Finn took the first step onto the stairs, and the tower answered with silence.
The ascent was wrong from the beginning. Each riser felt alive—stone that breathed, faintly warm, pulsing like a vein beneath skin. Grey light seeped from the walls in slow, irregular heartbeats, casting shadows that lingered too long and moved when they shouldn't. Mira's staff emitted a constant low hum, vibrating against her palm. Dorian kept a small, controlled flame dancing between his fingers, the light pushing back against the gloom.
"Stay in formation," Finn said quietly. "Don't trust what you see."
They had climbed fewer than thirty steps when the first entity emerged.
It peeled itself from the wall—not a shadow, but something denser. A construct of liquid forgetting, translucent and shifting, like ink dropped into still water. No face. No limbs at first. Just a flowing mass that condensed into jagged, blade-like protrusions. It lunged without sound.
