By the time Cal reached the gate, his legs slogged like wet sand.

  Out of the trees rose the palisade, rough and dark. Trunks, stripped and sharpened, stood point-up in the earth. Crossbeams and metal brackets bound them, oddly placed on the forest floor. At uneven intervals, watch platforms jutted from the top. Silhouetted figures moved there, weapons in hand, set against the dimming canopy.

  Torches blazed in iron brackets on either side of the main entrance. Their smoke curled up into the leaves and vanished.

  “Here we are,” Anya said quietly.

  Jordan walked on Cal’s other side. His posture was loose, but only in the way a man pretending to be unbothered would stand. He had stopped favoring his shoulder; he rolled it occasionally, as if coaxing the pain to disappear. It didn’t work. Still, he kept the act anyway.

  Two guards at the gate straightened when they saw Anya. One wore a breastplate—maybe it once belonged to corporate security. The other had a leather vest covered in mismatched metal plates. Both had Tower bands on their wrists. Crossbows were within easy reach.

  “Evening, Healer,” the breastplate said. His gaze flicked to Cal, taking in the shield, the baton, the ripped sleeve, then to Jordan’s blood-darkened shirt. “Picked up strays?”

  “Picked up two people who kept me from getting stuck on a spear,” Anya said. “Open up, Rafe. They’re with me.”

  “Lucky them,” Rafe said. He gave Cal another once-over, the quick, measuring kind that came from too many weeks watching people stumble in and sometimes never walk back out. His eyes snagged on Jordan’s shoulder for half a second and moved on like he’d seen worse. Then he jerked his head at the other guard. “Lift it.”

  The gate was a double door of thick timbers, reinforced with scavenged metal. Chains snaked from its top corners to a pulley system inside. The second guard heaved on them, muscles shifting under his vest, and the gate inched up with a groan of wood and rope.

  Warm air billowed out, heavy with the scent of cooked meat, woodsmoke, and sweat.

  Hearthpost—a name, but not exactly a home.

  Cal stepped forward and crossed through the entrance.

  Inside the palisade, the forest thinned just enough for streets. Someone had leveled the ground by hand, turning roots and humps into packed-earth paths. These paths curved and branched between buildings, most of which were rough-cut wood nailed together. Occasionally, a sheet of scavenged metal stood in for a missing wall or roof panel. Canvas tents filled the gaps, their sides flapping in the evening breeze.

  People filled the rest.

  Climbers in battered armor bartered at open stalls, hands darting as quickly as their tongues. A woman with a jagged scar hefted a bundle of javelins. The man across from her scowled and rapped the price slate with two fingers. Three younger climbers clustered around a table displaying knives, haggling in staccato.

  Farther on, a man in a grease-streaked apron turned skewers over a roaring grill. Fat spat on the coals. The scent knotted Cal’s stomach almost painfully.

  Above the human noise, louder calls rose.

  “Fresh potion stock from Floor Three. Limited batch. No water added, I swear on my band.”

  “Bounties posted for goblin ears, wolf teeth, and cave moss. Higher pay for confirmed cave scouts. Check the board.”

  “Beds at the Second Wind, two to a room, three if you do not mind snoring. Pay now, sleep later.”

  The rhythm hit him all at once: the shuffle of boots, the clink of chips on wood, rough laughter, and sharp arguments. This was not a neighborhood like the district. Kids no longer played in the alleys; laundry lines had vanished. The old men with tea on stoops—gone.

  This was a waystation.

  A place people passed through, not a place they stayed.

  Cal slowed just inside the gate and surveyed his new surroundings, taking in the shape of streets and the people. The shield strap pressed against his shoulder, painfully constant. Every step shifted the baton at his side, reminding him of its weight.

  She brought me here because she knew I wouldn’t last another night out there.

  The admission sat heavily in his chest. It didn’t sting as pride warned it might. Mostly, it felt like relief.

  Jordan let out a low whistle like he’d just walked into a market instead of a knife fight with walls. “Smells like somebody figured out fire. I could cry.”

  Anya touched Cal’s arm, pulling his attention back from the busy scene.

  “Inn is straight ahead, left at the well,” she said. “Second Wind. The roof does not leak. Beds are almost soft.”

  “You’re not staying?” Cal asked before he could stop himself.

  Her mouth quirked.

  “I have a squad to check in with. My supervisor will ask why I went sightseeing in the murder woods. I also have a healer’s rota to pick up for tomorrow. You have a bunk to find, a meal to eat, and a floor not to die on yet.”

  Jordan lifted two fingers in a lazy salute. “Appreciate the rescue tour. Ten out of ten. Would not recommend the screaming.”

  Anya’s eyes flicked to him—quick assessment, then back to Cal.

  Cal nodded.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “For not letting me get stabbed?” Anya said. “Call us even.”

  She hesitated, then added, “If you are still breathing tomorrow, you will hear people talk about the goblin cave. Try not to go looking for it alone. Hearthpost is full of people who thought they did not need anyone else.”

  Cal thought of the clearing. He remembered the way her Life magic had surged through the soil.

  “I noticed,” he said.

  Anya’s gaze moved deliberately over his gear: the welded shield resting against his back, the baton hanging at his side, the torn edge of his jacket. Then she looked at Jordan’s shoulder again, at the stiff way he held it.

  “Communal bunkhouse is east side, near the palisade,” she said. “Tell Rafe if you need directions. He pretends to be mean, but he points lost kids the right way.”

  “Not a kid,” Cal said automatically.

  “First day in the Tower?” Anya asked.

  He almost said no.

  “Yes,” he said instead.

  Her expression softened.

  “Then you are allowed to be a little lost,” she said. “Rest. Eat. Tomorrow will find you regardless.”

  She turned away before he could respond, moving easily along the street. She wove around other people, stepping aside without hesitation, and headed in the direction she needed to go.

  Cal watched her disappear into the crowd.

  Jordan watched too, then nudged Cal’s elbow with the smallest hint of a grin. “You heard the part where she said ‘eat.’ That means you do it. Doctor’s orders.”

  Cal shifted the shield higher on his back, braced himself, and began walking down the main street, matching Jordan’s pace at his side.

  The Second Wind was exactly where she had said it would be.

  Past the central well, where a hand pump rattled as someone filled buckets, the street opened into a rough square. A notice board dominated the center, plastered with paper and slate tiles. People pressed around it, arguing over bounty postings and cycle times.

  On the far side of the square, a building larger than most rose two stories high. Its front wall was painted a cheerful red, already peeling. A sign over the door showed a pair of boots propped beside a crackling fire. Underneath, the words “SECOND WIND” were burned into the wood.

  Light spilled from the windows. Laughter followed it.

  Cal’s feet carried him up the three broad steps. Before he realized what he was doing, he checked the shield slung over his shoulder, then pushed through the doorway into the light.

  Inside, the noise hit him like a wave.

  A long bar ran along one wall, its surface scarred by years of elbows and spilled drinks. Tables filled the rest of the floor. Some were occupied by groups of climbers in partial gear; others by people in plain clothes, who might once have been climbers but were now something else. Serving staff wove between them, balancing trays laden with bowls and mugs.

  Heat rolled off both bodies and cookfires, thick in the air. The air smelled of stew, smoke, and the sharp bite of cheap alcohol.

  Cal hovered near the door, shifting his weight from foot to foot, until someone behind the bar noticed him and waved him over.

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  “You looking for a drink or a bed?” the woman called.

  She was older than most of the climbers in the room. Her hair was braided back, sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms crisscrossed with old scars. A Tower band gleamed on her wrist. It looked more like a bracelet someone had forgotten to take off years ago than a fresh entry token.

  “Bed,” Cal said. His voice came out rough. He cleared his throat. “For one night.”

  Jordan leaned in like he was about to order dessert. “And if you’ve got a ‘stop bleeding’ special, we’ll take two.”

  The woman’s eyes flicked to Jordan’s shoulder, then back to Cal. “You boys find a goblin family reunion?”

  “Something like that,” Cal said.

  She jerked her chin toward the far wall, where a slate hung with a list of prices scratched into it.

  ROOMS: TWO BEDS, LOCKABLE CHEST — 8 CHIPS / NIGHT.

  SHARED ROOM: FOUR BEDS — 5 CHIPS / NIGHT.

  FLOOR SPACE (EMERGENCY CYCLE ONLY) — 2 CHIPS.

  Meal and drink listed below.

  None of the numbers was small.

  Cal’s hand went to his pocket before he could stop it.

  He slid the chips out just enough to tally them with his thumb.

  Five.

  Thin, hexagonal pieces of metal, stamped with the Tower’s symbol on one side and a numerical marker on the other.

  Jordan’s gaze snagged on them. His mouth opened—joke already loading—then stalled. He swallowed it.

  Anya had pressed them into Cal’s palm in the forest. She’d called it a fair split of the goblin bounty and ignored his protest that he’d nearly gotten her killed.

  Five chips.

  Cal looked back at the slate.

  If he paid for a bed here, he would have one chip left. One for food, or gear, or whatever else this place demanded.

  Rent first. Always rent first.

  The old reflex tried to assert itself, slotting costs into neat columns. But here, the numbers didn’t line up the same way. There was no landlord, no water bill. Just the Tower—and the things inside it, trying to eat him.

  He met the innkeeper’s eyes across the room.

  “How much for the communal bunkhouse?” he asked.

  Her brows lifted a fraction.

  “Two chips,” she said. “If you do not mind noise. One if you work an hour or two on the woodpile tomorrow.”

  Jordan made an approving sound. “I love labor. Huge fan. Always wanted to be a lumberjack.”

  Cal didn’t look at him, but his shoulder shifted—barely—like the first hint of a laugh trying to exist.

  “Where?” Cal asked.

  “East side, near the palisade,” the innkeeper said. “Follow the wall until you hear people snoring. You will find it.”

  A couple of climbers at a nearby table laughed quietly.

  Cal felt heat climb up his neck. He nodded anyway.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Second Wind’s stew is one chip,” she added. “If you get tired of chewing dried ration bricks.”

  He hesitated.

  His last real meal had been thin soup at home. The clinic’s waiting room coffee after that barely counted.

  Jordan shifted closer, voice low enough to be only for Cal. “Eat. I’ll figure out the rest.”

  Cal’s fingers curled around the chips.

  Two for the bunkhouse. One for stew.

  That left two.

  He could feel Jordan watching him—not the way a stranger watched a wallet, but the way a friend watched someone trying not to admit they were running out of air.

  Cal dug in his pocket and set two chips on the bar.

  “One bowl,” he said. “To go.”

  The innkeeper’s mouth twitched in something that was almost approval.

  “Sit,” she said. “You are not a courier. You can eat it before you fall over.”

  Jordan pointed at Cal like she’d just said something profound. “See? Authority figure. Listen.”

  Cal thought about arguing. Then his legs made the decision for him.

  He found an empty seat at a small table near the wall and sat down. The chair creaked but held. Cal unhooked his shield, bumped it against the back of the chair, then set it on the floor at his side.

  Jordan didn’t sit. He hovered behind Cal’s chair for a beat, eyes scanning the room with the same habit as the forest. Then he leaned his bar against the wall within reach and slid into the seat across from Cal with a careful movement that pretended his shoulder wasn’t screaming.

  A few minutes later, a bowl landed in front of Cal.

  The stew was thin, mostly broth and root vegetables, with a few shreds of meat floating near the top. It smelled like actual flavor.

  Cal set one chip on the table. The innkeeper scooped it up as she passed.

  Cal lifted the spoon.

  The first mouthful almost hurt.

  His body had been running on adrenaline and stubbornness for hours. The sudden arrival of warmth and salt and something his tongue recognized as nourishment made his chest tight. He swallowed, waited for his hands to stop shaking, and took another bite.

  The room’s noise faded to a background hum.

  He ate slowly, more to make the bowl last than anything else.

  Across from him, Jordan watched the bowl like it was the only sane thing in the room. His voice came in light. “If you start crying over stew, I’m telling everyone you’re sentimental.”

  “Shut up,” Cal said, but it didn’t have any bite.

  Between mouthfuls, Cal’s mind replayed the clearing in the forest.

  Anya, ringed by goblins, spear hafts flashing as they closed in.

  The way the ground had responded when she called to it. Roots bursting from the soil to snare goblin legs, tripping them into the arc of her staff.

  The flash of green-white light when she pressed a hand to her own bleeding side and the wound closed under her palm, skin knitting in seconds what should have taken days.

  Life element.

  He had seen aether burns on his mother. Heard stories about combat abilities from Tower broadcasts. None of that had prepared him for watching someone twist the forest itself into armor and weapon in the space of a breath.

  He thought of the stone slab in Atrium 0.

  Elemental Resonance: EARTH.

  Somewhere ahead of him, on Floor Two, a stone waited. Active Ability 1. A choice the Tower would eventually offer him that would turn this new sense of weight and contact into something more.

  “What is that going to feel like?” he wondered.

  Being able to do what she did. To call strength out of the ground instead of just hoping it held.

  He imagined it for half a second. A wave of force spreading out from his feet. Stone rising at his command. The shield on his arm becoming something more than scrap metal and stubbornness.

  Then the image splintered under the more immediate question.

  Will I live long enough to find out?

  He scraped the last of the vegetables from the bottom of the bowl and set the spoon down.

  Around him, climbers laughed and shouted and pretended not to listen for the moment the notice board would update with the next cycle’s timers. A man at the next table flexed his banded wrist, and a faint shimmer of heat danced over his skin. Fire, maybe. Across the room, someone’s eyes flickered with an inner light that was not a trick of the lamp.

  Abilities everywhere.

  Cal stood, joints protesting, and lifted the shield.

  Tier 0. Unclassed. No ability slots unlocked.

  It was hard not to feel like a fraud in a room like this.

  Jordan rose too, slower, but he kept pace as if it were nothing. “If anyone calls you a fraud, I’m throwing stew at them. And then we’re both frauds.”

  Cal didn’t answer. He just stepped back out into the night before the feeling could sink its claws in any deeper.

  ---

  Torches burned at regular intervals along the main street, their flames snapping in the light breeze. The forest beyond the palisade had gone quiet in a way that made the hairs on the back of Cal’s neck lift. The noise inside the walls filled the gap, a human buzz that almost hid the occasional, distant sound of something large moving between the trees.

  Jordan walked beside him now without the jokes, eyes on the shadows beyond the stakes. His earlier brightness had drained out the moment they’d left the light.

  “You’re not sleeping out there again,” Jordan said. It wasn’t a suggestion.

  Cal glanced at him.

  “Yeah,” Cal said. “Not planning to.”

  He followed the curve of the palisade east, as the innkeeper had said.

  The buildings thinned there. Stalls gave way to storage sheds and woodpiles. A small forge glowed in a half-open-sided shelter, and the smith inside banked the fire for the night. Sparks floated up into the dark.

  At the very edge of the cleared ground, almost pressed against the inside of the palisade, stood a long, low structure of rough boards and patchwork metal panels.

  Light leaked from gaps between the slats. So did noise.

  Snoring. Talking. The occasional burst of laughter sounded slightly hysterical.

  A hand-painted sign hung crookedly beside the door.

  COMMUNAL BUNKHOUSE

  2 CHIPS / NIGHT

  1 CHIP + LABOR

  “Found you,” Jordan murmured, like he’d discovered treasure.

  Inside, the air hit them like a wall.

  It was warm from the crush of bodies, thick with the smell of sweat, damp cloth, and the faint sting of some harsh cleaning solution someone had done their best with. Rows of triple bunks lined both walls, leaving a narrow aisle down the center. Most of the beds were occupied. Gear hung from hooks or lay piled at the foot of mattresses. A few people sat on the edge of their bunks, wrapping bandages, muttering to each other, or staring at nothing.

  A tired-looking man with a gray streak in his dark hair sat at a crude table near the door. A ledger lay open in front of him. His Tower band was an older model, the metal worn smooth.

  He looked up as Cal stepped in.

  “New faces,” he said. “Chips or work?”

  Cal reached into his pocket and set four chips on the table.

  “Chips,” he said. “Just for tonight.”

  Jordan’s hand moved—too quick to be casual—toward Cal’s wrist.

  Cal stilled.

  Jordan leaned in, voice low, all humor gone. “Two. Not four. You hear me? We didn’t claw our way to a roof so you can play martyr with a ledger.”

  Cal stared at him.

  Jordan held the look. Deadly serious, not angry. Loyal.

  Cal’s fingers closed over two chips and pulled them back.

  “Two,” Cal said.

  The man at the table swept the tokens off the wood with practiced fingers as if he hadn’t seen the exchange at all.

  “Pick any empty bunk,” he said. “Middle row is quieter. Keep your gear close, your boots on the floor, and your vomit out the window if you can manage it.”

  “What about monsters?” someone called from one of the top bunks. “You forgot to warn them about the monsters.”

  A ripple of muffled laughter ran through the room.

  The man at the table did not smile.

  “Monsters do not come inside the walls,” he said. “Not yet, anyway. The ones in here are just men and women who had bad days.”

  Cal swallowed and nodded.

  “Got it,” he said.

  He found two empty bunks halfway down the room. Middle level, side by side. The mattresses were thin and scratchy, stuffed with something that rustled when he pressed it. Gray blankets lay folded at the foot, edges frayed.

  Cal leaned the shield against the wall where he could reach it from the bed. Jordan set his bar beside his bunk like it was a ritual, then sat with the careful grace of someone trying not to admit pain.

  Cal unlaced his boots slowly, fingers clumsy with exhaustion. The bruise on his thigh throbbed when he bent, a deep ache under the skin. His shoulder complained when he shrugged out of his jacket. Every cut from the goblin spear and the forest’s claws stung in the warm air.

  He did a quick inventory.

  No bleeding. No obvious infection yet. The field bandage Anya had thrown him after the fight was holding.

  Jordan peeled back his own sleeve and hissed quietly. He didn’t ask for help. He just tightened the wrap with one hand and tucked the knot like he’d done it a hundred times.

  Cal lay back, pulling the blanket over himself.

  The bunk above groaned as its occupant rolled over. Somewhere to his left, someone mumbled in their sleep. To his right, two climbers whispered about a route they had heard into the goblin cave, voices low and tense.

  Goblin cave.

  Objective for Floor One. Clear it, get the stairway. Get the chance at Floor Two. Get the ability slot.

  “Use too much power too fast and your body collapses,” Anya had said. “Overconfidence kills more climbers than monsters.”

  Lying there, staring at the underside of the bunk above, Cal felt neither confident nor powerful.

  He felt tired.

  Tired in his bones in a way that went beyond the day’s fights. Tired from years of balancing numbers that never quite came out in their favor. Tired of watching helplessness chip away at the people he loved.

  Jordan’s voice came from the darkness beside him, quieter than Cal had heard it all day. “Hey.”

  Cal turned his head.

  “You did well,” Jordan said. Like it mattered. Like it was an anchor you could put weight on.

  Cal let out a breath that felt like it had been stuck in his chest since the scream.

  He let his eyes close.

  The mattress was lumpy. The blanket itched. Someone near the door started snoring in earnest, a rattling sound that would have driven him mad if his body had possessed any spare energy.

  Under all of that, though, there was something else.

  He was inside the walls. There was a roof over his head. Between him and the forest stood sharpened stakes, tired guards, and a town full of people who understood that surviving until morning was not something to take for granted.

  For the first time since the clinic, the fear eating at the back of his mind eased its grip by a fraction.

  He saw, for an instant, a different set of numbers.

  Goblin bounties turned in at the board. Chips counted into his hand. A message was sent back to the district with a small transfer tagged for his mother’s clinic account.

  Floor Two. Earth ability slot unlocked.

  Not enough to fix everything. Maybe not enough to fix much at all.

  But it was more than nothing.

  Tomorrow, the forest and whatever waited in it would still be there.

  Tonight, he was not getting eaten.

  Cal let that simple fact settle over him like another blanket.

  His last clear thought before sleep dragged him under was not of unpaid bills or collapsing buildings.

  It was of roots bursting from soil at a healer’s call, and the faint, newly solid sense of the earth beneath his own feet, promising that if he kept moving, it would meet him halfway.

  He slept.