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Something is watching me. I can feel it as clearly as I feel the ground under my feet. I’m not alone here, and it wants me to go up.

My fingers curl into fists. I don’t want to climb that staircase. But doing nothing isn’t a choice. Standing still will kill me just as surely as the sun would have.

Up is the only choice. And so … I climb.

Each step feels like surrender. The stone under my boots has been worn smooth by time, evidence that at some time people were here. That thought is the only thing that keeps me moving forward when my legs ache, and my muscles cramp from exhaustion. My vision is weaving in and out, and I’m scared I might fall off the edge. I keep one hand firmly against the middle column and move slowly, spiraling higher into shadow and cold and silence, because what else can I do?

The spiral gets tighter, the steps narrower. The light shifts from blue to violet, casting strange shapes across the curved walls that almost look like people, hands reaching toward me.

I lose count of the stairs. Hundreds?Thousands? I’m starting to wonder if they will ever end … when suddenly, they do. I stumble forward onto a small landing and stop.

An arched opening yawns ahead, carved at the edges with delicate patterns. The violet light from below pools against the threshold, and stops there. Beyond it, there’s a room.

I step through before I can change my mind.

The air changes, becoming cooler. It’s filled with the faint scent of old paper, spice, and something sharper underneath. It reminds me of the ozone smell after a lightning storm.

The room is circular, just like the one below. But this one looks lived in. There are shelves built into the walls, fabric draped across surfaces, a plate of food, abandoned mid-meal on a large wooden table.

Everything glows faintly violet beneath a hanging shard of crystal that floats—floats—near the ceiling.

I move forward slowly, one step at a time, my eyes on the books on the shelf. My fingers brush against a spine, reassuring myself that it’s real.

And then the air shifts behind me. There isn’t a sound, but the sudden, suffocating certainty that I’m no longer alone.

I spin, heart in my throat. There’s a man standing at the far side of the chamber. Tall. Still. Dressed all in black.

I don’t know how I missed him. Maybe he wasn’t there a second ago. Maybe the shadows swallowed him whole. Maybe I walked right past him and I didn’t notice because the room already felt wrong.

But he’s there, and he’s staring at me. Relief at seeing another person gives way to panic when I meet his eyes. They’re black. Not dark brown or gray, butblack. And when they meet mine, they don’t reflect the light at all. They consume it.

Every instinct I have screams that he’s dangerous. He’s not holding a weapon, and there’s no threat in his stance. But danger radiates out from him in waves.

Something in the air between us shimmers, like a ripple in a heathaze, or pressure flexing through space, and he moves, taking one step toward me. Then he stops.Abruptly.His shoulders draw taut, and his jaw clenches.

“Well.” His voice is deep, quiet. The word falls slow. Unhurried. “This is unexpected.”

I open my mouth, but before I can speak, the light in the chamber pulses again, dimming, and the temperature drops further.

His head tilts, just slightly. “You managed to open the tower door.”

Chapter Two

SACHA

“There is dignity in repetition. It keeps the soul from vanishing.”

Reflections on Captivity—Sacha Torran’s Journals

Heel to toe.Pivot through the ball of the foot.

Weight transfers cleanly across my stance. Knees aligned. Core braced.

Guard held at centerline. Elbows tucked. Shoulders still.

The blade isn’t real, but my body honors its form. Each motion cuts through air that hasn’t changed in twenty-seven years. My muscles remember what the mind has lost—the weight of the blade, the balance point, the perfect arc.

I’ve repeated this drill four thousand, eight hundred and twelve times.