The sound was the first thing to register on him—a deep thrumming that resonated in the marrow of his bones. It wasn't the shriek of a turbocharged V12, but it was no less primal. It was the sound of a thousand hearts beating in time with the thunderous tread of the monsters.

  "Kael, wait!" Taren shouted, struggling to keep up as Kael sliced through the crowd like a hot knife through butter.

  Kael didn't slow down. He couldn't. The scent of kicked-up dust and the sharp tang of adrenaline on the wind was like a narcotic. A wide, jagged grin split his face—the first genuine, hunting smile he'd worn since his final lap at the Dubai Autodrome.

  "Can you hear that, Lyra?" Kael bellowed over his shoulder, his eyes aglow with a feverish intensity. "That's the sound of the limit! I thought I'd lost it. I thought this world was all mud and slow walks, but this... this is speed!"

  The Arena of AmbitionThey erupted onto the Western Overlook, a natural stone amphitheater excavated into the side of the spire. The "stands" were a series of reinforced ledges crammed with fans hanging off the edge of the railings.

  The air was alive, on the verge of becoming downright deadly.

  "Three silvers on the girl from the East Reach!" a burly man shouted, waving a fistful of betting slips.

  "Look at the limp on the Stalker! Observe the stride! Five to one on the Ravok!"

  The pandemonium was music to Kael's ears. The frenetic pace of the crowd, the clinking of coins, and the shared gasp of ten thousand onlookers—it was the paddock, the grandstand, and the pit lane all in one.

  "Ladies and Gentlemen! Citizens of the Spire!" A voice thundered across the arena, amplified by a series of horn-shaped acoustic stones arranged around the track. "Welcome to the Sovereign Qualifier! Today, we do not seek soldiers. We seek the wind!"

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  The RosterAn announcer stood atop a raised platform, his robes fluttering in the mountain breezes. He gestured toward the massive iron gates at the far end of the obstacle-strewn field.

  "From the Lower Silt-Fields, riding a Mid-Class Stalker named Singe... we have Jaxon the Bold!"

  A lean, reptilian hunter hissed as it emerged into the light, its muscles flexing beneath its mottled tan hide. Jaxon, the rider, was a tight-wire thin, his knuckles white on the reins.

  "And from the Foothill Clans, riding the terror of the region—a Ravok Talonfowl known as The Hammer... we have Vara of the Red Peak!"

  The massive, pickup-truck-sized bird Kael had admired earlier let out a deafening screech that bounced off the surrounding cliffs. Its massive, claw-like talons gouged deep furrows in the stone start line, its beady black eyes fixed on the first water pit.

  Kael leaned over the railing, his thoughts automatically switching into telemetry analysis.

  "Torque for the mud mounds, the Ravok has," Kael whispered, his eyes scanning the track. "But for the slalom, the Stalker has the better power-to-weight ratio. See the water pit? It's deep. If the Stalker doesn't hit that with sufficient entry speed, the drag will stall the engine—the beast's legs—and it'll lose three seconds on the climb."

  The AddictionLyra watched Kael, her face a combination of awe and worry. She had never seen him like this before. In the village, he was an enigma. In the forest, he was a survivor. But here, standing over a path of monsters and death, he looked like a king who had finally found his crown.

  "You really missed this, didn't you?" she asked softly.

  Kael didn't take his eyes off the starting line. He could feel the familiar "itch" in his palms, the way his mind began to calculate the peak of every curve on the track.

  "I missed the speed, Lyra," Kael said, his voice dropping to a low, intense growl. "The gold is nice. The safety is fine. But this... the moment before the light turns green... the moment when the only thing that matters is the line between you and the wall... that's the only time I'm actually alive."

  The announcer raised a torch of fire high into the air. The crowd fell silent. The only sound was the heavy, pulsing breathing of the beasts and the wind whistling through the Ravok's coarse feathers.

  "Riders!" the announcer thundered. "CLAIM THE APEX!"

  The torch fell.