The argument started at dawn.

They'd spent the night in the Waystation rooms Dren had provided — actual rooms with actual beds, the first real sleep any of them had gotten since entering the Tower. Kael should have felt rested. Instead, he felt like something had reached inside him during the night and rearranged his organs.

Pike called a meeting before breakfast. Five of them, crowded into Reed and Mora's room, the door closed, voices low.

"We leave today," Pike said. No preamble. "Straight up. Floor 16. No detours. No more conversations with Dren."

"Pike—" Kael started.

"No." She cut him off, flat and final. "I listened last night because I said I would. Now I've listened. And here's what I heard: a man who's spent ten years in the Tower telling climbers to stop climbing. He dressed it up in philosophy, but the bottom line is the same — don't go up. Stay here. Be *still*."

"He also said Torren is alive," Sera said quietly.

"He said what he needed to say to keep us here longer." Pike paced — two steps forward, two back, the room too small for her energy. "Every day we stay on Floor 15 is a day we're not climbing. And in the Tower, time is weight. The longer you stay, the heavier your Shards get. The harder it becomes to move."

"Is that true?" Reed asked Kael.

Kael closed his eyes. Felt his Shards — five of them now, after the forge. They did feel... denser. Heavier. As if the rest had allowed them to settle deeper into his chest.

"Yes," he admitted. "I can feel it."

"Then we go," Pike said. "Today."

---

They didn't make it to the stairs.

Vesper met them at the edge of the settlement, eight Devout behind her. Not blocking — but present. The kind of presence that made your hand drift toward your weapon.

"The Shepherd asks for one more conversation," Vesper said. "Before you leave."

"We've had our conversation," Pike replied.

"Not all of it." Vesper's neutral expression cracked — just a fraction. Something underneath. Urgency? "The Shepherd didn't finish. There's more — about the boy's mother. About what she left behind."

Kael's step faltered. *What she left behind.*

"Kael." Pike's voice, sharp. "Don't."

"Five minutes," Kael said. "Please."

Pike looked at him — long, hard, calculating. Then at Sera. Sera gave the slightest nod.

"Five minutes. Then we go. No matter what he says."

---

Dren was waiting in the same room. Same table. Same calm. But this time, something was different — his hands were clasped too tightly, knuckles straining. A man holding himself together.

"You're leaving," he said. Not a question.

"Yes," Kael answered. "But I want to hear what you didn't say last night."

Dren nodded. "Your mother — Lianna Ashvane — she wasn't just a climber. She was... special. Like you. She heard the Whispers clearly. The Tower spoke to her, guided her, *wanted* her. She reached Floor 30 — the furthest anyone has gone since the Warden disappeared into the walls."

"I know she reached Floor 30. Ghost told me."

"Ghost told you she reached it. Did Ghost tell you what she *did* there?"

Silence.

"Your mother tried to rewrite the Tower." Dren leaned forward. "She discovered that the Shards aren't just emotional fragments. They're data. Code. Instructions. The Tower is a machine — ancient, alive, but still a machine. And your mother — she tried to change its programming. To find a way to seal the breach without sacrificing a life."

"Did she succeed?"

"No." Dren's voice softened. "She got close. Close enough that the Tower panicked — and consumed her. But before it did, she scattered her Shards throughout the floors. Fragments of her work. Her code. Her solution." He pointed to the gold fragment in Kael's hand. "That's one piece. I've found three more over the years. There are at least a dozen others — scattered between Floors 20 and 30."

"You want me to collect them," Kael said.

"I want you to understand what you're climbing into." Dren stood, began pacing — the first crack in his stillness. "The Tower wants a heart. You know this. But your mother — she was trying to build a third option. Not become the heart, not let the Tower collapse. Something else. A way out that no one has ever found."

"And you know where the pieces are."

"Some of them. Not all." Dren stopped pacing. Looked directly at Kael. "Which is why I need you to stay. Work with me. Let me teach you to read Shards properly — not just forge them, but *decode* them. Find your mother's fragments. Complete her work."

"Stay," Pike said from the doorway, arms crossed. "There it is. That's what this has always been about."

"Pike—"

"He wraps it in different stories every time," Pike said, stepping into the room. "Your mother's legacy. The third option. The noble cause. But it always ends the same way: *stay*. Don't climb. Stop. Be still." She pointed at Dren. "You're afraid. You went to Floor 30 and it scared you, and now you're building a religion out of your fear."

The room temperature changed. Not physically — emotionally. The Devout outside the archway shifted.

"Fear," Dren repeated, and for the first time, his calm cracked. "You think this is fear?"

"I think you saw something that broke you, and now you break others."

"I saw the *truth*. The Tower devours everyone who reaches the top. Everyone. It took the Warden. It took Lianna Ashvane. It will take your boy—" he pointed at Kael — "and it will smile while it does it."

"Then let it try!" Pike shouted. "That's what climbing *is*! Taking risks! Not hiding in a hole pretending you're a philosopher!"

Dren's jaw tightened. His hands — those too-tight hands — unclenched. And from his fingers, Shard energy rippled outward — not an attack, but a declaration. A display of power.

It was enormous.

Kael felt it like a wave of pressure — his Shards resonated, vibrating in his chest. Dren's energy was deep, dense, saturated with years of Shard accumulation. He hadn't been climbing, but he hadn't been idle either. He'd been absorbing — slowly, steadily, absorbing everything the Waystation floors offered.

"I am not hiding," Dren said, his voice low but carrying the weight of a decade's conviction. "I am *protecting*. Every climber I stop is a life saved. Every climber who settles on this floor is a person who didn't get eaten by the Tower."

"And every climber you stop is a person who never got to choose for themselves," Sera said.

Dren looked at her. The energy faded — not from lack, but from control.

"Your brother chose," he said. "He climbed past Floor 20. He chose to keep going. And the Tower took him."

Sera's sword was out before anyone could blink. The steel caught the bioluminescent light and cast a line of blue-green across Dren's face.

"Don't," she whispered. "Don't talk about my brother like he's dead."

"He's not dead. He's *worse* than dead. He's—"

"Sera!" Kael grabbed her arm. The sword stopped — an inch from Dren's throat.

The Devout moved in — eight of them, flowing through the archway like smoke. Shard energy filled the room. Not aggressive — defensive. A wall of intent that said: *touch the Shepherd and we respond*.

Pike's spear was up. Reed loaded. Mora's hands — empty of weapons — glowed faintly with Shard energy she'd been quietly forging from the loose crystals on Floor 12.

For three heartbeats, the room balanced on the edge of catastrophe.

Then Dren raised his hand. The Devout stopped.

"Let them go," he said. Quiet. Controlled. But his eyes — on Sera — were sad. Not angry. Sad.

"You'll climb," he said to Kael. "I know you will. You're your mother's son. But remember — she tried to climb past the problem, and the Tower consumed her. Don't make the same mistake."

Kael released Sera's arm. She pulled back — slowly, deliberately, her eyes never leaving Dren.

"I won't," Kael said. "But I won't stop either."

Dren nodded. "Then take this." He held out a small leather pouch. "Three more fragments of your mother's Shard. I've been holding them for whoever came next. I hoped it wouldn't be someone so young."

Kael took the pouch. Inside — three gold Shard fragments, smaller than the first, but pulsing with the same warmth.

"Go," Dren said. "The stairs to Floor 16 are at the north end of the settlement. And Kael —"

He turned.

"— the Whispers will get louder. Don't let them drown out your own voice."

---

They left the Waystation at a forced march. Pike set the pace — fast, angry, spear over her shoulder. Nobody spoke until they'd climbed the stairs and the blue-green light of Floor 15 faded behind them.

Floor 16 opened before them: darkness, cold, the smell of old stone and older grief. Something skittered in the dark — far away, but moving.

"That went well," Reed said dryly.

Nobody laughed. But Sera — walking beside Kael — exhaled slowly.

"He wasn't lying," she said. "About Torren. I could feel it."

"I know."

"I'm going to find him, Kael. Whatever it takes."

Kael looked at her — at the steel in her eyes, the grief behind it, the determination that had carried her through twenty floors of hell. "I know. And I'm going to help."

Sera didn't say thank you. She just nodded. Once. And walked into the dark.

Behind them, invisible and patient, the Tower watched. And waited. And whispered:

*"Deeper. Go deeper. We're almost there."*