Boltanis crouched at the edge of the mudflat shelf and studied two creatures that could kill him. He was an Eater. He could take an animal's power into his own body, but only once, and only by draining it dry. The draining left him weak for minutes afterward. If he spent that opening on a beast with nothing worth taking, whatever killed it next would kill him too. So the whole trick was knowing which one carried a gift. He still didn't. The sealed canister on his back hummed against his spine. Through its round window, green coils of mutable flesh shifted and churned. The device held his raw material, the body he reshaped with each ability he stole. It had never once told him where to aim. Twenty paces off, a tortoise plodded across the dry ground. Layered plates covered its shell, dull and gray like bolted armor. Farther out, something larger moved in the heat. Black rock skin. Orange cracks glowing between the plates like a banked fire. Its jaws threw light when it breathed. Boltanis almost went for the burning one. It looked strong. But strong and useful were different things, and he had been fooled before. He made himself watch instead. The ember beast swung its head and roared. Loud. Hot. Nothing more. It walked past a fallen branch and the branch caught fire, but the fire was just fire. A weapon he already understood. Taking it would make him a torch, no more. The tortoise did something stranger. A loose metal scrap lay near its foot. As the tortoise stepped, the scrap jumped and clung to its shell. Then a second scrap. Then a nail, pulled clean out of the dry mud. The plates weren't armor. They were a pull, dragging metal to the creature across open air. That was the gift. A force he could carry inside him, invisible until he needed it. Boltanis breathed out slow. He had almost wasted his one shot on the obvious monster. He moved while the ember beast fed on its own small fire. He came up behind the tortoise and clamped both hands on its neck, below the plates. The pull grabbed at the buckles on his coat and locked tight. The tortoise thrashed. Boltanis held on and drew. The ability poured up his arms. His bones learned a new weight. When the tortoise went limp, he felt the mud's buried metal tug at his skin, a map he could suddenly read. Then the weakness hit, exactly as he feared. His knees folded. His hands shook on the dead shell. Across the shelf, the ember beast lifted its head from the dying flames. Its glowing jaws turned toward the noise. Toward him. It took one heavy step, then another, building speed. Boltanis had the power he wanted. He just couldn't stand up to use it yet.

The ember beast closed fast. Boltanis knelt on the dry shelf, hands shaking on the dead tortoise. His legs would not answer. The new power sat inside him, warm and heavy, a pull toward every buried scrap of metal in the mud. He could feel it. He just could not stand to use it. So he used it from his knees. Boltanis slapped both palms on the tortoise's shell. The plates were thick steel, bolted over the creature's back. He reached for the pull the way he reached for his own breath. The shell tore loose from the body and rose. It hung in the air before him, spinning, dragged along by his will. The ember beast was ten paces out. Its jaws threw orange light. Cracks glowed along its black rock skin. It roared and lowered its head to ram. Boltanis aimed the shell. Behind the beast stood a cluster of gem rock, jagged crystals jutting from the ground, taller than a man. He flexed the power and threw. The steel shell shot sideways, not straight. It slammed into the beast's shoulder and knocked it off its line. The beast stumbled. Then the pull kept dragging, and the shell carried the stunned creature with it. Metal and beast crashed into the gem rock together. The crystals cracked. The beast's skull hit stone with a wet sound. It twitched, then lay still. The glowing cracks in its hide dimmed to dull red. Boltanis dropped his arms. The pull faded. His whole body ached. He sat in the mud and breathed. The silence did not last. The gem rock groaned. Boltanis looked up. The crystals were not stone. They were a shell, a thick ribbed husk the size of a small house, rooted into the ground on twisted legs. The crash had split it open. Dark windows gaped in its surface. Something lived inside. A shape poured out of the broken husk. It moved on four legs, long and low, with a narrow head and a mouth full of teeth. Pale cords trailed from its neck and whipped the air. Its scales caught the light like oiled armor. The thing fixed its eyes on Boltanis and the dead beast between them. It did not charge. It studied him. The cords lifted and tasted the air, slow and careful. This was no dumb animal. It was hunting. Boltanis tried to rise. His knees buckled again. The draining weakness still gripped him. He had spent his strength breaking one monster and had woken a worse one. He got one hand under himself and pushed. His arm trembled. The creature took a single step toward him, then stopped, as if deciding how much he was worth. "Well," Boltanis said. His voice came out rough. "You're new." The creature opened its mouth and hissed. Boltanis had no power left to take, and no legs left to run.

The scaled predator circled closer. Boltanis stayed on his knees, arms dead, breath ragged. He watched the pale cords on its neck taste the air. It knew he was helpless. He thought he could stare it down. He was wrong about this place. He did not hear the second creature. It came from behind, low and fast, scales black as oil. It hit the circling predator from the side. The two tangled in a snarl of claws and whipping cords. Boltanis caught one clear look at the newcomer. It was built like a hunting drake, lean and armored, with fine tendrils that curled from its spine like living wire. It fought with its whole body, precise, almost loyal in its fury. The circling predator broke off. It fled toward the broken husk and vanished into the dark. The drake did not chase. It turned and faced Boltanis instead. He had no power left. His vision swam. The warm, heavy weight in his chest told him there was ability inside this creature to take. He reached for his draining the way he reached for breath. Nothing answered. The last of his strength was gone. The drake lowered its head and sniffed him. The tendrils brushed his shoulder, his face, his hands. Boltanis flinched but could not pull away. He waited for the teeth. They never touched him. The creature huffed warm air against his neck. Then the shelf tilted, the sky went gray, and Boltanis fell into the mud. He blacked out with the drake's shadow over him. He woke to shade and the smell of damp wood. Above him curved the inside wall of a giant shell, ribbed and hollow, like the heart of an enormous nut. Roots laced the floor. Small holes in the shell let in pale light. Someone, or something, had dragged him here out of the open. Boltanis sat up slow. His arms worked again. His legs held. The drake lay across the doorway, watching him with steady eyes. It did not rise. It did not threaten. It had carried him to shelter and stayed to guard the way out. "You pulled me in here," Boltanis said. His voice cracked. He touched his chest. The weakness had drained away while he slept, as it always did, given time. He understood the lesson now. Strength alone had nearly killed him. He had spent every scrap breaking monsters and knew nothing of how this planet hunted, rested, or chose its allies. He had survived not because he was strong. He had survived because this creature chose to save him. Boltanis held out one open hand. The drake's tendrils lifted, tasted the air, and settled. It did not back away. "All right," he said. "Teach me, then." He was alive. He was not alone. And for the first time, the power inside him was not the only thing keeping him breathing.