The silence inside the tower wasn't empty.
It was watching.
Liora felt it the moment the door sealed behind her a quiet, suffocating stillness that pressed in from every direction. The kind that made even her breathing sound too loud.
She turned slowly.
The entrance was gone.
Not closed.
Gone.
Just smooth, unbroken glass where the doorway had been.
"…Okay," she whispered. "That's not normal."
The shard pulsed in her hand.
Keep moving.
"Easy for you to say."
Still she did.
The interior of the tower was larger than it should have been.
From the outside, it had looked tall, narrow. But inside, the space stretched wide and open, the ceiling disappearing into a haze of reflected light. The walls curved inward, layered with glass panels that shifted ever so slightly, like they were breathing.
Her reflection followed her.
Too closely.
Every step she took echoed not just in sound, but in movement, reflections repeating her again and again across the curved surfaces.
Too many versions of her.
Too many angles.
"Stop that," she muttered, though she wasn't sure who she was talking to.
The reflections didn't listen.
The shard grew warmer.
Brighter.
It was pulling her forward.
Toward the center.
Liora followed the feeling, her steps slow but steady. The deeper she went, the stranger the space became. The floor beneath her feet turned from solid glass into something softer—almost like walking on water that held her weight.
And the reflections.
They stopped matching.
She froze.
In one panel, her reflection was still walking forward.
In another, it stood completely still.
In a third...
It turned its head and looked directly at her.
Liora's breath caught.
"…No," she whispered.
The reflection smiled.
Not like her.
Not even close.
She stepped back.
The reflections snapped into place again perfect, synchronized, normal.
Liora's heart pounded.
"I really don't like this place."
It doesn't like you either, the voice replied.
"That's comforting."
She reached the center of the room.
Or what felt like the center.
There, the glass floor shifted, forming a raised platform smooth, circular, perfectly still.
And in the middle of it.
A pillar.
Not tall.
Not wide.
But different.
Unlike the rest of the tower, this glass wasn't clear.
It was dark.
Opaque.
Like something was trapped inside it.
The shard in her hand flared with sudden intensity.
There.
Liora stepped closer.
Her reflection appeared in the surface of the pillar—but distorted, stretched into something unfamiliar.
She hesitated.
"What is this?"
The voice didn't answer right away.
That was never a good sign.
"…What is this?" she repeated.
Memory, it said finally.
Liora frowned. "Whose?"
A pause.
Then.....
Yours.
Her chest tightened.
"That doesn't make sense," she said quickly. "I've never been here."
Not like this, the voice said.
Liora stared at the pillar.
The dark glass seemed to ripple slightly, reacting to her presence.
"…What do I do?" she asked.
Touch it.
"Of course I do," she muttered.
Every important thing in this city apparently required touching something dangerous.
She raised her hand slowly.
Hesitated.
Then pressed her palm against the surface.
The world broke.
Not shattered.
Not exploded.
Just...
Shifted.
The tower disappeared.
The silence vanished.
And suddenly....
Liora wasn't standing anymore.
She was running.
The air was hot too, hot thick with smoke and ash. Flames climbed the sides of buildings, glass melting and dripping like liquid fire.
People screamed.
Shouted.
Cried out for help.
Liora stumbled, catching herself against a wall that burned at her touch.
"No..." she gasped.
This wasn't a memory.
It couldn't be.
"I was never here"
You were, the voice whispered.
Footsteps pounded behind her.
Liora turned.....
And saw him.
Kael.
Younger.
But unmistakable.
He was shouting something his voice lost in the roar of the fire, but she knew that look on his face.
Fear.
Real fear.
"Kael!" she called.
He didn't hear her.
Or couldn't.
Because she wasn't really there.
The scene shifted.
Faster now.
Fragments instead of moments.
Kael arguing with someone figures in silver, their faces hidden.
A room filled with glass constructs, glowing faintly.
A hand~his hand reaching toward something that pulsed with the same light as the shard.
Then....
The fire again.
Worse this time.
Closer.
Too close.
Liora felt it...
The heat.
The pressure.
The moment everything broke.
She screamed.
Not out loud...
But inside.
Because this part.
This part felt real.
Not like watching.
Like remembering.
The ground collapsed.
Glass shattered.
Something fell.
And in the middle of it all...
A figure.
Trapped.
Reaching out..
Just like the creature in the broken district.
Liora's breath caught.
"No…"
The shard burned.
You see it now.
"…That was them," she whispered. "The creature…"
Yes.
"And Kael...."
The vision froze.
For just a second.
Long enough for her to see...
He was there.
Close enough to help.
Close enough to reach.
And he didn't.
The world snapped back.
Liora collapsed to her knees on the glass floor, gasping for air.
The tower reformed around her, silent and still.
The pillar stood untouched in front of her.
Like nothing had happened.
But everything had.
Her hands shook.
Her chest ached.
"He left them," she whispered.
The words felt heavy.
Wrong.
But true.
The shard dimmed slightly.
He made a choice.
Liora's throat tightened.
"Why?"
The voice didn't answer.
A sound broke the silence.
Soft.
Precise.
Behind her.
Liora turned slowly.
And froze.
A Warden stood at the edge of the platform.
Closer than it should have been.
Watching her.
Waiting.
"You shouldn't be here," it said.
That same flat, echoing voice.
Liora pushed herself to her feet, heart racing.
"…I was just leaving," she said.
The Warden tilted its head.
"You've already seen too much."
The air shifted.
Glass began to rise again slower than before, more controlled.
More dangerous.
Liora tightened her grip on the shard.
"…Then I guess I don't have a choice," she said.
The shard flared.
And the tower answered....
END OF CHAPTER 10...
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