Lynia's eyes opened slowly.
Not the fevered, distant gaze of the past weeks—but clear. Focused. Aware in a way that made Aaric's chest tighten with something between relief and dread.
He sat beside her bed in the cottage's dim lamplight, holding her frail hand. Her skin was still pale, still too thin, but the violent trembling had stopped. The tainted essence was gone, burned away by his shadow-weaving.
"Brother," she whispered.
her voice hoarse from disuse.
"I'm here" Aaric said softly.
"You're safe now. The poison's gone."
But Lynia's grip tightened, pulling him closer.
Her eyes fixed on his with an intensity that didn't belong in a thirteen-year-old's gaze.
"Aaric... I saw things. While I was sleeping."
"Dreams" Aaric said gently.
"Just fever dreams. Rest—"
"Not dreams!"
Lynia's free hand trembled as she reached up to touch his face. "Real. So real. I saw him."
Aaric's breath caught. "Who?"
"Kael."
The world seemed to pause. Outside, the artificial sky of Floor 3 flickered like a dying lamp.
"Lynia—"
"Listen," she pleaded.
her voice cracking.
"Please, just listen. I saw him. He's on a floor so high the walls are made of stone that bleeds. The air tastes like metal and death and something old, Aaric. So ancient it hurts to think about."
Aaric felt his shadow stir beneath his skin, responding to the urgency in her words.
Lynia's eyes rolled back slightly. When she spoke again, her voice was different—layered somehow, as though two voices were speaking through her at once. One was hers. One was... distant. Familiar.
"Little brother. If you hear this through the echo—through the girl who touches the Tower's heart—know that I am not gone. I am held. Bound. Sealed into the core's mechanism."
"Kael?" Aaric whispered.
but Lynia's hand gripped his wrist so hard it hurt.
"The Tower is alive."
Lynia continued in that doubled voice.
"It feeds on climbers. On ambition. On essence. And it needs awakeners most of all—we cut through its control, so it collects us. Studies us. Uses us."
"What do you mean, uses?"
Aaric asked, though part of him already knew.
Lynia's body convulsed slightly. Blood trickled from her nose, thin and dark.
"It chose me," she gasped.
"Through the tainted crystals, someone poisoned me with purpose. They wanted to see if I could link to the Tower. If I could become a conduit."
Her eyes focused back on Aaric, terrified and ancient all at once.
"I can hear it now, brother. The Tower. It's... it's singing. And it says you have to come. You have to climb. Because Kael is the bait, and you are the hook."
"No," Aaric said firmly, pulling his hand away.
"No. I'm not climbing to Floor 91 to—"
"You will," Lynia whispered.
"Because I'm tied to him now. To Kael. The Tower made sure of it."
She gripped his hand again.
"Every day I stay alive, I get a little weaker. The connection drains me. But if you reach him—if you free him—the bond breaks and I live. and if you don't..."
She didn't finish. She didn't need to.
Aaric felt the weight of it settle on him like a physical thing. The Tower had poisoned his sister not to kill her, but to create a leash. A motivation. A guarantee that Aaric would do exactly what it wanted.
He stood abruptly, shadows coiling around his hands in agitation.
"Rest," he said quietly.
"I'll bring medicine."
He left the cottage before Lynia could speak again.
The Stanners Guild settlement was in chaos.
Aaric could feel it the moment he stepped through the gate—the tension crackling through the air like a storm waiting to break. Warriors in full armor lined the corridors. Officers whispered in urgent clusters. The great hall's doors were barricaded.
An emergency council meeting was underway.
Aaric moved through the shadows.
Literally, his darkness-cloak making him invisible to casual observation, ascending to the rafters above the great hall. From there, he could see everything.
Rydor stood at the head of the long table, his scarred face grave. On either side sat guild members—some he recognized, others he didn't. Ariea was there, silver armor gleaming, her expression carved from ice.
But what made Aaric's breath catch was the figure seated across from Rydor.
A woman in immaculate robes embroidered with the Sovereigns Circle insignia. Her hair was white as bone, her eyes like chips of steel. She radiated authority the way a flame radiated heat.
"The position of the Circle is non-negotiable."
the woman was saying, her voice precise and sharp as a scalpel.
"The shadow-awakener known as Aaric Vale is a threat to stability across all floors. He will be remanded into Circle custody for study and containment, or the Circle will consider Stanners Guild in violation of the Accord."
"The Accord is about shared resources and territory," Rydor replied.
his voice dangerously calm.
"It says nothing about handing over our members to external powers."
"Your member," the woman corrected coldly,
"Is not a standard climber. He is a vector for corrupted essence. A potential weapon or tool for hostile factions. The Circle is simply exercising due diligence."
Ariea leaned forward.
"Aaric is under my personal supervision. His training is progressing normally. There is no evidence of corruption or hostile intent."
"There is the evidence of his very existence," the woman said.
"Shadow-awakeners have been hunted to extinction for three decades for a reason. They are unpredictable. Dangerous. Prone to falling under the influence of external entities." She smiled without warmth.
"We are offering mercy by containing him rather than eliminating him outright."
The hall went silent.
"Unacceptable," Rydor said flatly.
"Aaric stays with Stanners. If the Circle wants to escalate this into a territorial dispute, we are prepared to defend our position."
The woman's smile didn't waver. "I was hoping you would say that. It simplifies matters."
She stood, and with her movement, the great hall doors burst open.
Armed climbers in Sovereigns Circle armor filed in—twenty, thirty, maybe more. They took positions around the perimeter of the hall, weapons visible.
"You will reconsider," the woman said.
"Or this becomes a siege. Stanners Guild will be cut off from all trading routes, all resource flows, all diplomatic relationships. Within a month, you will starve."
Rydor stood slowly. His hand moved to his sword.
"I would like to see you try."
"Stand down!" a new voice barked.
Aaric's head snapped toward the sound. Through the rafters' slats, he saw another figure enter—a man in Ironflame colors, his armor scarred from countless battles. Behind him came Ironflame warriors, easily forty of them, forming ranks opposite the Sovereigns Circle soldiers.
The Ironflame commander approached the Sovereigns woman and bowed slightly.
"Apologies for the delay, Circle Representative. We encountered some resistance on the lower floors."
The woman nodded approvingly. "I trust you eliminated the problem?"
"Permanently," the Ironflame commander confirmed. He turned to Rydor.
"Captain Blackton, on behalf of Ironflame Guild, we are formally demanding the surrender of the shadow-awakener Aaric Vale within the hour, or we will consider this an act of war against our combined interests."
The hall erupted into chaos.
Ariea drew her blade in one smooth motion. Rydor's hand tightened on his sword hilt. The Stanners warriors moved to block the Ironflame and Sovereigns Circle soldiers, but they were outnumbered nearly three to one.
"You're making a mistake," Rydor said quietly to the Sovereigns woman.
"I don't think so," she replied. "The boy will be—"
The ceiling exploded inward.
Shadow-constructs tore through the rafters like living spears—not crude, not weak, but formed with precision and purpose. They were Aaric, dropping from the rafters in a storm of black mist, his hands already summoning more darkness.
The shadow-spears embedded themselves around the Sovereigns woman, missing her by inches. A warning. A declaration.
"I'm not a prisoner," Aaric said, his voice calm but carrying an edge that made even the Circle representative step back. "And Stanners Guild is not negotiating my life."
The Ironflame commander laughed—a harsh, bitter sound.
"The boy shows some spine. Pity we'll have to break it." He drew his sword.
"Capture or kill. Your choice, shadow-walker."
The great hall dissolved into combat.
Ariea moved first, her blade a silver blur as she intercepted the first wave of Ironflame soldiers. Her kinetic essence amplified her strikes, sending men flying backward. Rydor fought beside her, his 4-star strength carving through the assembled forces with brutal efficiency.
But there were too many.
Aaric forced shadow-constructs upward, creating barriers between Stanners warriors and the invading forces. He wove tendrils of darkness to disarm enemies, to entangle, to slow. His shadows were stronger now, more stable—the result of several days of training with Ariea and the desperate power he'd used to heal Lynia.
A 3-star Ironflame warrior broke through his defenses.
The man was massive, his sword glowing with flame-essence, his expression savage with hunger. He came at Aaric with the confidence of someone who'd killed dozens before.
Aaric didn't retreat.
He let the shadow rise—let it flow through him. For just a moment, he stopped thinking like a 2-star climber and moved like something older. Something that had seen warfare on floors he hadn't even reached yet.
His hands moved in patterns that felt instinctive, drawing shadow-essence from the air itself. The 3-star warrior's eyes widened as Aaric formed a shadow-blade—crude but solid—and deflected his strike.
They clashed three times before the Ironflame warrior realized he was losing.
The fourth exchange ended with Aaric's shadow-blade driving through the man's shoulder. Not a killing blow—Aaric wasn't trying to kill—but enough to disable him.
"Fall back!" Rydor roared.
"Everyone to the lower levels! We're evacuating the guild!"
It wasn't a retreat. It was a tactical withdrawal.
The Stanners warriors, using Aaric's shadow-constructs as cover, fell back toward the lower passages. Ariea held the rear guard, her silver light cutting through shadow as she fought a path through the Sovereigns Circle soldiers.
The great hall was chaos—overturned tables, blood on stone, the acrid smell of burnt flesh where flame-essence had clashed with shadow.
Aaric moved through it like a ghost, his darkness masking his presence, guiding Stanners members toward escape routes he only barely understood.
By the time they reached the lower levels, half the guild's fighters were gone—dead, captured, or scattered. Rydor stood with Ariea and Aaric in a fortified storage chamber deep beneath the fortress.
"They've taken the upper levels," Rydor said grimly. "The fortress is lost."
"Not lost" Ariea corrected. her breathing heavy.
"Temporarily surrendered. We still have the underground passages. We can reach the tunnels beneath Dawnvale."
"And then what?"
one of the surviving officers asked bitterly.
"We're homeless. Hunted. The Circle and Ironflame will hunt us into the wastelands."
"No," Rydor said quietly.
He looked at Aaric, his scared face showing emotion for the first time—anger, determination, something else beneath it all. Something like regret.
"We climb. We take everyone who can still fight to Floor 15. We gather allies. And then we go up."
"To upper floors?" Ariea breathed.
Rydor confirmed. He turned to Aaric.
"Your brother is trapped there. The Veil Lords orchestrated this entire thing—poisoned the girl, hunted you, fragmented our guild—all to force your hand. All to make sure you climb this damn tower."
Aaric's hands clenched. "Lynia. She's—"
"Safe," Ariea said.
"I sent Syl to get her before the fighting started. She's in the tunnels. We need to move now, before they seal the passages."
A tremor ran through the ground beneath them.
Not the normal tremor of the Tower. Something deeper. Something ancient stirring.
And in the darkness above, in the great hall they'd just abandoned, the Sovereigns Circle captain Linda stood over a ceremonial stone that had begun to glow with eldritch light.
She smiled coldly.
"The boy has awakened the Tower's attention." she murmured to the Ironflame commander.
"It has been a while since a shadow-awakener showed this level of power. The hunt begins in earnest now."
In the tunnels below, Rydor led his scattered guild deeper underground.
"How many can we trust?" he asked Ariea quietly.
"Maybe thirty who'll follow us knowingly into war," she replied. "Another hundred if we can prove we can win."
Rydor nodded.
"Then we find the ones who hate the Sovereigns Circle as much as we do. We find the Nightveil Alliance. We find anyone climbing the floors who's sick of playing by their rules."
He paused.
They emerged into a vast tunnel system beneath Dawnvale—ancient, carved by hands long dead, glowing faintly with residual essence.
Ahead, a figure waited in the darkness.
Syl stepped forward, Lynia cradled in her arms. The girl was conscious but weak, her eyes still holding that eerie doubled-vision quality.
When she saw Aaric, she reached out.
"He's screaming louder now," Lynia whispered.
"Kael. The Tower made him scream when they tried to capture you. It wants you to hear him. It wants you to know he's suffering."
Aaric took his sister, held her close, and felt the weight of destiny settle fully on his shoulders.
They were hunted now. Homeless. Cut off from the guild structure that had sheltered them.
But they were also moving forward.
Toward Floor 15. Toward answers. Toward the truth about Kael, about the Tower, about why the universe had chosen a weak porter from Floor 3 to uncover its deepest secrets.
As they disappeared deeper into the tunnels, the artificial sky above Dawnvale flickered once—a pattern that might have been intentional, or might have been random.
A pattern that looked almost like a smile.