The heavy iron gates of the Severance Tower didn't just close; they seemed to exhale the very air from my lungs. The boom echoed through the marble entryway, a final, resonant note that severed the boy I was from the thing I was about to become.
Inside, the world was white.
It wasn't the white of clouds or fresh snow. It was a flat, antiseptic tone—a vitreous ivory that seemed to drink the light rather than reflect it. The halls were designed with rounded edges, a seamless flow where the floor met the wall, eliminating every corner and every shadow. It was a panopticon of purity. There was nowhere to hide, and the constant, shadowless glare made my eyes ache within minutes.
I'd been here three days ago for testing. It hadn't felt like this then.
Beneath my boots, the floor emitted a constant, low-frequency hum. I felt it in the marrow of my teeth—a rhythmic vibration somewhere deep in the bedrock.
A Warden stood waiting for us at the base of a spiral staircase. He was a hard-looking man in his mid-fifties, completely bald on top with a beard that looked like it had been hacked at with a dull knife rather than properly trimmed. His robes were simple grey—not the ceremonial blue and gold of the High Sages, but the working uniform of someone who dealt with Hollows directly.
He didn't introduce himself. Didn't smile. Didn't speak.
He just turned and began climbing the stairs.
We followed.
The stairwell hugged the outer wall of the Tower, spiraling upward in a tight coil. Through narrow slit windows, I caught glimpses of Valdrence spread below us—the city growing smaller with each turn. My legs burned.
The bald Warden climbed without pause, without looking back. His boots struck the stone in a steady, mechanical rhythm. He moved like a man who had made this climb a thousand times and would make it a thousand more.
One floor. Two floors. Three.
On the fourth floor, he stopped.
The stairwell opened onto a curved corridor that bent away in both directions, following the Tower's circular perimeter. Doors lined the outer wall—dormitory cells, I assumed. The inner wall was smooth, unbroken ivory, punctuated only by a single heavy door with no handle on our side.
The Warden turned to face us. His eyes were the color of flint, and just as warm.
"Follow," he said. His voice was a low rasp, like stones grinding together.
He led us down the curving corridor to a wide archway. Beyond it was a lecture hall—sterile and cold, smelling faintly of peppermint and ozone. Rows of stone benches faced a raised podium.
"Sit," the bald Warden commanded.
We sat.
He took his position at the back of the room, arms crossed, watching us like a butcher appraising cattle. He didn't speak again. Just stood there, a silent wall of judgment.
Minutes passed. The hum of the floor filled the silence. A small girl behind me twisted her sleeve between her fingers. Another boy's fingers tapped against his thigh. One, two, three, four.
Then, a door at the front of the hall opened.
A Senior Warden entered, his robes of deep cerulean silk shimmering under the shadowless lights. He was tall and thin, with silver hair pulled back from a sharp, angular face. He moved with the kind of fluid grace that suggested absolute confidence in his authority.
He didn't greet us. Didn't acknowledge us as people.
He simply began.
"The Rule of Law in the Sanctum is simple," he announced, his voice smooth and cold as polished glass. "You are the barrier between the City of Valdrence and the Void. Your psychological integrity is a secondary concern. Your emotional state is a tertiary concern."
He paced the front of the room, hands tucked into his sleeves, his movements synchronized with the hum of the floor.
"You will learn three rules. Violate them, and you will be decommissioned."
The word hung in the air like a blade.
"Rule One: No unsupervised absorption. To drink the Taint without a Warden present is to invite it to master the vessel rather than be mastered by it."
He turned, his pale eyes sweeping across us.
"Rule Two: No discussion of 'voices,' 'memories,' or 'recognition' you may encounter during absorption. These are not truths. They are the Taint mimicking humanity to find cracks in your resolve. They are hallucinations of a dying ego."
The locket against my chest suddenly felt like it was made of fire.
Remember.
That's what the inscription said. That's what the Taint had whispered in the street.
And here was a Warden, standing three feet away, telling me that memory was a defect.
"Rule Three: Weekly evaluations are mandatory. If you are found to be 'fraying'—if the Taint begins to saturate your consciousness beyond the point of containment—you will be decommissioned for the safety of the collective."
He stopped directly in front of me. His eyes—cold, assessing—locked onto mine.
"What you feel is irrelevant," he said softly. "What you contain is everything."
He straightened, addressing us all.
The lecture ended as abruptly as it began.
The Senior Warden swept out of the hall without another word. The moment the door closed behind him, the bald Warden at the back of the room straightened.
"Stand," he rasped.
We stood.
He jerked his head toward the door. "Out."
We filed into the corridor. I expected him to lead us somewhere else—training, perhaps, or to meet other Hollows. Instead, a new figure was waiting for us.
A female Warden, younger than the bald man, maybe in her early thirties. Her robes were the same working grey, and her dark hair was pulled back in a severe braid. Her voice, when she spoke, was pleasant—almost melodic.
"Welcome," she said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I'll be taking you to your quarters now."
The bald Warden said nothing. He just turned and walked away, his boots echoing down the corridor until he disappeared around the curve. When he left, I could feel a lightness in the atmosphere, as if his existence increased the air pressure around him.
The female Warden watched him go, then turned back to us.
"This way," she said, still smiling.
But her eyes never left the ledger in her hands. She didn't look at us as people.
She looked at us as inventory being moved from one shelf to another.
"Name?" the Warden asked the boy to my left.
"Tavin," he whispered. He was smaller than me, with a mess of sandy hair and nervous, bird-like movements. Although he was half a head lower than me, the blackened scars on his face indicated the stories he would have. As he spoke, his fingers twitched against his thighs, tapping out a rhythm. One, two, three, four. He was counting.
The Warden wrote it down without looking up. "Tavin. Intake 2146."
"Tavin Corrin, ma'am. I—"
"Not anymore," the Warden interrupted, her quill scratching across the parchment with a sound like a scuttling insect. "You are just Tavin now. Hollows have no lineage—only service." She handed him a small, cold disc of blackened lead on a chain. "Wear this at all times. If the lead begins to glow, report immediately. It means your internal seal is weeping."
When my turn came, I swallowed the lump in my throat. "Kieran."
"Kieran. Intake 2147." She didn't even ask for my family name. It was already gone, erased before I'd even stepped ten feet into the wing. I was no longer a son of the forge. I was a serial number with a heartbeat.
There were five of us, Intakes 2146 to 2150. I realized that because of the impending pressure of the bald man, I never had the chance to look at the Hollows with me.
Intake 2148 was a boy that stood apart from the rest, arms crossed, jaw set. Caius was him name. He was short and heavyset, with the kind of build that suggested a life of plenty—soft around the middle, pink-cheeked, with hands that had never held a hammer or a plow. Everything about him said nobility: the way he held his shoulders back despite his fear, the slight curl of disdain on his lips when the Warden called him by number alone. He looked like he'd expected the Wardens to make an exception for him. They hadn't.
Seren. Intake 2149, the youngest of us was a girl who looked barely old enough to be tested—small and slight, with dark eyes that watched everything but said nothing. She reminded me of Lira, not just in size but in the way she held herself: quiet, observant, present but trying not to be seen. But where Lira's shyness came from gentleness, this girl's silence felt more like caution. Like she'd learned young that speaking up was dangerous. When they called her Intake 2149, she nodded once and said nothing at all.
The fifth member of our intake, Gawain, didn't look at any of us. He was tall and gaunt, with hollowed cheeks and the kind of thinness that comes from sickness, not hunger. His eyes were red-rimmed, and when the Warden called his number—Intake 2150—he didn't respond. Just stared at the floor.
Tavin leaned toward me, whispering, "I heard his whole family died in a Taint leak last month. He volunteered." Volunteered. The word felt wrong. You didn't volunteer for this. You were chosen, or you ran. Unless you had nothing left to run to.
I learned that the floor we were on was only one of hundreds of floors, ring after ring. After processing, we were not led deeper into the Tower—we were led up.
A narrow stairwell spiraled along the inner curve of the Tower's outer wall, its steps carved directly into the white stone. There were no windows, only the same shadowless ivory glow bleeding from the walls themselves. The climb was slow and deliberate. No one spoke. Footsteps echoed in a dull, rhythmic cadence that made it impossible to tell how many people were ahead or behind.
"You'll be housed on the Hollow levels," she said as we climbed. Floors Four through Nine. You occupy the outer ring."
I frowned. Outer ring? The outer ring was not a part of the original Severance Tower, but added as structural support to prevent the aged building from falling.
She didn't slow. "Each floor is circular. The Tower has a core. Wardens and High Sages occupy the inner ring. Observation rooms. Administrative corridors. You won't go there unless summoned."
The stairwell opened onto a curved corridor that bent away in both directions, following the Tower's perimeter. Doors lined the outer wall, evenly spaced, each bearing a stamped number. Narrow windows were set beside them—slits of glass that looked out over Valdrence far below.
The inner wall was something else entirely. Smooth. Seamless. Unbroken ivory, curving endlessly, save for a single massive door set directly opposite the stairwell. No handle. No hinges. Just a faint seam in the stone.
"That's the core," the guide said, noticing my stare. "Restricted."
"What's inside?" Tavin whispered.
She paused. Just long enough for the hum beneath our feet to feel louder. "The Tower," she said. "The real one."
She gestured forward. "Floor Nine is dormitories. Eight is common space. Seven is the refectory. Six is training. Five is medical and evaluation. Four is where meetings take place and where missions are assigned. Her voice flattened. "You are to stay on these floors unless otherwise instructed. That includes leaving the Tower."
The corridor stretched on, curving out of sight. I realized then: our rooms faced outward, toward the city. Our doors faced inward—toward the core. We were wrapped around the Tower like a noose.
As we marched through the archway onto Level Nine, I noticed a large wooden board mounted to the ivory wall. A brass plaque above it read: RECORD OF SERVICE.
It was a ledger of intake classes going back decades, names written in neat, cold columns. My feet slowed. My eyes scanned the rows, searching for a ghost.
Class of 1022: 40 names. A single red line drawn through twenty of them.Class of 1023: 35 names. Only ten remained uncrossed.
Then, my heart stopped.
Class of 1024: Aldric. Intake #147.
A thick red line was drawn through it. Not "Elevated." Not "Retired." Not even "Deceased." Just erased.
I forced my legs to move, following the others. Aldric. Intake #147. The number 47 felt like a brand. I wanted to stop, to go back, to stare at that board until I understood what it meant. But the guide was already twenty paces ahead. Questions were recognitions. And recognitions were forbidden. I swallowed the questions and kept walking. But I didn't forget that red line.
My assigned cell was small, clean, and aggressively functional. A narrow bed grew from the wall, its frame fused seamlessly into the ivory. A desk of the same material protruded beneath the window. No drawers. No shelves. Nothing to accumulate, nothing to hide.
The window slit overlooked Valdrence. From this height, the city looked peaceful—rooftops packed tight, chimneys breathing out lazy curls of smoke. I could almost pick out the direction of home.
A soft scuffing sound came from the corridor. Tavin—2146—hovered outside my door. "I'm next to you," he said quietly. He glanced at the handle-less door facing the core. "Is this… permanent?"
"I don't know," I said.
His fingers tapped once against his thigh. One. Two. Then he forced his hands still. "They say the walls dampen the whispers," he added. "I hope so."
Later, on Floor Eight, we found the Common Room. It was a wide, curved space lined with benches. Hollows sat in loose clusters, staring into nothing. The hum beneath the floor was stronger here. A man leaned against the inner wall, watching the room with practiced detachment. Garrett, 1603. I can tell because he has his disc in front of his shirt. I hid mine behind.
"New Hollows," he said. "You're still standing straight."
"You've been here a while," I noted.
"Longer than most." He tilted his head toward the room. "See how empty it is? This used to be full. People got useful."
"Do Hollows ever… move up?"
Garrett's mouth twitched. "Wardens aren't promoted. They're selected. We're consumed." He pushed off the wall. "Some faster than others. Rule of advice: Don't draw attention. Don't absorb more than asked. And if the Taint ever starts making sense—decide who you trust first."
"We are all jars. Just try not to crack first", he added.
On Floor Seven, the food was laid out on silver platters: thick slices of roasted chicken, bowls of creamed tubers, and white bread so fluffy it looked like a cloud. After years of bitter roots at the forge, it looked like a miracle.
Tavin's eyes went wide. "One, two… five, six different platters," he whispered.
I took a bite of the bread. It was soft, perfectly baked, and still warm. And it tasted like absolutely nothing. It was ash and air.
I forced myself to finish, chewing mechanically. Around me, the older Hollows ate in silence. They weren't people; they were vessels being fueled. I thought of the dark bread and bitter stew at home. It had tasted like something. Like Father's frustration and Lira's love. This bread tasted like nothing.
That night, I lay in my narrow bed, staring at the curved ceiling of my cell.
The hum of the Tower was louder in the dark. Or maybe I just had nothing else to distract me from it anymore. It vibrated through the stone, through the bed frame, through my bones. A rhythm that wasn't quite a heartbeat but felt close enough to be unsettling.
I pulled the locket from under my tunic. The silver caught what little light filtered through the window slit—Valdrence glowing faintly below, unaware that I was here. That any of us were here.
A. to G. — Remember.
Aldric. Intake #147.
The same number as mine, just a thousand iterations later. How many of them had their names crossed out? How many had lasted longer than a year?
I thought of Father's warning: You are not what they name you.
But they hadn't named me. They'd numbered me. And somewhere on that board in the hallway, my name was written in neat script, waiting for the day a Warden would draw a red line through it.
I closed my fingers around the locket until the metal bit into my palm.
"I won't forget," I whispered to the humming dark.
From the cell next to mine, I heard Tavin's voice, barely audible through the wall. He was counting.
I wondered how long it would take before he stopped counting altogether.
I wondered how long it would take before I stopped whispering.
The Taint in my chest stirred—a warmth that wasn't quite comfort, wasn't quite hunger. Just… presence. A second heartbeat, slower and deeper than my own, syncing gradually with the hum of the floor.
I closed my eyes.
Tomorrow, they would teach us what it meant to be vessels.
Tonight, I was still Kieran. Son of Gareth. Brother of Lira. Grandson of a man whose name had been erased.
Tomorrow could wait.