CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE THE TOWERS

  "Everything you have been taught about the Towers is true. It is also incomplete. The gap between true and complete is where the danger lives, and where the questions that matter most refuse to be answered. Today I will give you the complete picture, or as complete as we possess. You will wish I had not."

  — Director Elena Vasquez, Tower Orientation Address, Ironspire Academy, October 2027

  On the first morning of their third year, Ironspire's main auditorium hummed with barely contained anticipation. Kael dropped into his seat between Lyra and Aldara, watching as two hundred third-year students filed into the tiered lecture hall. The space was larger than any classroom they had used before, its walls lined with dampening panels that absorbed ambient resonance. A pointed choice, he suspected, for content too sensitive for standard facilities.

  The smell of fresh polish hung in the air, sharp and chemical. Someone had prepared this room specifically for today.

  "Tower Orientation," Felix muttered from the row behind, his foot already tapping against the floor in a rhythm that sent faint sparks dancing beneath his chair. "Finally. I've been trying to get classified access for months."

  "Because you wanted to know if the lightning inside Tower Four was real," Sana reminded him. Her tone carried that particular flatness that meant she was already preparing a medical intervention if he electrified himself in excitement. "Not exactly a compelling security clearance request."

  "It is purple lightning. Purple." Felix leaned forward, his words accelerating in that familiar pattern. "That is not natural. That is not even scientifically possible according to standard electromagnetic theory. Which means either our understanding of physics is entirely broken, or someone inside that Tower is doing something that should not work, and I need to know which one because the implications for my own technique development are—"

  "Quiet," Jiro rumbled from his position at the end of the row. His massive frame took up nearly two seats, and his single word carried more weight than Felix's entire monologue.

  The lightning manipulator subsided, though his foot kept tapping.

  Kael caught Lyra's eye. The familiar warmth of their twin bond pulsed beneath conscious thought. She was nervous too. Neither of them had forgotten what Aunt Sera had told them about Towers during their winter visit. Bloodlines and dormant potential. Questions that humanity was not ready to answer.

  Today, they might learn how much of that was truth and how much was paranoid speculation.

  The lights dimmed.

  The massive display wall flickered to life, showing an image that made Kael's breath catch despite having seen variations of it dozens of times before. A Tower. Not a photograph. Photographs could not capture what Towers actually looked like. This was a composite rendering, built from thousands of sensor readings and eyewitness accounts, attempting to convey something the human eye struggled to process.

  A structure exactly one kilometer tall. Its surface flowed with patterns that appeared almost organic, alive to the point where it made the hindbrain want to look away. Its proportions were in the same instant massive and somehow wrong in ways that defied geometric analysis. The mind kept trying to find the angles, the edges, the points where one surface met another, and kept failing.

  "Welcome to Tower Orientation," said the woman who stepped into the spotlight.

  Director Elena Vasquez. Aldara's aunt, and one of the most powerful figures in the Compact's military hierarchy. Her gaze swept the assembled students with cold assessment. She wore the same shade of gray as the twins, Kael noticed. The Valdris gray. The color that Aunt Sera claimed marked the bloodlines.

  Coincidence, probably. Or maybe not.

  "Everything you are about to learn is classified at the highest levels," Vasquez continued. "Disclosure to unauthorized parties is punishable by imprisonment or execution, depending on the severity."

  The auditorium fell absolutely silent. Even Felix's foot stopped tapping.

  "Good. You understand the stakes."

  Vasquez touched a control, and the Tower image expanded to show a global map. Two hundred and thirty-seven glowing points dotted the continents. Each one a Tower. Each one a question mark that humanity had been unable to answer for nearly a decade.

  "Two hundred and thirty-seven Towers exist worldwide. Ancient structures. Millions of years old. They sat dormant beneath ice and sand and ocean for millennia before humanity ever built its first city."

  "How do we know they're that old?" someone asked from the back of the auditorium.

  "Carbon dating. Geological analysis. The Antarctic Tower was buried under ice that predates the last ice age." Vasquez's voice remained flat, clinical. "The shimmer zones that appeared in 2005 formed around sites where these ancient structures had always been. We simply hadn't noticed them. When the Towers activated on March 15, 2020, all two hundred and thirty-seven came alive together. Not appearing. Awakening. They had been waiting."

  She let that sink in before continuing.

  "The Towers are not buildings constructed by any process we understand. Their exterior dimensions are fixed at exactly one kilometer tall, four hundred meters at the base. Their interior dimensions proved impossible to predict."

  The display shifted to show a cross-section that drew an involuntary murmur of awe from the assembled cadets, a visualization that made several students gasp. Kael heard Felix's breath catch somewhere behind him.

  "Their interior dimensions are significantly larger than their exterior would suggest. Each Tower contains what we call 'floors' or 'levels,' but these are not stacked spaces like a traditional building. Each level is a pocket dimension. A contained reality that can be larger than entire countries."

  Kael absorbed the information with growing unease. He had known about the Towers, of course. Everyone in the Awakened world did. Knowing they existed and understanding what they truly were turned out to be different things entirely.

  "Level One is currently the only accessible level," Vasquez continued. "Governments worldwide spent three years and approximately two million casualties learning how to breach the entry barriers. Two million lives, lost in the attempt to understand what lay within. By 2023, we had reliable access protocols. What we found inside…"

  The display shifted again, showing footage that Kael had never seen. Classified recordings from early Tower expeditions that had never been released to the public. Forests that stretched to miraculous horizons under skies that held no sun. Deserts where the sand itself seemed alive, shifting in patterns that defied physics. Underground caverns lit by bioluminescent organisms that no biologist could classify.

  Creatures.

  Beings that moved through the Tower environments like predators in their natural habitat. Some recognizable as enhanced versions of Earth wildlife. Others bearing no resemblance to anything evolution had ever produced. A wolf the size of a small car, its fur crackling with electrical discharge. A serpent made of living crystal, its body refracting light into weapons. Something that might have been humanoid once, before it evolved in dimensions humanity had never touched.

  "Level One has already changed our world," Vasquez said. "The Verathos density inside Towers is approximately forty times higher than ambient Earth levels. Extended exposure triggers awakening in approximately three percent of humans. The emergence of supernatural abilities that were previously thought unthinkable."

  She paused, her gaze scanning the assembled students.

  "All of you are the product of that emergence. Every Awakened ability you possess, every technique you have trained, every advantage you hold over baseline humanity, traces back to the Towers. They made you. They continue to make others. And we still do not understand why."

  Lyra's tension echoed through their bond. She was thinking the same thing he was. Aunt Sera's words echoing in memory: The Towers did not emerge from nothing. They were called. Summoned by an ancient force.

  "Every major military advancement in the last five years has come from Tower resources," Vasquez said. "Enhanced training programs. Awakening protocols. Weapons forged from materials we cannot synthesize. Medical techniques that seem like miracles. The blocs that control Tower access are the blocs that control the future."

  "And the other levels?" Aldara asked. Her tone carried that precise, analytical edge that meant she was already noting implications. "You said Level One is the only accessible level. How many more are there? What prevents access?"

  "We do not know how many levels exist." Vasquez let the admission hang in the air. "Each Tower contains internal seals between levels. Barriers that respond to nothing we have tried. No weapon, no technique, no resonance manipulation has proven capable of breaching them. Every government on Earth has attempted it. All attempts have failed. We know there is more beyond Level One. We do not know how much more."

  "Some researchers believe the seals are weakening naturally," she continued. "Others believe humanity must prove 'worthy' to advance. We do not know which theory is correct. We only know that Level One has transformed our world, and whatever waits beyond those seals presumably contains resources and knowledge that dwarf what we have already discovered."

  The presentation continued for another hour, diving deeper into Tower mechanics.

  "The materials found inside Towers defy conventional physics," Vasquez explained, displaying samples that gleamed with impossible colors. "This alloy. Recovered from Tower Forty-Two in the Europan sector. Conducts energy with near-perfect efficiency. Standard metals lose sixty percent of transmitted power to resistance. This loses less than one percent."

  "How is that possible?" someone asked.

  "It is not. Not according to known physics." Vasquez's smile turned thin and sharp as a blade. "Which tells us that known physics is incomplete. The Towers operate on principles we do not yet understand. Principles that were designed by intelligence capable of manipulating reality at fundamental levels."

  She touched the controls again, bringing up a complex diagram.

  "Each Tower appears identical from the outside. One kilometer tall, four hundred meters at the base, the same flowing surface patterns. Internally, they are wildly different. The Seventeenth contains a forest environment. Tower Four contains a volcanic landscape with purple lightning storms that manifest spontaneously. Tower Ninety-One contains what appears to be an artificial city, abandoned for centuries. Its architecture follows geometric principles we cannot replicate, and its materials resist all analysis."

  Murmurs spread through the auditorium. An abandoned city inside a Tower suggested builders. Intelligent beings who had lived there once.

  "Yes," Vasquez said, answering the unspoken question. "The Towers show signs of habitation. Not recent. Whatever lived there left long before the Towers activated. The architecture, the artifacts, the tools we have recovered all point to civilizations that developed far beyond humanity's current level."

  "What happened to them?" Kael asked.

  His tone carried across the auditorium, and Vasquez's attention locked onto him like a targeting system acquiring a new objective.

  Gray met gray.

  Recognition flickered across her expression. For a breath. A pattern Kael could not fully identify. Like looking at a familiar face and realizing that you had never actually seen it before.

  "We do not know," she said. Her voice had dropped, carrying an undercurrent that might have been uncertainty. Or might have been warning. "But I have spent forty years studying records that do not match. Inconsistencies in documents that should be consistent. Gaps where information should exist.

  "The Towers activated on Earth in 2020. A note in their internal structure suggests they were not made for us. We are not the first civilization to face them. We may not be the last. The question that keeps me awake at night is simple: what happened to all the others?"

  The presentation ended with that question hanging in the air like smoke from a distant fire.

  ***

  Back in the barracks that evening, the briefing's implications fell over Squad Thirteen like settling dust.

  "So let me make sure I understand this correctly," Felix said, pacing the length of the common room with enough nervous energy to power a small generator. "The Towers have been sitting there for millions of years. Ancient. Dormant. Waiting. Then in 2020 they all woke up at once. Now they contain pocket dimensions that are bigger on the inside. Filled with creatures and materials that break physics. Built by civilizations that do not exist anymore. Nobody knows why or how or what happened to the previous occupants."

  "That is an accurate summary," Aldara confirmed. She sat in her usual position, tablet in hand, already compiling notes from the briefing.

  "That is not reassuring, Aldara. That is the opposite of reassuring." Felix stopped pacing long enough to gesture wildly at the window, where distant Tower spires were visible against the darkening sky. "That is 'we have no idea what is happening and we're all probably going to die' with better vocabulary."

  "The probability of extinction-level events has been calculated at—"

  "Please do not finish that sentence."

  Kael watched the exchange from his position near the window, letting the familiar rhythm of squad banter wash over him. This was what he had missed during the summer break. Not only the training, not only the progress. The people. How Felix's anxiety spiral pulled everyone into its orbit. How Aldara's control grounded it without dismissing it. How the squad functioned as a unit even in their smallest moments.

  "Felix makes a reasonable point," Sana said from her corner of the room. She was reviewing medical updates on her tablet, but her attention was clearly split between the briefing material and her squadmate's escalating pulse rate. "The information we received today raises more questions than it answers. That should concern all of us."

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  "Thank you, Sana. Finally, someone who—"

  "Your cortisol levels are also elevated beyond productive ranges. You should sit down before you trigger a sympathetic nervous response."

  "That is medical concern disguised as support."

  "It can be both."

  Lyra laughed, the sound bright and warm in the evening air. "She has you there."

  Felix threw himself onto the couch with dramatic flair, because performance had always been easier than vulnerability. "This squad is supposed to be supportive. I distinctly remember signing up for emotional support, not medical intervention."

  "You did not sign up for anything," Jiro rumbled from his position by the door. He had not sat down since returning from the briefing. His massive frame remained positioned where he saw both the entrance and the window. Always watching. Always ready. "You were assigned. We all were."

  "Thank you, Jiro. That is even less reassuring."

  "Good."

  Kael caught the faint twitch at the corner of Jiro's mouth. The closest thing to a smile the earth manipulator ever showed. After two years together, Kael had learned to read the subtle cues. Jiro's humor was rare and devastating specifically because he never advertised it.

  "The real question," Aldara said, setting down her tablet with careful precision, "is what we do with this information. Director Vasquez confirmed several theories I had been developing independently, but she also revealed gaps in the official intelligence that are…concerning."

  "Gaps like 'we've no idea why the Towers exist' gaps?" Felix asked.

  "Gaps like 'the official timeline contains inconsistencies that suggest pointed omission' gaps." Aldara's pale eyes met each of theirs in turn. "My aunt is not careless with information. If she revealed those inconsistencies to a room full of third-year students, she wanted us to notice them."

  "Or she wanted to see who would notice them," Lyra said.

  The words stayed between them. His sister's suspicion echoed through their bond, sharp and clear as a struck bell. Vasquez had been watching the room during her presentation. Cataloging reactions. Testing responses.

  Specifically, she had been watching the Valdris twins.

  "The briefing mentioned that approximately three percent of humans who receive extended Tower exposure undergo awakening," Sana said. Her voice had shifted into analytical mode, the same tone she used when diagnosing difficult cases. "It did not explain why those specific individuals are affected while others remain baseline. That seems like a significant omission."

  "Because they do not know," Kael said.

  Everyone looked at him.

  "They have theories. Genetic predisposition, latent neural pathways, exposure timing. They do not actually know why some people awaken and others do not. If they did, they'd be manufacturing Awakened soldiers instead of waiting for natural emergence."

  "The Academy recruitment process," Aldara said. "They screen for potential. They cannot predict with certainty who will develop abilities or how strong those abilities will become."

  "Which means the Towers are choosing," Lyra finished. Her gray eyes had that distant look that meant she was processing something important. "Not randomly. Not based on factors we understand. Choosing nonetheless."

  Nobody spoke.

  Felix broke it first, as he always did. "Great. Wonderful. The interdimensional mystery structures are playing favorites, and nobody knows the selection criteria. That's definitely going in my 'things that keep me awake at night' journal."

  "You have a journal?" Sana asked.

  "I have seventeen journals. One for each category of existential dread." Felix's grin was sharp enough to cut glass. "This one goes in the 'cosmic horror' section, right between 'what if my lightning accidentally kills someone I love' and 'what if the purple lightning in Tower Four is actually alive and upset about something.'"

  "Felix."

  "Yes, Sana?"

  "Your humor is a coping mechanism, not a solution."

  "My humor is keeping me functional. Solutions can wait until after I've processed the fact that we're all living in the middle of an alien mystery that nobody understands."

  Kael watched his squadmates settle into the familiar rhythm of their dynamic. Felix's anxiety creating space for Sana's clinical concern, Aldara's analysis providing structure, Jiro's steadiness anchoring everything to earth.

  Lyra. Always Lyra. His twin, his anchor, the other half of a bond that went deeper than resonance or blood.

  We need to talk, she sent through their connection. Alone. Tonight.

  About Vasquez?

  About everything.

  ***

  Midday. The dining hall stank of overcooked grain and competitive energy, a battlefield without weapons.

  The stares landed the moment Squad Thirteen entered. Not the cautious assessment of Year One, when they had been curiosities. Not even the watchful calculation of Year Two, when their absence from the Tempering Games had raised eyebrows. This was edgier. Contempt with teeth.

  "Here they come," someone said from a nearby table. Loud enough to carry. Deliberate enough to be a challenge. "The ghost squad. Two years of hiding and they still show up for meals."

  Felix's shoulders tightened. A spark danced between his knuckles before he crushed it.

  "Ignore it," Sana said, her voice pitched for Squad Thirteen alone. "Cortisol response is counterproductive."

  "Easy for you to say. They're not calling you a washout."

  "Actually," Aldara said, her pale eyes scanning the room with measured detachment, "they're calling all of us washouts. The terminology varies. Washouts, cowards, dead weight. I've cataloged seventeen distinct insults since we sat down yesterday."

  "Seventeen?" Lyra's eyebrow rose. "You counted?"

  "I catalog patterns. The insults are data."

  They claimed their usual table in the corner, a position that Jiro's massive frame turned into a natural barricade. The dining hall buzzed with the energy of students who had spent a summer training and were eager to prove it. Third-year aggression ran hotter than second-year uncertainty.

  A group from Squad Four passed their table. One of them, a broad-shouldered resonance manipulator named Harlow, slowed pointedly.

  "Heard the Ascension Proving is in six weeks," Harlow said, his voice carrying forced casualness, performing for his crew. "You lot sitting this one out again? Third year in a row?"

  Kael met his gaze without expression. "We haven't made an announcement."

  "You never do. You just don't show up." Harlow's smile turned sharp. "Must be nice. The rest of us actually have to compete. Actually have to prove we belong here. Squad Thirteen gets to hide in the shadows and pretend that's strategy instead of fear."

  "Walk away, Harlow," Lyra said. Her voice was calm. The temperature around her was not.

  "Or what? You'll burn me?" Harlow laughed. "That's the thing about your little unit. All that potential, and you never use it when it counts. The whole Academy knows. Squad Thirteen, the squad that skipped the Tempering Games in Year Two, skipping the Ascension Proving in Year Three. Cowards."

  "Three times," Jiro rumbled from his position. He did not look up from his food. "We will be skipping this year as well."

  Harlow blinked. Whatever response he'd expected, casual confirmation was not it.

  "You're admitting it? Just like that?"

  "There is nothing to admit." Jiro's steady dark gaze rose to meet Harlow's, and the temperature of the conversation shifted. Not heat, like Lyra. Weight. The slow, inevitable pressure of stone settling. "We choose when we compete. That is our right."

  "It's your funeral." Harlow shook his head, already turning away. "When Year Four comes and you finally crawl out of whatever hole you've been hiding in, don't be surprised when nobody remembers your names."

  He walked away. His squadmates followed, their laughter carrying across the dining hall like shrapnel.

  The squad went quiet.

  "Seventeen insults," Felix said, the humor gone from his voice. "Make that eighteen."

  "Nineteen," Aldara corrected. "The laughter was a collective dismissal. That counts."

  Sana set down her utensils with careful rigor. "Is anyone else noticing the pattern? The aggression has escalated since Year Two. Casual mockery has become direct confrontation."

  "Because we're in Year Three now," Kael said. "The Continental Championships actually matter this year. Scouts are watching. Career assignments are being decided. Every squad that skips the tournament is one less competitor, and every squad that hides is an easy target for contempt."

  "Contempt we're choosing to absorb," Lyra said. Her gray eyes burned with banked fire. "Every insult, every sneer, every whispered 'washout' in the corridors. We're absorbing all of it."

  "And converting it into motivation," Kael finished. "Let them talk. Let them laugh. When Year Four arrives, they'll remember our names. They'll remember nothing else."

  "That's either inspiring or delusional," Felix said. "I choose to believe it's both."

  The dining hall continued its low roar of conversation around them. Squad Thirteen ate in comfortable silence, six people who had learned that patience was the sharpest weapon in their arsenal.

  The insults would continue. The contempt would deepen. The Academy would keep writing them off as cowards who peaked in Year One and never recovered.

  Good. Let them write the wrong story.

  The real one was still being written.

  ***

  The next morning came early. The air on Training Ground Seven held the sharp bite of approaching autumn as Kael moved through his forms in the pre-dawn darkness, fists and feet cutting precise arcs through air that tasted of dew and distant ozone. Two years of combat training had refined his movements into something approaching instinct. Not mastered. Never mastered. Known enough to go beyond conscious thought.

  Two years had also left their marks. A knot in his left shoulder that never fully loosened. A faint tremor in his right hand after extended harmonic work, gone in minutes but always returning. The scar tissue on his forearms from Lyra's fire crisis had faded to pale lines visible only in direct sunlight. The body kept a ledger even when the mind chose to forget.

  His harmonic sense rippled outward as he moved, reading the resonance patterns of the training ground. The lingering energy signatures of yesterday's sessions. The pulse of the Academy's defensive wards. The distant hum of the Towers on the horizon, ever-present and ever-mysterious.

  The humming had changed. Not dramatically, not the way a song changes key. More the way a conversation deepens when the speaker stops performing and starts meaning what they say. In Year One, the humming had been gentle. Blue-gold, if sound could have color, a simple melody that accompanied his harmonic sense like background music in a room he had grown used to. Now, halfway through Year Three, the melody had thickened. Deeper frequencies beneath the familiar ones. Overtones that sometimes resolved into patterns too structured to be random but too complex to be language. Not yet. Almost. Like listening to someone speak through a wall, hearing rhythm and emphasis without catching the words.

  It unsettled him in ways he could not explain to the others. The humming was becoming something. He did not yet know what.

  Another thing.

  Someone watching.

  Kael completed his current form before turning to face the observer. He had known she was there for the past three minutes. Had sensed her approach through the subtle disturbance in the ambient resonance. Had chosen to continue his practice instead of acknowledging her presence.

  Games within games. That was how Zara Okafor played.

  "You've gotten better," she said, stepping out of the shadows with the fluid grace of someone who treated space itself as a suggestion. Her dark skin gleamed with the faint sheen of recent exertion. She had been training too, he realized. Probably arrived before he did.

  "So have you."

  Zara smiled. It was not a friendly expression. It was the smile of a predator who had found worthy prey. The smile that had haunted his defeat at her hands in their first year.

  "The Ascension Proving starts in six weeks," she said, moving closer with pointed slowness. "Continental Championships for third-years. Squad Seven is favored to win. Again. We've been training all summer while you and your little shadow squad were doing…what, exactly?"

  "Growing."

  "In the dark. Without competition. Without pressure." Zara stopped outside striking range. Close enough to be a challenge. Far enough to be a choice. "Some people call that hiding. Some people call it cowardice."

  "Some people are wrong."

  "Are they?" Her eyes swept over him with measured assessment. Reading his stance, his breathing, how he held himself. "You skipped the Tempering Games in Year Two. You're going to skip the Ascension Proving this year. By the time you actually compete, everyone will have forgotten that Squad Thirteen exists."

  "That is the plan."

  Zara blinked. Whatever response she had expected, honest agreement was not it.

  "The plan," she repeated slowly. "You want people to forget you?"

  "I want people to underestimate us. There is a difference."

  A shift occurred in her expression. The predatory edge remained, but underneath it, Kael caught a flicker of genuine interest. Zara Okafor was more than a spatial manipulator with speed that defied physics. She was also one of the sharpest tactical minds in their year. Sharp enough to recognize strategy when she saw it.

  "The four-year gambit," she said. "Skip the second and third years. Train in secret. Reveal nothing until Year Four, when the Global Proving aligns with your graduation."

  "You've been paying attention."

  "I pay attention to everything." Zara stepped closer, and this time the movement carried challenge over threat. "Especially to the squad that pushed me to my limits in their first year and then vanished into the shadows like they had something to hide."

  "We didn't beat you. We survived you. Barely."

  "Same thing." Her smile sharpened. "In the rankings that matter, survival counts as victory."

  The silence between them stretched and coiled. The force of it pressed against his skin, charged with competitive energy that made his resonance sense hum with awareness. Two predators circling each other in the pre-dawn darkness.

  "Train with me," Zara said finally.

  Kael felt his eyebrow climb. "What?"

  "You heard me. I've been watching your squad for two years. You have something. Some technique or synchronization that doesn't match any training manual I've ever studied. I want to see it up close."

  "You want to scout our capabilities before the Continental Championships."

  "Obviously. And you want to scout mine." Zara's eyes met his with absolute directness. "We both know we're going to fight eventually. Would you face me blind, or would you rather learn what you're up against?"

  It was a reasonable argument. Logical, even. Which was exactly why Kael did not trust it.

  "We are not ready," he said.

  Zara blinked. "What?"

  "Joint training. We are not ready for it." He held her gaze without flinching. "We are building something specific. On a specific timeline. Introducing external variables before we have finished the foundation would compromise the entire structure."

  "That is the most diplomatic refusal I've ever received." Zara's predatory edge had not diminished, but another thing flickered beneath it. Curiosity, deepening by the moment. "You're not refusing because you're afraid. You're refusing because you have a plan."

  "I'm refusing because the timing is wrong."

  "When will the timing be right?"

  "You will know when you see it."

  Zara studied him for several seconds. The pre-dawn light was strengthening, painting the training ground in shades of gray and pale gold. Somewhere in the distance, a Tower pulsed its slow rhythm.

  "Fine," she said. "I can respect strategy, even when it frustrates me. If you won't train with me, at least give me something. Some indication of where you stand. Because right now, all I see is a squad that's been invisible for two years, and invisibility is not the same as strength."

  Kael considered his words carefully. Then: "If you want to know where we stand, go check the Network rankings."

  The air shifted in Zara's expression. Her eyes narrowed. "The Network rankings? Anonymous matches?"

  "Climb higher on the rankings. When you find us, you'll have your answer."

  The silence between them stretched taut as a bowstring. Kael watched the calculation happen behind her eyes. Anonymous Network rankings were exactly that, anonymous. Finding a specific squad meant climbing high enough to encounter them, studying combat patterns, making deductions. A challenge disguised as a dismissal.

  "How high?" Zara asked. Her voice had gone quiet. Focused. "How high would I need to climb?"

  "Higher than you think."

  Her expression cycled through surprise, disbelief, and then a force that looked like excitement. "You're ranked. Anonymously. In the continental standings."

  Kael said nothing. His silence was louder than any confirmation.

  "How high, Valdris?"

  "Come find out."

  Zara stared at him for three more heartbeats. Then she laughed. Not the predatory sound from earlier. Something genuine and startled, the laugh of sudden, delighted recalculation.

  "You're full of surprises," she said, already turning to leave. "Fine. Keep your secrets. I'll find you in the rankings, and when I do, I'll know exactly what I'm dealing with."

  She walked away before he could respond, her form blurring as she manipulated the space around her, covering distance faster than physics should allow.

  Kael watched her go, turning the conversation over in his mind like a puzzle piece that did not fully fit. He had given her more than he should have. The Network hint was a calculated risk. Zara was smart enough to narrow the possibilities, might even figure out that Resonance Actual was Squad Thirteen. By the time she did, the information would be a gift instead of a vulnerability.

  Let her climb. Let her search. When she found them in the top twenty-five, she would understand what two years of shadow training had produced. They were not the best squad at Ironspire. Not yet. They were becoming the squad that the best squads would have to reckon with.

  Lyra's presence brushed the edge of his awareness as she approached the edge of the training ground, watching Zara's retreat from a distance.

  Interesting, Lyra's voice echoed through their bond. She's been watching us from the bleachers for twenty minutes.

  I know.

  The Towers hummed on the horizon, their song changing in ways he could not yet name.

  Soon, he thought. Whatever waited inside them, whatever this new note in the humming meant, it was coming closer.

  And so were they.