Crown of Scrap
She built him to fight. He learned to say no.
Everly has a battered workshop, an arena contract she can’t escape, and a guardian who vanished four years ago. She knows how to keep a machine running. Keeping herself out of trouble is harder.
When a dying courier puts a stolen processor in her hands, she fits it into Brax, her scrap-built fighting machine.
Then he starts asking questions.
The company hunting the processor wants it recovered and reset. Everly has already learned what that would cost him.
With her workshop no longer safe and a lead on the man who raised her, she takes Brax offworld. Their search leads to a prison moon, a dangerous research program, and records that could overturn everything she knows about her own life.
She can rebuild his body. She won’t let them erase who he has become.