The pier didn’t have anything.

  No boat. No rope. No emergency raft stashed under a tarp like some miracle prize. Just wet wood, dark water, and the sound of something thudding in the tunnel behind us like a fist that wouldn’t get tired.

  Nysera stood near the hatch with her rod raised, shoulders tight. She looked like she wanted to hit the water itself for being useless.

  Cirellan didn’t say a word. She stared out at the canal basin with a face that looked like she wasn’t fully inside her body anymore.

  Lioran leaned against a post, ankle swollen, breathing through his mouth. He kept looking at the water and then looking away fast, like his eyes couldn’t handle the idea of things rising out of it again.

  Vaelle and Vaeris stood close together near the edge of the pier, both watching everything without moving much. It was a calm that felt strange, but I didn’t have the energy to question it.

  Lucien scanned the pier like he was reading an empty shelf.

  Then he pointed.

  “There.”

  A watchtower stood a few meters away, built into the canal wall like an old signal post. Stone base. Iron ladder running up the side. A small platform at the top with a railing and a dead light fixture that looked like it hadn’t worked in years.

  Nysera followed his finger. “Why are you looking up?”

  Lucien didn’t blink. “Because down is useless.”

  Nysera’s mouth twitched like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t. She looked at me instead.

  “Rafa?”

  I didn’t want to climb.

  My arms still felt like they had cords pulled tight inside them. My hands still stung from the ladder rungs in the tunnel shaft. My chest still felt like it had a fist around it.

  But staying on the pier felt worse. Staying meant waiting for something to reach us first.

  I nodded.

  Lucien’s eyes flicked over the group. “You stay here.”

  Nysera snorted. “Like we have a choice.”

  “You do,” Lucien said. Calm. Firm. “You can keep the hatch clear. You can keep them from climbing up. You can keep him from doing something stupid.”

  He glanced at Lioran. Not mocking. Just direct.

  Lioran didn’t react. He just stared at the boards under his feet.

  Nysera rolled her eyes. “Fine. Go. Just don’t take forever.”

  Lucien stepped toward the ladder.

  I hesitated for half a second, then followed.

  The iron ladder was cold enough to bite through my palms. The first rung creaked when Lucien put his weight on it. The second rung shifted slightly. Not enough to snap, but enough to make my stomach twist.

  Lucien climbed first, like he didn’t even think about falling. His movements were controlled. No wasted motion. No panic speed. He climbed like he had climbed a thousand ladders in his life and never once wondered what would happen if his foot slipped.

  I climbed behind him.

  The pier shrank fast under us. The canal widened. The water looked darker from above, like it wasn’t water at all, just a surface that swallowed light.

  Wind hit harder the higher we went. It tugged at my coat. It made the ladder vibrate slightly.

  I kept my eyes on Lucien’s boots.

  His heel landed clean on each rung.

  My hands were already slick with sweat and canal damp. I tightened my grip and forced my breathing slow.

  Halfway up, my foot slipped just a little on a wet rung.

  My heart spiked.

  Before I could even curse, Lucien’s hand reached down, caught my wrist, and steadied me. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t make a big deal out of it.

  “Keep your foot inside the rung,” he said, like he was telling me to fix my collar.

  I swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

  Lucien released my wrist and kept climbing.

  That one touch stayed on my skin longer than it should have.

  Not in a weird way. In a grounding way. Like proof that someone else was real and solid and not dissolving into fear like everything else.

  I climbed faster after that.

  When we reached the top, the platform was smaller than it looked from below. Just enough room for two people to stand without bumping shoulders. A circular railing, rusted at the corners. A metal box mounted near the center that might have once held signal flags or lights. The old lamp head was broken and pointed slightly toward the water like a dead eye.

  The wind up there was sharp. It cut through my uniform. It smelled like smoke and wet stone.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Lucien leaned forward slowly, hands on the railing.

  I did the same, careful not to put too much weight on anything. The tower creaked under us in small complaints.

  From up here, the city looked different.

  Not the way it looked on the ground, where every street felt like its own world. From above, you could see the shape of things. The way roads bent. The way canals cut through. The way buildings clustered in patterns.

  And the walls.

  They curved through the city, huge and pale against the darker streets. Thick lines rising between zones, broken only by gate structures and bridge points. They weren’t pretty up close. I had seen them plenty. But I had never seen them like this, all at once, like the city was made of rings.

  The farther in, the taller the walls looked.

  The closer to the center, the cleaner everything became. Less patched stone. Fewer cramped rooftops. More order.

  Zone 6 was quiet across the water. Rooftops empty. Streets like thin veins between buildings. No movement I could make out.

  Zone 7 behind us was still mostly still, but not empty anymore. Far off, tiny figures wandered between streets like slow shadows. Too far to see faces. Close enough to know what they were.

  Zone 8 was a smear of smoke in the distance. A dull bruise on the horizon.

  Then my eyes drifted inward.

  Zone 5 was a darker band cut by water lines. Canals. Locks. Bridges. It looked like something built to control flow.

  Beyond that were more rings. More walls.

  And at the very center, where the city looked like it was holding its breath, there were white structures that stood taller than everything else. Clean lines. Bright surfaces catching weak daylight.

  Zone 1.

  I didn’t think about scholarship points up here.

  I thought about Selene. The way she said Zone 1 like it was a promise.

  I thought about the forums. The speeches. The uniforms. The polished faces.

  I thought about how my dream was sitting in the middle of a place that now looked like a target.

  Lucien’s voice was low. “There.”

  He wasn’t pointing. He didn’t need to. My eyes were already pulled toward it.

  For a moment, the center looked almost untouched. Calm. Too calm.

  Then a flash bloomed inside the inner ring.

  It wasn’t like fireworks. It wasn’t pretty.

  It looked like something split open.

  A burst of light, harsh and fast, followed by a thick swelling cloud that rose with awful confidence.

  The sound didn’t come right away.

  There was a beat of silence where my brain refused to believe what my eyes just saw.

  Then the boom hit.

  Deep. Heavy.

  The watchtower shivered under my hands. The railing vibrated. My teeth clicked together.

  The water below rippled outward in tight circles like someone had punched it from underneath.

  I grabbed the railing harder.

  Lucien didn’t move. Not much. But his shoulders tightened.

  Smoke rose from the center. Dark and thick, climbing into the sky like it owned it.

  Another explosion went off. Smaller, but close enough to add more smoke, more dust.

  I couldn’t tell what was breaking. Buildings? Gates? Bridges?

  I couldn’t tell if it was fighting or failing.

  All I knew was that the place everyone acted like was untouchable was now bleeding fire.

  My voice came out in a whisper. “That’s the center.”

  Lucien nodded once. His jaw was clenched so tight I could see a muscle jump.

  “They’re breaking something,” he said.

  I stared at the smoke.

  My mind tried to put people inside it.

  Families. Soldiers. Council workers. Kids my age who actually made it to Zone 1 schools.

  And maybe, somehow, Selene. Kael. Myron. Maybe they got evacuated upward like everyone kept saying. Maybe they were there. Maybe they were close.

  The thought made my chest hurt so hard I wanted to fold in half.

  The tower creaked again, like it wanted us to climb down and stop looking at the truth.

  Another dull boom rolled across the city, not as bright, but still heavy enough to make the platform tremble.

  Lucien exhaled slowly. “If the inner ring is compromised…”

  He didn’t finish.

  He didn’t have to.

  I swallowed. My throat felt raw.

  I looked at the walls again, the way they wrapped the city.

  From up here, they looked like protection.

  From up here, they also looked like a cage.

  My eyes flicked along one of the inner ramps near the center. A thin line that ran along the top edge of a wall.

  For a second, I saw movement there.

  Too fast.

  A shape darting along the wall access way, then vanishing behind smoke.

  I blinked hard, thinking it was my eyes. Thinking it was dust.

  But the shape was wrong. The speed was wrong.

  My heart kicked hard.

  “Did you see that?” I asked.

  Lucien narrowed his eyes, following my gaze.

  “See what?”

  I hesitated.

  I didn’t want to sound like I was losing it.

  I didn’t want to plant fear that didn’t belong yet.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe nothing.”

  Lucien looked at me for a moment longer than normal.

  Not judging.

  Studying.

  Then he said, “If you saw it, you saw it.”

  That made my stomach twist even more.

  Because it meant he believed me, even when I didn’t want him to.

  The wind snapped against the broken signal light, making it clank softly.

  Below, the pier looked even smaller. Nysera’s figure was a dark line by the hatch. The others were clustered behind her, tiny from here.

  Lioran sat on the pier boards, head down. Even from this height, I could tell he wasn’t looking at the water.

  Lucien spoke again, quieter. “Zone 5 won’t stay open.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  Lucien’s eyes stayed on the smoke. “Because when the center starts breaking, everything connected to it breaks next.”

  His voice didn’t shake.

  Mine did. “We don’t have a plan anymore.”

  Lucien finally looked at me.

  Up here, with smoke staining the sky behind him, his face looked older than it should. Not because he aged in the last day, but because fear makes people heavy.

  “You’re not wrong for wanting to keep moving upward,” he said.

  That hit me in a weird place.

  Like he had been watching me more than I realized.

  I swallowed. “I don’t even know what upward means anymore.”

  Lucien’s mouth tightened faintly, like he was holding back a lot.

  “Then we make our own direction,” he said.

  It wasn’t a speech.

  It was a statement.

  Simple.

  Firm.

  The tower creaked again as if agreeing.

  I looked back at the center one last time.

  Smoke rose in layers. It covered the white buildings like ink dropped into water.

  Everything I aimed for was in there.

  And right now, it looked like it was being swallowed.

  Lucien shifted slightly. “We go down.”

  I nodded.

  My hands didn’t want to let go of the railing, but I forced them to.

  The climb down felt worse than the climb up. My legs were tired. My hands were numb. The wind pushed at my back.

  Lucien climbed first again, steady as always, like gravity was a rule he respected but didn’t fear.

  I followed, eyes on the rungs, forcing my breath in and out in slow counts.

  When my boot touched the pier boards again, it felt like stepping onto a different world.

  Nysera looked up immediately. “Well?”

  Lucien answered before I could.

  “Zone 1 is burning.”

  Nysera didn’t say anything for a second. Her face tightened, and for the first time, I saw something like doubt slip through her armor.

  Cirellan’s lips parted slightly. No sound came out.

  Vaelle and Vaeris exchanged a glance so quick I almost missed it.

  Lioran lifted his head, eyes hollow. “So… we’re done.”

  “No,” Lucien said.

  Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a hard no.

  “We’re not going toward that,” I added quietly, surprising myself with how sure it sounded. “Not now.”

  Nysera swallowed and nodded once, as if she hated agreeing and did it anyway.

  Cirellan whispered, “Zone 6.”

  Lucien nodded. “Zone 6 first. We regroup. Then we decide.”

  The water lapped softly against the pier posts like it didn’t care about anything we had seen.

  Behind us, the tunnel hatch made a dull sound again, like something leaning on it, testing it.

  The air felt colder.

  The city felt emptier.

  And far away, deep in the inner rings, another heavy boom rolled across the walls.

  I looked toward the smoke one more time, then forced myself to turn away.

  If my family was still alive, I couldn’t find them by staring at the center burning.

  We started moving toward Zone 6.

  Not because it was safe.

  Because it was the only direction left that didn’t feel like stepping into fire.