Of course it did.
I'd asked for what I wanted most.
Eight months. Two years if you counted the part where we were friends before we were anything else. She'd been the person I thought about when I woke up and the last person I thought about before I slept and now she was sitting at a table with people who could give her everything the Tower promised.
Wealth. Fame. Power.
The same three things I'd told the voice I wanted.
Except she was already there.
And I was standing outside the window like some kind of creep watching her celebrate a future I wasn't part of.
The doorman cleared his throat behind me.
"Sir. I'm going to have to ask you to move along."
I let go of the compass.
Stepped back from the window.
Sabrina laughed at something one of the suit guys said. Her whole face lit up. She looked happy. Actually happy. Not the complicated happy she'd been on the walk home from the ceremony before I'd ended things. Just simple uncomplicated joy at being exactly where she was.
Good for her.
I meant that.
She deserved the guild backing and the support division resources and the corner table at the expensive restaurant. She'd trained her whole life for this the same way I had. Difference was the stone had actually responded when she touched it.
The doorman took a step forward.
I raised both hands. Turned away. Walked back across the street without looking at the window again.
The compass needle spun when I checked it.
No direction now. Just rotation. Like it was recalculating. Like it had shown me what I wanted and I'd rejected the information.
I kept walking.
Away from Ring One. Back toward Ring Two where things were less expensive and people didn't wear suits to dinner. The street narrowed. The buildings got shorter. The crowds got thicker.
I found a food stall after six blocks.
Guy selling skewers. Meat and vegetables over a portable grill. The smell hit me from fifteen feet away and my stomach reminded me I'd been running on nothing since this morning.
"How much?"
"Three Ash per skewer. Five for two."
I didn't have Ash. I had a license and a compass and approximately eight hours before I was supposed to meet Cassia for a run I had no gear for.
"I don't have Ash yet. Just got my license today."
He looked at me. Then at the license I'd pulled out to prove I wasn't lying. Then back at me.
"First day in Veilgate?"
"First three hours."
He laughed. Flipped one of the skewers. "You look like you're about to fall over. Here." He handed me one. "Pay me back when you've got it. Nobody climbs on an empty stomach."
I took it. "Seriously?"
"Seriously. Just don't die before you pay me. That's bad for my investment." He waved me off. "Go. Eat. Come back when you're not broke."
I walked away eating the skewer before I could think about it too hard.
The meat was good. Better than good. Whatever he'd seasoned it with made my mouth feel alive for the first time today. I finished it in four bites and wished I'd taken him up on the two for five deal.
The street opened into a plaza.
Fountain in the center. Benches arranged around it. Climbers sitting in groups talking about runs or gear or whatever climbers talked about when they weren't actively trying not to die.
I found an empty bench.
Sat down.
Tomorrow morning. Eight hundred hours. Cassia would meet me somewhere and we'd go get gear on credit from her contact in the Ashfields. Then we'd do a Floor One run. Then I'd have Cores to sell and Ash to spend and one day closer to figuring out what the hell Plunder and Shadow Sovereign actually did.
Tomorrow I'd start climbing.
Tonight I sat on a bench in a city I'd been in for three hours watching people who belonged here move through their lives like everything made sense.
The food stall guy's skewer had cost three Ash.
Cassia had said a good Floor One run could net ten Beast One Cores.
Beast One Cores sold for forty to one hundred twenty Ash depending on quality.
I'd make enough tomorrow to pay him back fifty times over if the run went well.
If it didn't go well I'd be dead and the debt wouldn't matter.
That was Tower math.
Simple. Clean. Binary.
I could work with that.
===
A/N:
Welcome to the end of the chapter, Chat. You want to see Nox rob the Tower blind and build his shadow army?
Then feed the algorithm.
Add this to your library, drop those Power Stones and Golden Tickets like Beast Cores, and flood the comments.
Every comment tells me to keep pushing the pace, and every Stone keeps the chapters flowing.
Don't be a lurker, let me know you're climbing with us!