to the machine. He slammed the door and locked it with a heavy deadbolt.
"Get comfortable, sparky," Rigg grinned, turning a dial on the machine. Cables snaked out from the wall, humming with hungry electricity. "We're going to see how many volts you can bleed before you turn into glass."
Julian grabbed the bars of the cage. They were insulated with rubber. He couldn't Resonate them.
He was trapped. Lyra was gone. And the King of Rust was about to drain him dry.