A wet slap echoed through the marble chamber as Cairn's body struck the floor.
His shoulder caught the edge of a step, bone grinding. He didn't scream—his mouth was too dry, too stunned. For a long moment, he lay still, eyes barely open, breath wheezing shallow and ragged. Cold stone bit into his back. Something warm trickled past his temple.
It wasn't blood. Not yet.
The light here was wrong. It wasn't light, really—just the idea of light. No visible source. No shadow. Just endless gray illumination that made depth meaningless.
He blinked. His vision doubled, then stabilized.
White pillars. Cracked walls. And that smell—dry stone soaked in something sweet and rotting.
Then: footsteps.
Soft, bare, echoing from all sides at once.
His right hand twitched toward his thigh, grasping instinctively for something that wasn't there. No blade. No sheath. Not even a satchel. Only the cold kiss of metal embedded in his arm—a Tower mark, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat. Not his. Not yet.
"You shouldn't be here."
The voice was soft, almost thoughtful. Male, maybe. From the next room. Or the next echo. Cairn turned his head. Slowly. Like lifting a stone with his teeth.
His body didn't hurt. That worried him.
He pushed himself up on one elbow. Pain arrived, finally—a sharp bolt behind the eyes, and a dull echo in his ribs.
Last thing he remembered—
Nothing.
He looked down at himself. His clothes were worn, frayed, stained with… was that floor dust? Blood? Time?
"You shouldn't be here, Cairn."
That again. The name rang like a cracked bell in his skull. Cairn. Elrow. Towerbreaker. Anomaly.
No.
Just Cairn.
He staggered to his feet, slowly, leaning against a column. The floor beneath him was vast, featureless. Marble tiles, some chipped, all discolored by pale brown veins like dried sap. Ahead, a doorway—tall, triangular, open.
And etched into the marble wall beside it, in black scorched letters, were the words:
FLOOR 4: THE ALTAR OF ENTRY
RULE: TO PROCEED, REMEMBER WHAT YOU'VE FORGOTTEN.
He stared. His breath caught. Not Floor 1. Not the Lobby. Not the Entry Chamber.
He'd been pulled in mid-ascent. That wasn't possible.
That wasn't supposed to be possible.
He exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing.
The Tower had changed.
He didn't come here.
The Tower brought him.
His footsteps echoed now. Just his. Slow, uneven. Toward the door.
The light dimmed.
Behind him, the floor groaned—stone shifting against stone, like bones grinding in a mass grave.
Something opened its eyes.