Jordan sat only after Cal did, and even then, he picked the chair that gave him a clear line to the door and the room’s corners. He set the staff across his knees like it was a polite suggestion rather than a weapon.

  The hut was small but solid.

  A fitted rock hearth dominated one wall. A black iron pot hung low over a steady fire. Steam sneaked from under the lid. Warm stew-laden air wrapped around Cal’s empty stomach, making it knot.

  A simple table and two mismatched chairs sat near the hearth. Shelves, heavy with clay jars, bundles of herbs, and stacked cloth, covered another wall. Hooks held a worn coat, a wide-brimmed hat, and an unlit lantern.

  Everything was ordered by someone who lived alone and stayed busy.

  The older man moved efficiently. He lifted the lid, stirred the stew, and nodded once, as if it had passed inspection. He took three chipped bowls without ceremony, filled them generously, and set one in front of Cal. He hesitated a fraction, then set one in front of Jordan, too.

  “Eat,” he said. “Questions after.”

  The stew smelled like actual food, not the gray ration bricks or the street-stall grease that sat heavy for hours.

  Cal didn’t argue. He picked up the spoon and ate.

  The first mouthful burned his tongue. He didn’t care. Broth, meat, carrots, sweet potato—salt, fat, warmth.

  Across the table, Jordan took a bite, blinked as it surprised him, and immediately tried to turn that surprise into a joke.

  “Okay,” Jordan said with a lopsided grin, mouth half full. “I don’t know who you are, sir, but this is morally irresponsible. People would kill for this.”

  “They’ve tried,” the older man replied, voice dry as ash.

  Jordan’s grin faltered. He swallowed more slowly.

  Cal noticed his bowl was half empty only as his body hurried the next spoonful.

  He forced himself to slow down.

  The older man watched with faint amusement, then glanced between them as if matching faces to a pattern.

  "Been a while since you had a real meal," he said.

  “A day, maybe two,” Cal admitted. “Floor two isn’t big on hospitality. Floor three…”

  He glanced around the hut.

  “…has opinions.”

  The man’s brow furrowed slightly.

  “Floors,” he repeated. “You’re climbers.”

  Cal set the spoon down. The bowl was nearly empty. He leaned his forearms on the table.

  “Calen Ward,” he said. “Cal.”

  “Jordan,” Jordan added quickly, and then, because he couldn’t help himself, “Hi. Thank you for not letting us die outside. Big fan. Would rate this establishment five stars.”

  The older man’s mouth twitched the smallest amount.

  “Paulie,” he said. “Just Paulie.”

  Paulie dragged his own chair closer to the wall, positioning himself so he could see the door and both of them without moving much. Habit. Survival.

  “You’re the first new faces I’ve seen in a while.” Paulie eyed them. "Most who make it here pass through fast. Or don’t make it at all."

  Cal’s stomach tightened, a ripple of unease running through him.

  “Don’t make it,” Cal echoed.

  Paulie tipped his head toward the thick door.

  "You heard them." Paulie lowered his voice. "Things that cry when the light goes out. They like the quiet ones, the slow ones. The ones thinking the plains are just grass and wind."

  Jordan’s fingers tightened around his spoon, jaw set in forced calm.

  “And they like sheep?” Jordan quipped, trying to keep it light.

  Paulie’s gaze slid to him, flat.

  “They like the flock most of all.”

  The humor drained out of Jordan’s face without ceremony.

  Cal breathed once, slowly.

  “You live here,” Cal said.

  “Someone has to,” Paulie replied. “Flock won’t tend itself.”

  “How long?” Cal asked.

  Paulie shrugged one shoulder.

  “Long enough. Seasons turn. Grass grows. Lambs come, lambs go.”

  That answer told Cal almost nothing and far too much.

  Jordan stared at Paulie for a beat, confusion flickering in his eyes, then glanced at Cal, as if he were quietly asking, Is this a person or a Tower thing wearing a person?

  Cal couldn’t answer.

  Paulie watched them both, then nodded once as if he’d reached a conclusion.

  “What are you?” Paulie asked Cal, practical curiosity in his eyes.

  “Earth,” Cal said. “Stone Shape.”

  Paulie’s eyes flicked to Cal’s bracer and the shield leaned close by.

  “Figures,” Paulie murmured.

  Jordan lifted his hand slightly.

  “I’m Sun,” Jordan said. “It makes things hate me.”

  Paulie grunted, approving in a quiet way.

  “Useful,” he said. “If you’re not stupid with it.”

  Jordan opened his mouth.

  Cal beat him to it.

  “He’s not,” Cal said.

  Jordan looked at him, surprise breaking through his guarded expression, then softened around the edges.

  “Okay,” Jordan said, voice small enough it almost disappeared. “Thanks.”

  Paulie didn’t comment. He did, however, shift his gaze to Cal as if to file away that Cal spoke up for him.

  “You said ‘first new faces in a while,’” Cal said. “Do other climbers…?”

  “They come through,” Paulie explained. “Some stop for a night. Some head on without so much as a nod. A few try to help with the problem.”

  His mouth flattened.

  “Most of those don’t stay long.”

  The problem.

  Cal could almost feel the Tower’s invisible text hovering behind the word.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “What problem?” Cal asked, curiosity tightening his words.

  Paulie’s gaze slid toward the small shuttered window. Wind moaned briefly outside, pressing cold along the stone.

  “Flock used to be bigger,” Paulie recounted. “Near twenty head at one point. Good rams. Plenty ewes.”

  He ticked off fingers as he spoke.

  “Something started taking them. One at a time. Then three in a week. Never left much behind. Just blood. Tracks, if I was lucky.”

  He looked back at Cal.

  “Tracks that didn’t make sense.”

  “Didn’t make sense how?” Cal asked.

  Paulie studied him as if deciding whether to spare him or arm him.

  “Big,” Paulie admitted finally. “Heavy. Too heavy for any plains scavenger. Claw marks deep as my fingers.” He flexed his hand. “But the stride was wrong. Sometimes four prints. Sometimes…”

  He hesitated.

  “…two.”

  Jordan’s breath caught.

  Cal’s skin crawled.

  He remembered Floor Two’s serpent—patient mass in dark water. Different floor, different rules, but the Tower liked to rhyme.

  "You’ve seen it?" Cal asked.

  “Once,” Paulie replied softly. “Or part of it. Shape at the edge of light. Eyes that didn’t catch fire right. Teeth that went the wrong way.”

  Jordan leaned forward, voice careful.

  “It comes close to your wards,” Jordan said. “To the ring.”

  Paulie nodded.

  “Always after dark,” he confirmed. “Never charges straight. It tests. Probes. Finds the thin places.”

  His gaze met Cal’s, and the worry there was quiet but heavy.

  “Last time it took two ewes from under my nose. If it keeps going, there won’t be a flock left to protect,” Paulie said heavily.

  Cal sat back.

  Floor condition, his mind supplied. Protect the flock. Stop the predator.

  The Tower rarely wrote its requirements in clean lines for him to read. Sometimes it did, like the serpent scale key. Other times, it tucked them into people.

  “You want help?” Cal said.

  Paulie’s shoulders slumped a fraction.

  “I want my sheep to see morning,” Paulie replied simply. “I’m not as quick as I used to be.”

  He flicked his gaze to Jordan’s staff and Cal’s shield.

  “You’ve got tools. You’ve got a reason to keep moving. I’ve got a problem that doesn’t go away because I’m tired,” Paulie added.

  Cal’s throat worked.

  He saw his mother’s face in his head. He saw Sammy’s thin shoulders. He saw rent notices and clinic bills.

  Tower progress translated to life.

  This was another step.

  “I’ll help,” Cal promised.

  Jordan’s hand moved, quick and subtle, touching Cal’s forearm under the table—two fingers, a steadying point.

  Paulie exhaled slowly.

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” Paulie admitted. Then, after a beat: “But I won’t lie to you. It’s not just a big wolf.”

  His gaze flicked to the door.

  “This thing is wrong.”

  The way he said it sent a chill down Cal’s spine. Even a hearty stew couldn’t chase it away.

  They ate in quieter stretches after that. Paulie refilled bowls without asking. Jordan stopped talking with his mouth full and started listening with the intensity of someone who didn’t want to miss the detail that kept his best friend alive.

  Paulie talked while he worked, practical facts falling between mouthfuls.

  The thing came rarely. Always after dark. It was never committed in one clean rush, but it tested the pen. It clawed at the hut’s base. Some nights it hurled weight against stone. Other nights, it circled and watched—as if it enjoyed fear more than meat.

  Once, Paulie woke to the sound of stone grinding and found fresh shallow furrows near the door. Not enough to break through. Enough to say: I can reach you if I push.

  “Sometimes it calls,” Paulie said, staring into his mug. “Not howling. Not like any animal I know. It…talks to itself. Or to something that isn’t there.”

  Cal’s fingers tightened around his spoon.

  “Words?” Jordan asked, voice low. “Or just…sound that pretends it’s words.”

  Paulie’s eyes went distant.

  “Both,” he answered after a pause.

  Cal forced himself back to the practical.

  “You’ve set traps,” Cal said.

  “Snares,” Paulie replied, matter-of-fact. “Pits in low ground. Spiked boards. It ignores most. Breaks the ones it steps on.”

  He shook his head.

  “Smart,” Jordan remarked.

  Paulie nodded.

  “Learns.”

  Cal looked at his bracer, at the thin cracks along one edge.

  “Then we make the ground itself work for us,” Cal decided.

  Paulie’s brows rose.

  “Earth,” he murmured. “Right. Show me.”

  Jordan stood at the same time Cal did, not letting Cal take the first step alone.

  “We do it smart,” Jordan said. “Small. Practical.”

  Cal’s mouth twitched.

  “I heard you the first ten times.”

  Jordan’s expression flickered, humor trying to come back.

  “I’m going to say it eleven times,” he said. “I’m committed to the bit.”

  Outside, the cold hit like a slap after the hut’s warmth.

  Wind scoured the hill, dragging at Cal’s jacket and hair. The lantern’s light leaked in faint bars through shutters, turning the night beyond into a deeper black.

  The hut sat on a slight rise. A low stone pen huddled nearby, forming a rough rectangle around trampled grass and a lean-to. Five sheep clustered inside—woolly, horned, their breath steaming.

  They pressed close to the inner wall as the door opened.

  Cal’s earth sense reached down almost on its own.

  Stone lay shallow under the hut and pen, a natural shelf that lifted the structures above the lowest ground. But he felt where the edge thinned, where time and weather wore at it.

  Places where something heavy would test.

  Jordan moved a half step outward, staff in hand, eyes scanning the dark beyond the ring.

  “I’ll walk the perimeter,” Jordan said. “You do the ground.”

  Paulie grunted. “Don’t step outside the stones.”

  Jordan flashed him a quick look.

  “Didn’t plan on it,” Jordan said. “I’m reckless, not suicidal.”

  Cal went to one knee near the hut’s base and set his right hand on cold ground.

  “Stone Shape,” he murmured.

  Pressure rose under his sternum, familiar but never comfortable. He guided it carefully down his arm, mindful of the faint protests in channels still raw from Floor Two.

  He pictured not a wall, not a heroic rampart, but a lip.

  A small continuous ridge hugging the hut’s foundation, only a few inches high. Enough to catch claws. Enough to turn a straight impact into an awkward glance.

  The stone answered.

  It didn’t surge. It crept.

  A low grinding shiver ran around the hut. Dirt shifted. A thin line of rock shouldered up through soil, rough edges smoothing as it rose.

  Cal opened his eyes.

  A narrow collar of stone now circled the hut.

  Mild nausea twisted his gut. A faint ache pulsed behind his eyes, but not the knife-edge pain that meant he’d pushed too hard.

  Better.

  Paulie watched, arms folded against the cold.

  “Huh,” Paulie said. “That’ll make it think twice about running straight at us.”

  “It won’t stop it,” Cal said. “But it’ll break momentum.”

  He moved to the pen and did the same along its outside edge, shaping another ridge. This one he angled slightly outward in his mind, imagining weight sliding off rather than over.

  Jordan returned from the perimeter as Cal finished, and his voice was quieter.

  “They’re out there,” Jordan said. “Far. Watching.”

  Paulie didn’t ask how he knew. He accepted it.

  By the time Cal stopped, his hands trembled, sweat pricking his spine despite the cold.

  Paulie’s gaze narrowed.

  “You’re shaking,” he observed.

  “Aether strain,” Cal said. “Channels don’t like being pushed.”

  Paulie grunted. “Muscles don’t either. You learn the line with both, or they break.”

  Cal huffed a faint laugh that didn’t reach his eyes.

  “I’m working on it.”

  A long, drawn-out scream bent across the plains, warping in the middle like someone twisting metal.

  The sheep bleated, high and nervous.

  Cal’s shoulders tightened.

  “How close does it come before it tests the walls?” Cal asked.

  Paulie’s eyes stayed on the dark.

  “Close,” Paulie said. “You’ll know.”

  Jordan’s jaw clenched.

  “We go inside,” Jordan said. “Warm up. We watch in turns. Nobody goes hero.”

  Paulie nodded once, like that matched his own rules.

  Inside, the hut felt even smaller with three bodies, a fire, and the knowledge of something wrong moving beyond the ring.

  Paulie tossed another log on the hearth. Flames climbed. He poured something dark into a battered mug, added hot water, and shoved it toward Cal.

  “Drink,” he said. “Mostly herbs.”

  Cal took a cautious sip.

  Mostly herbs. Bitter and sharp, chased with something that warmed his chest.

  Jordan took his own mug, sniffed it, and immediately regretted existing.

  “Okay,” Jordan said. “This is either medicine or a crime.”

  “It’s both,” Paulie said.

  Cal settled on a bedroll near the hearth, back to the wall. Shield propped within arm’s reach. The bracer felt heavier by the minute, but solid.

  Jordan sat in the chair nearest the door with his staff across his knees. He didn’t relax. He didn’t pretend to.

  Paulie took the other chair, a knife, and a small block of wood. He began to whittle. Pale curls gathered at his feet.

  “You from far?” Paulie asked.

  “Outside of the Tower,” Cal said. “City wrapped around it. Slums outside that. Grew up in the second ring.”

  Paulie hmmed. “Sounds crowded.”

  “It is,” Cal said. “Too many people, not enough work.”

  Jordan’s voice cut in, softer.

  “Too many ways to get hurt if you’re not paying attention,” Jordan said.

  Paulie glanced at him.

  “That part’s the same everywhere,” Paulie said. “Here, it’s teeth and claws and bad nights. There, it’s…whatever you have instead.”

  “Debt,” Cal said. “Sickness.”

  Paulie’s knife paused.

  “Family,” Paulie said.

  “Yeah,” Cal answered. “Mom. Kid brother.”

  Jordan shifted in his chair, the movement small.

  “He’s climbing for them,” Jordan said, and it wasn’t bragging. It was a statement of fact. “I’m…here because he is.”

  Cal didn’t look at him. His throat tightened anyway.

  Paulie’s eyes stayed on the wood as he carved.

  “Huh,” Paulie said. Not judgmental. Just noting another rule of the world.

  “You send things back down,” Paulie said to Cal.

  “Money,” Cal replied. “Treatments. Rent.”

  Paulie nodded once, as he’d already guessed.

  “Tower pays well if you don’t die,” Jordan said, voice bitter under the humor. “Doesn’t pay at all if you do.”

  Silence settled.

  The fire popped.

  Outside, the wind worried at stone.

  Every now and then, one of the sheep bleated.

  Cal’s head dipped once. Twice.

  Each time, a faint noise—wind changing pitch, hoof scuffing, something shifting outside the ring—pulled him back up.

  “You can sleep,” Paulie said without looking up. “I’ll wake you when it’s your turn.”

  Cal wanted to argue.

  Jordan didn’t let him.

  “Sleep,” Jordan said, voice flat with authority. “You’re no good to anyone with your channels fried.”

  Cal’s mouth twitched. “You and Paulie really going to team up on me?”

  Jordan’s eyes stayed on the door.

  “Yes,” he said. “Happily.”

  Cal lay on his side, close enough to the fire to feel heat on his face. He curled his bracer arm toward his chest, hand resting on the shield’s grip.

  “If it hits the walls—” Cal started.

  “You’ll know,” Paulie said.

  Jordan added, quieter, “And I’ll wake you even if I have to pour that herb crime down your throat.”

  Cal breathed out, the sound almost a laugh.

  He let his eyes close.

  For the first time since the false sun dropped, he felt something like shelter.

  The last thing he registered before sleep took him was Paulie humming under his breath—some old, tuneless melody—and Jordan’s steady presence in the chair by the door, staff across his knees, watching the latch like it was a promise.

  Outside, the predator was still out there.

  The Tower’s challenge waited, teeth bared just beyond the circle of light.

  But for this stretch of night, Cal slept by a fire, in a hut with walls he had reinforced himself, with someone else watching the door because Cal didn’t have to do everything alone.