Floor 13 was a graveyard.

Not a metaphorical one. An actual graveyard — stretching in every direction under a sky that wasn't a sky, just a flat gray expanse the color of old bone. Tombstones jutted from the earth like broken teeth, each one carved with a name. Real names. Climber names. Kael recognized some from stories Pike had told around the campfire: Venn Morath, who'd reached Floor 22 before the Crucible broke him. Essa the Blind, whose Shards let her see through walls but not through the Tower's lies.

And fresh graves. Unmarked. Waiting.

"This isn't a floor," Sera said, her voice tight. "This is a warning."

"It's both," Pike replied. She'd been here before — once, years ago, with a different group. Only she'd come back. "Floor 13. The Approach. There's no guardian, no puzzle. You just walk through. But the Tower watches. It judges."

"Judges what?" Reed asked. He gripped his crossbow like a security blanket, knuckles white.

"Whether you're worth the climb."

They moved in single file. Pike at the front, Kael behind her, then Mora, Reed, and Sera bringing up the rear. The tombstones grew denser as they advanced — rows upon rows, some ancient and crumbling, others freshly carved. The air smelled of wet earth and something else, something chemical, like the residue after a Shard breaks.

Kael's Ashsight flickered. Something ahead — not a creature, not a wall. People.

"Pike. Contact. Eleven o'clock. Four — no, five people. Standing in the path."

Pike raised her fist. The group stopped.

---

They emerged from between the tombstones like ghosts — five figures in gray robes, hoods drawn, faces hidden. They stood in a loose semicircle across the path, blocking the way forward. Not attacking. Not moving. Just... watching.

The one in the center lowered his hood. A man — forty, maybe older. Scarred face, shaved head, eyes the color of ash. A tattoo wound up his neck: a tower, spiraling, with roots that crawled down beneath his collarbone.

"Climbers." His voice was calm, almost gentle. "Floor 12 survivors. Five of you. Impressive."

"Who are you?" Pike demanded, spear leveled.

"My name is Harken. I speak for the Devout."

The temperature in the graveyard dropped. Or maybe that was just Kael's blood running cold.

*The Devout. Dren Blackthorn's people.*

"We know who you are," Sera said from behind, her hand already on her sword. "We've heard the stories."

"Stories." Harken smiled — a thin, patient smile. "Stories told by climbers who think the Tower is a mountain to be conquered. Who see Shards as weapons and floors as obstacles." He spread his hands. "We see differently."

"We don't care how you see," Pike said. "We're passing through."

"Of course. The path is open. We're not here to block you." Harken stepped aside — a deliberate, theatrical gesture. "We're here to offer."

"Offer what?"

"Understanding." He reached into his robe and withdrew something — a Shard, but unlike any Kael had seen. It was black. Not dark gray, not deep blue — *black*, absorbing light like a hole in the air. "The Tower doesn't test you because it wants you to fail. It tests you because it wants you to *choose*. And most climbers — they never understand the choice."

"What choice?" Kael asked, stepping forward despite Pike's warning glance.

Harken looked at him. Really looked — and his eyes widened, just slightly. "You hear them. The Whispers."

It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"Then you know," Harken said softly. "The Tower speaks to you differently than it speaks to us. It... recognizes you." He tilted his head. "Who was your mother?"

Kael's chest tightened. "My mother died when I was three."

"In the Tower?"

Silence. Even the wind — if it was wind — stopped.

"How do you know that?" Kael's voice was barely a whisper.

Harken didn't answer directly. Instead, he turned to the group. "Dren Blackthorn would like to speak with you. All of you. Not to fight — to talk. He's on Floor 15, three days' climb from here. He has answers that the Tower won't give you willingly."

"And if we decline?" Pike asked.

"Then you climb. And the Tower continues to shape you in ways you don't understand." Harken pocketed the black Shard. "We won't stop you. But consider — you lost no one on Floor 12. That's rare. The Tower is being gentle with you. Have you asked yourselves why?"

No one answered.

Because no one had an answer.

---

They made camp that night between two rows of tombstones — a grim choice, but the stones blocked the wind, and there was a flat clearing large enough for all five. Mora built a small fire from Dead Wood — the petrified branches that grew in random clusters across the graveyard. The wood burned blue, casting strange shadows.

"We're not going to see Dren," Pike said, poking the fire with a stick. "He's a cultist. A murderer. He killed three climbers on Floor 18 two years ago for refusing to join the Devout."

"Harken seemed different," Kael said carefully.

"Harken's a recruiter. He's supposed to seem different." Pike's jaw tightened. "I've seen what Dren does to people who 'understand' his philosophy. They stop climbing. They set up camp on whatever floor they're on and live there — like monks in a temple. Some of them never come back down."

"That's their choice," Reed said quietly.

"Is it? Or is it Dren's brainwashing?" Pike stabbed the fire. Sparks flew. "The Devout believe the Tower is alive and sacred. That climbing it is blasphemy. That every floor we clear, every Shard we take, we're *hurting* it. They want climbers to stop."

"The Tower *is* alive," Kael said. "I can hear it. It thinks. It remembers."

"Alive doesn't mean sacred." Pike looked at him. "A virus is alive. That doesn't mean we worship it."

Sera had been quiet. Now she spoke, her voice low and measured. "He knew about Kael's mother."

Everyone turned to her.

"Harken," Sera continued. "He asked about Kael's mother. Specifically. He knew she died in the Tower. How?"

Silence.

"The Devout have been in the Tower for years," Mora said. "Some of them have been here longer than any active climber. If Kael's mother climbed — they might know about her."

"Which means Dren might know what happened to her," Sera said. She looked at Kael. "I'm not saying we trust them. But I am saying — if there's information about your mother on Floor 15, and we're climbing past it anyway..."

"Pike?" Kael asked.

Pike stared into the blue flames. Her face was a battlefield — suspicion fighting curiosity, caution wrestling with the knowledge that in the Tower, information was more valuable than any Shard.

"We don't go to Dren," she said finally. "But we don't avoid Floor 15 either. If the Devout approach us again — we listen. Carefully. And we keep our weapons close."

"Fair," Sera said.

Kael nodded. But as the fire crackled and the blue light danced across the tombstones, he couldn't shake Harken's words.

*The Tower is being gentle with you. Have you asked yourselves why?*

He hadn't. And now that the question was in his head, it wouldn't leave.

*"Because it wants you to go deeper,"* Ghost whispered, so faint Kael almost missed it. *"It's not being gentle. It's being patient."*

"What's the difference?" Kael murmured.

*"Patience means it has a plan for you. And you won't like it."*

The fire popped. Blue sparks climbed toward a sky that wasn't a sky. And in the distance — past the tombstones, past the graves of a hundred failed climbers — something watched them sleep.

Something that wore a patient smile.