The silence after Tavin was taken was the loudest sound I had ever heard.

  It wasn’t just the absence of his counting, the soft tap of fingers against his thigh through the wall. It was the absence of him. The space where his presence had been became a void, a cold spot in the Tower’s constant hum. His door remained shut, sealed with a waxen rune I didn’t recognize. A quarantine sigil. No one spoke of him. In the refectory, his seat at our table sat empty. No one moved to fill it. It was as if he had been carefully excised from the world, his name—Intake 2146—already fading from the collective memory of the Sanctum.

  I moved through the days like a ghost in my own body. Training continued. Absorption drills. Sensing exercises. I performed with a mechanical, flawless efficiency that made Warden Thale’s notes grow longer and more concerned. I absorbed Grade 2 Taint without a flicker. The warmth flooded me, the whispers sighed their welcome, and I felt nothing. No guilt. No fear. Just a hollow, ringing stillness where my emotions used to be.

  The Taint within me, however, was anything but still.

  It thrived on my numbness. In the absence of my own feelings, its presence grew, a second consciousness blooming in the empty spaces. The whispers became clearer. Not words, not yet, but distinct tones. A mournful, weeping thread. A sharp, angry current. A slow, patient hum that felt older than the stones. They were no longer a background chorus. They were a council, and they were discussing me.

  He sees but does not feel, the mournful one sighed.

  The cage hardens, the angry one crackled.

  Good, the ancient hum resonated. Feeling breaks. Observation learns.

  I stopped sleeping. When I closed my eyes, I didn’t see darkness. I saw the networks. The glowing veins of the Rot, the pulsing heart of the Tower’s core, the faint, tragic spark of every Hollow on my floor—a constellation of captive stars, each dimming at its own rate. I saw Tavin’s light, not extinguished, but… transformed. Moved. A smudge of violent, beautiful violet, trapped somewhere deep below, screaming in a language of pure emotion.

  During a routine sensing drill on Floor Six, I broke.

  We were in the sun-drenched auditorium, kneeling in a circle. Thale released a trickle of Taint. The violet light wavered up from the floor, a gentle, probing tendril. The others focused, reaching for it with their will.

  I didn’t reach.

  I looked.

  And I saw not just the Taint, but the source. The tiny, pinprick fissure in the flawless floor beneath the podium. I saw the energy flowing from deep, deep below—from the churning reservoirs of the Deep Levels, piped up and sanitized for our training. I saw the path. And without thinking, without willing it, I pulled.

  Not on the trickle. On the source.

  The floor beneath the podium heaved. A crack splintered through the ivory with a sound like a gunshot. A geyser of raw, unfiltered Taint—dark violet shot through with searing black—erupted into the room, not in a controlled stream, but in a furious, seeking cloud.

  Screams. Choking. Benches scraping as everyone scrambled back. The Taint didn’t spread; it arrowed toward me, wrapping around my upraised hand, pouring into my chest not in a flow, but in a torrential YES.

  The world dissolved into color and sound and meaning. I was everywhere. I was the fear of the Hollows stumbling back. I was the cold calculation in Thale’s mind as he barked orders. I was the vibration in the walls, the despair in the stones, the hungry song of the deep places. For one terrifying, glorious second, I was the Tower.

  Then hands grabbed me, batons humming with white null-energy pressed against my neck. The connection severed with a jolt that felt like having my soul ripped in two. I collapsed, gasping, my veins burning with phantom fire.

  I was dragged not to the medical wing, but to an empty holding cell on Floor Five. They left me there in the dark for hours. No water. No questions. Just the aftermath roaring in my skull.

  It was Uncle Finn who came.

  The door opened, and his familiar, worn face appeared, etched with new lines of worry. He was dressed in civilian clothes, a dark cloak over his shoulders. A Warden I didn’t know stood behind him, watchful.

  “Kieran.” Finn’s voice was rough. He knelt in front of me where I sat on the bare floor.

  The sight of him shattered my numb shell. A sob clawed its way up my throat. “Tavin,” I choked out.

  “I heard.” He gripped my shoulder. “I’m sorry, son. Truly.”

  “They took him below. He’s… he’s not gone. He’s changed. I can feel it.”

  Finn’s eyes, so like my father’s, searched mine. “What happened in there, Kieran? Thale’s report says you caused a containment breach. That you drew pure Taint from the substructure.”

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  “I didn’t mean to. I just… saw it. And it came.”

  He closed his eyes briefly. “Aldric’s sight. He wrote about it. Seeing the flow, not just the pool.” He leaned closer, his voice dropping. “Listen to me. We don’t have much time. I’m only here because Korr allowed it. He thinks my ‘concern’ might stabilize you.”

  “Is it true?” I whispered, the question I’d been clutching for days finally breaking free. “What he showed me? Is Father really working for them? Shaping the Taint into… into pretty things?”

  Finn’s jaw tightened. “It’s not that simple. Your father is a craftsman. He sees a material, he works it. Korr gives him the most fascinating material in the world and tells him it’s for the ‘preservation of knowledge.’ What would you have him do? Starve? Go mad from inactivity?” He shook his head. “He’s surviving, Kieran. Using the skills his father taught him. Just like you are.”

  The comparison lanced through me. “I’m not helping them.”

  “Aren’t you?” Finn asked gently. “You’re here. You’re absorbing. You’re getting stronger. Whether you rage against it or embrace it, you are becoming exactly what they want you to be: a vessel of unprecedented capacity.” He sighed. “Your mother had that capacity.”

  The world tilted. “My mother?”

  A shadow passed over Finn’s face. “Korr didn’t tell you that part, did he? Of course not. Your mother, Elara, wasn’t from a blacksmith’s family. She was a foundling, raised in a Warden auxiliary house. She tested off the scales. A prodigy. They were going to make her a High Sage.” He looked at the blank wall, his voice growing distant. “Then she met your father, a brash young smith doing work for the order. She saw the beauty he could make with metal and flame. She started questioning the doctrine. She said the Taint she absorbed felt like… like listening to a locked library, not a screaming abyss.”

  My heart hammered against my ribs. “What happened to her?”

  Finn’s gaze returned to me, heavy with old grief. “Officially? A training accident. A vessel rupture. A tragic loss.” He paused, choosing his words with terrible care. “Unofficially… she was learning to listen. Like Aldric. And the Wardens at the time couldn’t allow another one, not after the scare your grandfather gave them. Her ‘accident’ happened the week after she told your father she was pregnant with you.”

  The air left my lungs. The whispers in my chest swelled in a sudden, dissonant chord of recognition and grief. Elara, the mournful thread wept. We knew her. She heard us.

  “Korr,” I breathed. “Was he…”

  “He was her supervising Sage. He wrote the report.” Finn’s hand on my shoulder tightened. “I’m telling you this not to break you, but to arm you. This is your legacy, Kieran. Not just Aldric’s defiance, but your mother’s silenced understanding. You are their child. The Taint doesn’t just recognize Aldric’s blood in you. It recognizes hers.”

  The pieces crashed together—Korr’s keen interest, his mention of “emotional concordance,” his willingness to gamble on me. I wasn’t just a potential tool or a threat. I was a curiosity. The son of two of his most fascinating, problematic subjects. A living experiment.

  “Why now?” I asked, my voice raw. “Why tell me now?”

  “Because Lira has been called for preliminary screening,” Finn said, the words falling like stones.

  No.

  “She’s eleven,” I whispered.

  “The seals are failing faster than they can replace Hollows. They’re expanding the candidate pool. ‘High-potential juveniles’ are being assessed.” Finn’s eyes were desperate. “She doesn’t understand, Kieran. She thinks it’s an honor. She wants to help. They’ve scheduled it for three days from now.”

  Three days.

  The numbness was gone, burned away by a terror so pure it was like a new kind of fire. Lira. My little sister, with her shy smiles and fierce heart. They would put her hands on the glass. The Taint would rush to her, as it had to me. It would recognize our mother’s blood in her veins. And they would cage her forever.

  “I have to get her out,” I said, the plan forming in the white-hot space of my panic. “I have to get her, and you, and we have to run—”

  “And go where?” Finn interrupted softly. “To the Scions, who would use her as a bargaining chip? To the wilderness, where the Unbound and the wild Taint roam? The world outside these walls is not a refuge, Kieran. Not anymore.”

  “Then what? We let them take her?”

  “No.” Finn leaned so close his forehead almost touched mine. “You do what Korr wants. You accept his offer. You go to the Deep Levels. You learn everything your father and grandfather know. You get stronger. You learn to control what’s inside you, not just contain it. And when the time comes… you break the right things.”

  He pulled back, his message delivered. The Warden by the door shifted, indicating time was up.

  “Korr will be expecting your answer,” Finn said, standing. He looked down at me, a world of apology and hope in his eyes. “Remember who you are. Not what they name you. Not the number. You are Kieran. Son of Gareth and Elara. Brother of Lira. And you have a choice to make.”

  He left, the door closing behind him, leaving me in the dark with the echoes of his revelation and the screaming deadline of three days.

  The whispers in my chest were a tumult.

  The daughter…

  …the same blood…

  …the key turns…

  …break the cages…

  I closed my eyes, not against the darkness, but to see the networks again. I focused past the fear, past the grief for Tavin and the rage for my mother. I looked for Lira. Somewhere in the city, a small, bright spark. I couldn’t find her. She was too far, or my sight wasn’t strong enough.

  But I could feel the Tower. I could feel its deep, sick heartbeat. I could feel the massive, sluggish presence of the ancient mages slumbering in their prisons below. And I could feel the hairline fractures spreading through the great seal, the one Aldric had helped create centuries ago.

  Finn was right. Running was a child’s dream. A hero’s fantasy.

  This was not a story about escape. It was a story about becoming something powerful enough to change the ending.

  I stood up in the dark cell. The whispers settled into a single, resonant directive, a fusion of my own will and the ancient voices within.

  Learn.

  When the Warden returned an hour later, I was waiting, calm.

  As I was led back to my dormitory to “prepare for transition,” we passed the door to the Common Room. Inside, a commotion. A group of senior Hollows were clustered around a Warden who was reading from a new dispatch.

  “…confirmed escalation in the northern sectors. Evacuation of hamlets near the Gloomweald is underway. All non-essential field missions are suspended. The Sanctum prepares for heightened containment protocols.”

  The Gloomweald. That was miles beyond the Morvian Rot. The Taint was spreading. The cracks were widening.

  The time for choices was over. The crisis was here.

  And I was going to meet it deep in the belly of the beast.