I didn't realize how long I'd been holding my breath until we stepped out of the stairwell and I finally let it go.
The air was clean.
Not tower-clean. Not stone-and-dust clean. It was just… clean. No rot. No rust. No blood. It smelled like water and grass and old rain, and for a second, I forgot to be afraid.
Chains didn't say anything. Neither did I. We just stood there, blinking up at the dome of glowing rock above us. Pale white light poured down like sunlight filtered through clouds. It didn't hurt to look at, but it wasn't soft either. It just... was.
The ground wasn't stone. It was soil. Real dirt. Grass pushed through in soft clumps, scattered with moss. Pale vines curled around smooth rocks. A small pond sat in the center of the garden, still and quiet, reflecting the white light above. It felt too calm. Like the floor itself had stopped breathing.
My legs almost gave out when I stepped forward.
I was tired. Not in the way I had been before. Not survival-tired. I felt hollow. Like I'd burned through something important back on Floor Nine and didn't have anything left.
Chains stumbled beside me. Her leg was still bleeding under the wrappings. She'd barely stood after the last fight. Her eyes were sharp but dim, like the light wasn't reaching her. The fights had taken more from her than she admitted.
We walked into the garden slowly. Careful steps. Every patch of grass looked like it might bite if we weren't paying attention.
The space was circular. Wide. Too open. It should've felt safe.
It didn't.
"Do you hear that?" Chains asked.
I shook my head.
"No buzzing. No wind. Nothing," she said. "It's too quiet."
I felt it too. The stillness. The kind of quiet that feels like it's waiting for something.
We didn't talk. We just kept walking. My hand rested lightly on the hilt of the dagger I'd taken from the creature a few floors back. I didn't expect it to help, not really. It just felt wrong to have empty hands.
We passed the pond. I caught my reflection in the surface.
I almost didn't recognize it.
My face was too pale. My eye shimmered faintly—just barely. That same strange sheen that never went away. My shoulder still ached, but the bandages were holding.
Then I felt it. That same pull from the mist. A thread. Thin, quiet, tugging at the edge of my mind.
It pointed us forward.
I followed.
Chains limped behind me.
We crossed the garden and reached the far edge, where a strange archway of curved stone formed a half-open door in the hillside. It looked old. Not ruined, just ancient. Like it had always been here, even before the tower.
A woman stood in the doorway.
She didn't move when she saw us.
She wore a long cloak, hood down, hair gray and tied back. Her face was lined, not in the way of age but of weight. Like every year had carved its own mark into her. Her eyes were pale. Too pale.
I didn't know what to say.
So I didn't say anything.
The woman spoke first.
"You're not from here."
Not a question.
Just a fact.
Chains froze.
I stepped forward slightly. "We're not here to fight."
She studied me. Her gaze moved to Chains. She frowned.
"You shouldn't be alive."
Chains opened her mouth to respond, but I stopped her with a glance.
The woman nodded once, like she understood. She stepped aside.
"You can come in," she said. "Just until you can stand without shaking."
—
They looked worse up close.
The pale one, quiet, steady, eyes like old glass, was hiding something. She walked like someone who didn't trust her own feet. Her aura shimmered at the edge of her skin. Not mana, something older.
The other one, burnt and broken, wore her pain like armor. She was leaking power. Not the kind that came from a spell, but the kind that came from being broken in just the right way.
The Witch recognized the mark glowing faintly around her wrist. She'd seen it before. Once. A long time ago.
It didn't end well.
She let them inside anyway.
Her hut was small, carved into the rock. The shelves were crooked, the air thick with herbs and quiet magic. She motioned to the floor. They sat. Blue kept her eyes on the door. Chains leaned forward like she might fall over if she didn't.
The Witch sat across from them.
"You climbed all the way here. Survived the first ten. That alone means something."
She didn't say what.
They didn't ask.
—
Chains leaned forward, elbows on her knees, head dipped. Her breathing was slow now. Controlled, but not steady.
I didn't sit as close. Just lowered myself to the floor with my back against the wall, knees pulled up, arms loosely around them. The stone here was warmer than the other floors. Dry. It almost felt like somewhere we could stay.
The woman watched us from across the small room. Not staring, not studying—just watching. Like she already knew what we were and was deciding what to do with that information.
I didn't like it.
Chains spoke first. "Where are we?"
The woman blinked once. "Floor Ten."
"I meant this place. This room, this garden. You."
The woman tilted her head slightly. "Call it what you want. I didn't build it. I only keep it clean."
"Who are you?" I asked.
The woman's eyes flicked to mine. Pale. Faded. Almost white.
"Call me the Witch. Everyone else does."
Chains raised an eyebrow. "Everyone else?"
"Once," the woman said. "Long ago."
The silence hung between us again. I stared at the floor. It wasn't dirt. Not stone either. It looked like polished clay, hardened smooth by time.
Chains shifted. "Do you know what this place is?""
The Witch didn't answer right away. She reached behind her and took a blackened kettle from a low shelf, poured water into a cup, and passed it across the floor to us.
She waited until Chains took it.
Then she said, "This is a wound."
We both looked up.
"This tower," she said slowly, "wasn't built, it was opened. Cut into something that should've stayed whole. Now it reaches across places it shouldn't."
She looked at me again. "And you… you fell through one of those places."
I tried to speak. Didn't. Chains did instead.
"We don't remember anything."
The Witch nodded once. "You wouldn't, the first few floors burn through memory like fire through dry roots. It's not amnesia, not fully. It will come back in pieces. If you rest and if you last."
Chains frowned. "Rest?"
"Sleep, food, silence, days without fighting."
She looked at both of us again.
"You've had none of those."
I shifted, feeling something curl in my stomach. Not hunger, not quite. But close.
"How long until it comes back?" I asked.
The Witch shrugged. "Every mind is different, some never recover. Some shatter and put themselves back wrong."
I didn't like how she said that.
Chains leaned forward again, her voice low. "Do we have names?"
The Witch didn't answer immediately.
"You do. They're buried, not lost. If you want them back, stop bleeding long enough to remember."
She stood and crossed the room, brushing her hand across a hanging strand of dried leaves. Something in the air shifted. Warmer, thicker.
Chains sat back. "We've been calling each other Blue and Chains."
"That'll do," the Witch said. "For now."
I felt Chains glance at me, but I didn't look over.
"What are we supposed to do in the meantime?" Chains asked.
"Survive," the Witch said. "Keep moving. And don't forget who you are in the process."
"That's kind of hard when we don't even know," I muttered.
The Witch didn't respond to that. She turned and walked back to the pot.
We sat in silence. The branches above shifted slightly. The dome lights flickered, once, barely.
Then she said it.
"You have no mana cores."
I looked up.
Chains sat straighter. "Is that bad?"
The Witch didn't answer right away. She stepped back toward us, studying us like we were puzzles she hadn't figured out yet.
"Everything here is built around power," she said. "And you two… feel off. Like something placed you here, but not through normal means. Without mana cores you can't use magic or runes, without those you have no power."
That pulled a chill down my spine.
"So what, we're not supposed to be here?" Chains asked.
"No. But you are here," the Witch said. "That matters more."
She looked at me again. I held her gaze.
"Whatever brought you to this tower didn't do it to help you," she said. "Keep that in mind."
The words landed heavy.
Chains didn't reply.
Neither did I.