That golden light ahead… yeah, it wasn't warm.
It had that fake warmth, like sunlight painted on a wall. A trick your eyes pull on you so your brain stops asking too many questions. Pretty enough to walk toward, but not the kind of light that actually stops you from shivering.
We walked into it anyway.
Because, really, what else were we going to do?
Behind us, the courtyard was already gone — swallowed up by the fog like it had never existed. I turned my head just once — habit I've never been able to kill — and there was nothing there now but that blank, gray wall. Like looking at a memory you're not sure you actually lived.
Ahead, the ground ran down into a long hall. The kind of carved stone that's too smooth to be natural and too old to remember who even built it.
You could feel the air change just stepping onto it. Heavier. The kind that hangs inside your chest and makes you notice every breath going in and out, like the air's choosing whether you get to keep breathing.
Liora's hand brushed my arm. A small thing, but sharp enough to pull me out of my thoughts.
"You okay?" she asked quietly.
I nodded. I wasn't lying exactly, but the truth was heavier than I wanted to open up to right now. The hum deep under my boots — it wasn't new to me. Not this exact place, but I've walked over this kind of pulse before. In another life. On another floor. Back when I thought fighting through it once meant I'd never have to see it again.
"Closer than yesterday," I told her, and it felt true enough to say out loud.
We took it slow. Not for the sake of being careful — more because both of us were braced for something to happen any second and walking slow gave your body time to catch red flags before your brain even processed them.
The light wasn't coming from lamps or torches. It just seemed to seep out of the stones in patches, flickering like maybe whatever lived here couldn't quite decide if it wanted to see us coming or not.
The walls were covered in markings. Not words, not art. Just loops and lines and deep grooves you could stick a finger in. My hand brushed one without thinking and the scythe in my other hand gave the faintest, impatient hum. Not loud, not glowing. Just the way a dog's ears twitch before you even hear the sound it's reacting to.
I pulled my hand back.
Kept walking.
"Zane," Liora said. The tone was enough to make me listen harder.
She leaned in just enough for only me to hear:
"We're not alone."
My fingers shifted automatically along the scythe's shaft. Not like I was going to swing right away — just making sure it was there. Held. Ready.
We kept moving but my ears stretched ahead and behind. Sight's useless in fog like this. But sound—sound still betrays things. There it was, behind us: that faint scrape of something that doesn't belong, that steady inhale that isn't shaped like a human's.
"You hear it?" she whispered.
"Yeah," I said. No point pretending I didn't.
We reached a split in the hall. To the right, the tunnel kept curving forward. To the left, steps dropped down into a dark mouth lined with vines that had turned brittle and white.
The hum under the stone was stronger that way.
I went left.
Each step down was exactly like dipping into colder water — sharper air, thicker clouds from your breath. Liora's boots made soft crunches. She kept glancing over her shoulder like she expected to see something pop out of the gray.
The sound behind us was closer now.
It wasn't rushing. Whatever was following us wanted us aware. That's the kind of patience you don't learn without hunting something a lot bigger than you… and winning.
Three steps from the bottom, I stopped. Let the quiet stretch.
The scythe's hum matched my heartbeat again, steady and slow.
And then it slid into view at the top of the stairs.
Tall. Too tall if you measured by normal bones. Narrow shoulders. Too many joints bending where joints shouldn't be. Its eyes glowed weak, just enough to make them more wrong in the fog.
Old me — before I learned better — would've cut first and asked later.
Now? I just stood there. Let it think I was nothing special holding a blade I barely knew how to use.
Liora didn't speak. Her knives were out, low at her sides.
It moved down toward us with those slow, deliberate glides, toes whispering over the stone. Each step sounded like a drum playing underwater.
When it was three steps away, I let out a slow breath.
"I'll take point," I said, eyes never leaving it.
She gave the smallest nod.
The twitch was the only warning — like a shiver running up its neck — and then it lunged.
It was fast. The kind of fast that ends fights before the other side even names it.
Something inside me coiled. That old, familiar weight of power I keep locked up, because letting it out even a little… changes things.
But it didn't come straight at me. The body bent mid‑air, hips twisted so the claw swept up from a side angle.
My legs moved without my head asking them to. I stepped into it — into the swing — and brought the scythe across my body in a flat arc. The blade didn't shine. It didn't roar. It didn't need to.
The impact shuddered through both my arms. Wrong texture. Not skin, not wood, not steel. More like slicing into something already half‑rotten.
The thing jerked back — left arm hanging by almost nothing — and hissed low enough to shake my ribs.
Liora was on it before it could recover. Low strike, knife sliding up under ribs. Black smoke spat out around the wound instead of blood.
It snapped a claw at her head. I turned the scythe, caught the blow, and the jolt nearly shook the handle from my hands.
And yeah — I could've ended it. One tug on that leash inside me and there'd be nothing left to retreat.
But my grip held. I let it slink back into the fog instead, screeching with more frustration than pain.
"You could've—" Liora started between breaths.
"I know," I cut in.
She stared at me. Not angry. More… trying to figure me out.
"You are still holding back."
I didn't give her a yes or no. Just looked past her down the last steps.
The hum under the stone changed. Sharper now. More like machinery starting up than a heartbeat.
"We keep moving," I said.
She didn't push.
We stepped down into a wide chamber. The ceiling arched high above us, black streaks licking up the walls like old fire scars.
In the middle was a stone platform.
Something sat in the center, draped in cloth so eaten by time it looked like it might turn to dust if you breathed too hard on it.
I should've told her not to touch it.
Should've, but didn't.
Her hand brushed the cloth's edge. And the hum around us jumped — no, surged — like whatever was underneath had been waiting years for exactly that touch.
The scythe's pulse thrummed in my grip, suddenly awake, like a war drum in my bones.
The cloth fell away.
It wasn't loot. Or a relic. It was a door.
A tall, thin slit of warped air, edges shimmering like heat off stone. It didn't sit in the world — it cut through it.
Floor Gate.
And just like that, we weren't just deep in weird city ruins anymore. We were standing at the throat of another floor of the Tower.
The last time I went through one of these unprepared… in another life… I didn't come back the same.
"You know what this is," Liora said, watching my face.
"Yeah." My voice was quiet. "And we're not crossing until I'm ready for what's through it."
Her eyes narrowed a little. "You are holding something back."
This time, I didn't deny it.
"Because if I don't, Liora… this whole floor is going to know we're here."
The hum sank deep again, back to a slow, patient pulse.
The fog outside the chamber curled along the doorway like it knew we weren't leaving tonight.
To be continued…