The tower smells like paper that forgot it used to be trees. It’s a hopeful smell if you like libraries, and a worrying one if you’ve ever been hit with a book. I take one step past the seam and the floor decides to exist under my boot. Generous of it.
"Inventory," I say, keeping my voice small. Small is cheap here.
Valeria warms along my forearm, all bright and pleased to be involved. "You have two feet, one excellent sword, and a personality that thinks jokes are a defense. Use all three. Not in that order."
Erebus brushes the pact-line in my ear like a finger flick on a glass. "Proceed."
I reach for Grey the way you reach for a light switch in the dark: expecting it, not needing it to be dramatic. Two pages try to meet between my fingers. One cramps; the other tears at the corner like a timid napkin. The attempt collapses into silver dust that forgets how to fall.
"Grey is on strike," I note.
"Offer better conditions," Valeria says. "Shorter hours, more respect, fewer metaphors."
"I’ll send a fruit basket," I say, and put Grey away.
Lucent Harmony? That, at least, answers like an old friend after a long shift—tired, but present. I keep it ribcage-sized. The room doesn’t like big auras. The room taxes big.
Nine-circle circuits? I try the first Bahamut knot and get grit in the gears. It turns, technically. It also sulks. Mythweaver? I write a tiny margin in the air: ’All speech plain.’ The letters stutter, pay a tax I can’t afford, and fade like a shy confession.
"Right," I tell myself. "Sword first. Verb later."
The hall is long. The walls are letters pretending to be plaster. The ceiling is a number pretending to be height. The floor is a rumor with potential. I run stance work because stance work doesn’t care about rumors.
Triangles. Lines. Circles so ugly no architect will take credit. The tower taxes repetition, so I don’t repeat. Every step finishes a bit different, like bad handwriting only a teacher could love. It’s very confusing to traps and very good for ankles.
Draw and sheathe until my shoulders stop treating the draw like a parade. Ninth draw, the blade kisses air: a small cut that could live in a broom closet and not scare the mop. The room does nothing visible. That’s the room telling me to continue.
"Again," Valeria says, a smile in steel.
"Again," I echo, and do.
On the twelfth cut, letters gather and write a note on the floor in polite black: PLEASE PROCEED WITH PURPOSE.
Valeria makes a delighted noise. "The tower put up a motivational poster. You should get a raise."
I touch the line with the toe of my boot. It tries to convert my step into a stride. I put my foot down like I’m placing a cup on a shelf. No drama. The ink goes dull and sulky.
"Purpose later," I say. "Today we’re doing posture."
Tiamat taught me posture with a stick and a look. I can still feel both. I run her slow-nine—nine cuts that only get faster because they get cleaner. One: no shoulder apology. Two: no elbow brag. Three: wrist tells the truth. Four: exit is as honest as entrance. Five: stop without looking like regret. By nine, my breath has decided to help instead of filing complaints.
Seven tiles ahead, the floor dips a finger’s width, then rises, like a knee check disguised as architecture. I go over with my knee doing its job and nothing else. The tile gives up being interesting. We all have to grow sometime.
A door grows out of text on the right wall. The handle is a question mark made of ambition. Above it: SA— and then the rest hides, coy. The frame meets the floor with the kind of neatness that screams clause.
"Do not touch," Valeria sings.
"I was not going to touch it," I lie, and don’t.
I set my feet one pace away and give a word to the habit in my legs that loves finishing things.
The urge sits. The handle wilts awkwardly, like a joke that didn’t land. We walk past. The ceiling lowers by exactly the height of my patience, then changes its mind. Good. It should.
The hall steps aside for a square room: four pillars, one lamp without a source, scuffs on the ground where someone did work or the tower wants me to think someone did. Either way, it’s a floor. Floors and I are doing a thing.
"Catalog," Valeria says, eager. "Pillars make corners. Lamp is a liar with good manners. Floor is the only honest adult."
Erebus taps once. "Proceed."
Two cuts, one step. Three cuts, one breath. Four cuts, no step. Add the ugly pause count—three, five, two, seven, one—because pausing where you don’t want to is half of swordsmanship and most of adulthood.
The lamp tries to brighten. The floor tilts toward a corner. I accept both and train on the slope. If the room insists on helping me get strong ankles, refusing would be rude.
"Left elbow thinks it’s the protagonist," Valeria says.
I demote the elbow. The blade exits without wagging. The shoulder stops holding auditions for Swan Lake. Progress: quiet, sensible, undramatic. My favorite kind, even when I forget that.
The pillars flash text: WHY SO SMALL?
"Because large is taxable," Valeria answers, sweet as poison tea. "And because broom closets are available everywhere fine towers are sold."
I make everything smaller. Steps like hopscotch. Cuts that wouldn’t wake a cat. Breath still hits six on the way out. The lamp dims. The pillars decide to be pillars again. The letters get bored. Bored is safe. Bored keeps cities running.
"Door behind," Valeria says softly.
I finish the breath. I look. Not a door: an absence of wall that found purpose. It leads to a hall that looks exactly like the hall we already survived. Appropriate. Sword first. Verb later. Repeat until better.
"Report," Erebus says, voice like a stamped form.
"Footwork cleaner. Shoulder less dramatic. Cuts short and mean. Harmony me-sized; we are getting along. Mythweaver pocket edition. Grey a luxury item. Nine-circle dots, not nets. Mood: oatmeal."
Valeria gasps. "With cinnamon."
A corner pretends to be a dead end. I walk into the shadow because shadows at least are honest. The wall sighs and becomes a passage, offended that I didn’t clap. I don’t clap for doors. Doors should clap for me.
We rest against a wall that has been a wall for five minutes straight. Personal best for everyone.
"Yes?" Valeria sings.
"Listening," Erebus says.
"Thanks for being here," I tell them both. "It’s quieter without the rope than I like to admit."
Valeria rubs warmth across my wrist like a cat that pays rent in affection and commentary. "We are extremely here. I’m at least three swords’ worth of company. Four on weekends."
I eat a ration bar that tastes like recycled ambition and wash it down with water that tastes like not dying. Then I stand and check my hands. No tremor. That’s new. Or I’m too tired to shake. Also new.
"Ready?" Valeria asks.
"No," I say. "We go anyway."
The next hall narrows to move me from opinion to discipline. Letters lean in, nosy. I don’t give them gossip. I run Tiamat’s cruelty: random pauses until my body stops throwing tantrums and starts listening. Three, five, two, seven, one. The numbers are a personal attack. The work is worth it.
At the end, the wall pretends to end. I do the thing I have been doing all morning: I don’t believe it. A shadow becomes a seam. The seam becomes a door that was always there. It hates that I refuse to give it a story. It’ll live.
We step through and the room on the other side tries to clap. I let it. Then I train in the corner where the applause dies quickest.
"Your cuts," Valeria says, satisfied, "are starting to sound like answers instead of excuses." New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on novel~fire~net
"That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a cursed building," I tell her.
"Give it an hour," she says. "I have a list."
We proceed. We keep it small. We keep it honest. We keep going.
By the time the tower offers me a handle made entirely of flattery, I have enough discipline not to grab it.