The wake-up bell was not a clanging alarm; it was a single, resonant chime that seemed to vibrate directly out of the ivory walls. There was no snooze, no lingering. Within minutes, the corridor of Floor Nine was filled with the soft shuffle of grey-clad figures moving toward the spiral stairs.
Breakfast in the refectory was as orderly as a clockwork mechanism. We sat in the same seats, ate the same flavorless, high-quality fuel. There was no rule against talking during break hours, yet everyone maintained the same practiced silence. I sat with the four other Hollows I met yesterday. Tavin, beside me, was already whispering about rumors he'd heard from older Hollows.
Tavin leaned closer, his voice dropping even though no one had told him to. Tavin nudged a bowl of greyish mash toward the center of the table. "I heard from a second-year that they put something in the oats. To keep us 'compliant.' I've been eating around the blue flecks just in case."
"It's just fortifier," a sharp voice snapped.
I looked across the table at Caius. Even in the drab grey tunic of a Hollow, he carried himself like he was wearing silk and signet rings. He handled his spoon like a dueling foil. "My father's estate fed the hounds better than this, but it isn't poison. It's efficiency. Get used to it."
Seren, sitting at the end of the bench, didn't look up. She was staring into her water glass as if searching for a reflection that wasn't there. Gawain was simply gone—physically present, but his eyes were fixed on a spot on the wall three inches above my head.
Used to the silence of Seren and Gawain, Tavin continued whispering, "I've heard that all the new Hollows get a lecture from Warden Thale. One of the kindest Wardens, from what I hear."
He stopped, glancing past me. A Warden stood at the end of the refectory, pretending not to watch. I turned around for a glance. It was the bald Warden from yesterday.
"Warden Bryn. I've heard you can get decommissioned for stepping in to his lectures with the wrong foot." Tavin explained weakly. Though I knew what Tavin said was probably rumors, the impending atmosphere I felt yesterday was real.
A Warden moved through the rows, handing out small slips of parchment. When she reached me, she dropped a folded square onto the stone table.
"Intake 2147. Correspondence," she said, her voice devoid of interest.
My heart hammered against my ribs. It was from Lira.
Kieran,The house is quiet without you. I keep expecting to hear your boots on the porch. Uncle Finn says to tell you the harvest is looking fair. Your father has been working late at the forge. He doesn't say much, but he stares at your empty chair every night. We are proud of you. Stay safe. Remember us.
The ink was slightly smudged on the last few words. I looked up, half-expecting a Warden to be reading over my shoulder. The letter felt like a tether to a world that was already becoming a dream. I tucked it into my tunic, right next to the locket. I looked at the other people at my table. No one else had received letters. Maybe their families were gone, were lost, or simply didn't care anymore.
"Better keep that hidden," Tavin warned, glancing nervously at the Warden monitors at the perimeter. "Bryn would probably call 'sentimentality' a form of resistance. But Thale… Thale might let you keep it. I heard he once let a girl keep a pressed flower from her mother's funeral."
"A flower in a tower of ivory," Caius scoffed, standing up as the chime signaled the end of the meal. "It would wilt in an hour. Just like us."
"You sound pessimistic," I joined in, "Don't we come here for the better of Valdrence, to protect the lives of loved ones?"
Caius scorned at the remark. When he was about to respond, he was cut off by a new voice.
"Not by choice." It was Gawain.
The silence was deafening. Everyone looked down, but I could sense the haunted atmosphere building up. I came here by choice, or at least it felt like it. Maybe there was no choice to begin with.
Caius broken the tension. "Let's go, we don't want to be late."
We stood in unison, a mechanical wave of grey. As we marched toward the spiral stairs for Floor Six, I pressed my hand against my chest, feeling the sharp edge of the parchment through the fabric. It was the only thing in this building that wasn't perfectly smooth, perfectly white, or perfectly cold.
Training on Floor Six didn't begin with the Siphon Chambers, like I had expected. The Siphon Chambers contained controlled Taint used to train new Hollows. Since the street incident on testing day, I'd felt equal parts curiosity and dread about the Siphon Chambers.
We were gathered in a sun-drenched auditorium. Warden Thale stood at the front—soft-spoken, with kind eyes and a manner that felt almost fatherly. His neatly trimmed beard and silver-threaded hair gave him an air of scholarly authority. Almost instinctively, I felt respect for him, the way one might for a well-learned instructor.
Thale stood alone at the podium, yet the space around him felt occupied. Meanwhile, the audience felt vacant, despite the five of us filling the front row.
"The Taint is not an enemy to be hated," Thale said, pacing the podium. "Think of it like fire. Uncontrolled, it consumes. But within a hearth, it provides warmth and light. You are the hearths. You bring order to chaos."
He sketched a diagram on the board: a jagged, chaotic cloud being drawn into a perfect, smooth circle.
I listened, captivated. It sounded so… reasonable. Thale made the Tower sound like a temple of science.
Around me, the others reacted differently. Tavin leaned forward, fingers still against his thigh for once—absorbing every word like a man dying of thirst. Caius sat with arms crossed, jaw tight, as if daring Thale to convince him. Seren's gaze never left the diagram on the board, her expression unreadable. Gawain stared through the podium, through Thale, through everything—present but absent.
The auditorium itself felt wrong in a way I couldn't articulate. Unlike the rest of the Tower's shadowless white, this room had windows—tall, narrow slits that let in actual sunlight. The warmth should have been comforting after days of sterile ivory, but instead it felt like a stage light. Exposing. The stone benches we sat on were polished smooth, worn by countless Hollows who'd sat here before us, learning the same lessons, hearing the same reassurances.
How many of their names were crossed out on the board upstairs?
Thale turned from the diagram, his eyes sweeping across us with practiced warmth. "Today, you will learn to sense the Taint before you contain it. Sensing is the foundation of all absorption work. Without sensitivity, you are merely a container. With it, you become a filter."
He gestured to the floor. "We will begin with Grade 0—the weakest classification. Grade 0 leaks are invisible to the naked eye and pose no immediate threat to civilians. They dissipate naturally within hours. But for you, they are essential training."
Tavin's fingers started tapping again. One, two, three, four. He caught himself, pressed his palm flat against his knee.
"Why train on something harmless?" Caius asked, his voice carrying a edge of challenge.
Thale smiled, unbothered. "Because Grade 0 teaches you to listen before you act. To feel before you contain. The Taint at this level is… pure, in a sense. Unfiltered by panic or urgency. If you cannot sense a whisper, you will never master a scream."
He moved to the center of the room, his grey robes catching the shafts of sunlight. Dust motes danced around him, the only movement in the still air.
"Stand," Thale commanded gently. "Form a circle on the floor."
We rose, the scrape of stone benches echoing in the tall space. The five of us arranged ourselves in a loose ring at the center of the auditorium. Beneath our feet, I could feel the hum—that constant, low vibration that permeated every floor of the Tower. But here, in this sun-touched room, it felt different. Expectant.
Thale walked the perimeter of our circle, hands clasped behind his back. "Close your eyes. Breathe. When the feed activates, do not reach for the Taint. Let it come to you."
I closed my eyes.
The darkness behind my eyelids was warm, orange-tinged from the sunlight filtering through. To my left, Tavin's breathing grew rapid, panicked. To my right, Caius shifted impatiently—I could hear the creak of his boots, the rustle of fabric. Further around the circle, the air near Seren felt strangely cold.
Then, deep beneath us, a mechanical hiss.
At first, I felt nothing. Then, a spark ignited in my chest. My internal Taint was reaching out. I could "see" the leak through the floor—a stream of liquid violet light, swirling with a strange, mournful grace. It felt like hearing a familiar song played from three rooms away. I wanted to move toward it.
When Thale cut the feed, the sensation vanished. I felt a sudden, sharp pang of grief. I felt… bereft.
"Good," Thale said, his voice cutting through my sudden mourning. "2147 has a natural sensitivity. The rest of you—practice. Resistance is failure."
He signaled for us to stand. We were led out of the bright auditorium and into a narrow, windowless corridor. This is where the weight of the Tower returned. The silence in the hall was different than the refectory; it was expectant. Tavin was wiping sweat from his forehead with a trembling hand, his eyes darting to the floor as if he expected the violet light to burst through the tiles. Caius was buffing a non-existent scuff on his sleeve, his jaw set so tight I could hear his teeth grind.
We walked for five minutes in total silence. Each step further from the auditorium felt like a step toward a ledge. My chest still felt hollow where the sensation had been, a physical ache of absence. I found myself matching my stride to the rhythmic hum of the walls, trying to find that song again.
"Where are we going?" Tavin whispered, his voice cracking.
"To the Siphon Chambers," the escort Warden said without looking back. "Sensing is for the mind. Containment is for the soul."
The Siphon Chamber was nothing like the sun-drenched auditorium. It was small, circular, and oppressively intimate—barely large enough for the five of us and Warden Thale. The walls curved inward like the inside of a cup, and the air tasted metallic, sharp with ozone.
At the center, mounted on a waist-high pedestal of black iron, sat a glass vessel. It was smaller than the one I'd touched during testing—perhaps the size of a man's head—but what swirled inside commanded the entire room.
Grade 1 Taint. Violet smoke that moved with deliberate, almost lazy purpose. Not chaotic. Patient.
"One at a time," Thale said, his voice softer here, as if the room demanded reverence. "Place your hand on the glass. Do not force the absorption. Do not fight it. Simply… open yourself. Invite it in."
He gestured to Tavin. "2146. You're first."
Tavin's face drained of color. His fingers were already tapping against his thigh—one, two, three, four—faster than I'd ever seen. He stepped forward like a man approaching a gallows.
When his palm touched the glass, the reaction was immediate.
The violet smoke lurched toward him, pressing against the interior of the vessel like a trapped animal suddenly aware of a crack in its cage. Tavin gasped—a wet, strangled sound. His back arched. The veins in his neck bulged dark beneath his skin, pulsing in rhythm with something I couldn't see.
"Breathe," Thale instructed calmly. "Let it flow. Don't dam the stream."
But Tavin wasn't breathing. He was drowning. His free hand clawed at his chest, fingers digging into the grey fabric of his tunic. Sweat beaded on his forehead, catching the cold light of the chamber.
The smoke flowed into him—not smoothly, but in jagged, reluctant pulses. Like trying to drink mud through a straw.
When the vessel finally emptied, Tavin staggered back, caught by Thale's steadying hand. His eyes were red-rimmed, his breathing ragged.
"It's so heavy," he wheezed, voice raw. "Like… like swallowing lead. Cold lead."
Thale nodded, making a note on his ever-present ledger. "The weight is expected. It means you are containing properly. The discomfort will lessen with practice."
Tavin didn't look convinced. He slumped against the wall, one hand still pressed to his sternum as if checking that his ribs hadn't cracked.
Seren went next. She approached the vessel with that same eerie calm I'd seen during the sensing exercise. When she touched the glass, her eyes squeezed shut, but she made no sound. The Taint flowed into her in silence. When it was done, she simply stepped back and said nothing. But I noticed her hands were shaking—fine tremors she couldn't quite hide.
Caius approached with visible disdain, as if the entire exercise were beneath him. But when the Taint touched him, his aristocratic composure shattered. He made a sound—half gasp, half sob—and his knees buckled. Thale had to hold him upright.
"It's wrong," Caius hissed when it finished, yanking his hand away from the glass like it had burned him. "It's not natural. It's—"
"Contained," Thale finished for him. "Which is exactly what it needs to be. Next."
Gawain moved like a sleepwalker. He placed his hand on the glass without hesitation, without fear, without anything. The Taint flowed into him. His expression never changed. When it was over, he simply returned to his place against the wall, eyes fixed on nothing.
Then it was my turn.
I stepped up to the pedestal. The glass was cold under my palm—shockingly cold, like touching winter itself. For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the violet smoke surged.
Not reluctantly, like with Tavin. Not silently, like with Seren. It rushed toward me with what felt like recognition—like a dog greeting its master after a long absence.
The moment it touched me, the world exploded into sensation.
Heat bloomed in my chest—not burning, but like stepping from a frozen street into a forge's warmth. It spread through my limbs, my fingers, my throat, settling behind my ribs like a second heart. My vision went white, then violet, then fractured into colors I'd never seen before—shades of indigo that tasted like copper, silver that hummed like music.
The whispers from before—the ones I'd felt during sensing—were clear now. Still not words, but close. So close. Like voices calling from just beyond a door, urgent and desperate and joyful.
The Taint didn't feel like a burden. It felt like completion. Like I'd been walking through life with a hole in my chest I'd never noticed, and now—finally—it was filled.
I felt whole.
I remembered the testing chamber three days ago—the glass vessel, the first touch, the recognition. This was the same. But stronger. Clearer. Like a conversation I'd started then and was finally continuing now.
"It's beautiful," I whispered.
The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
The room went deathly silent.
The warmth in my chest turned to ice.
I opened my eyes. Warden Thale was standing directly in front of me, closer than I'd realized. His kind, fatherly expression had shifted—still calm, but now clinical. Assessing. The way a physician might look at a patient showing symptoms of a fatal disease.
"Hollow 2147," he said quietly. "What did you say?"
My mouth went dry. Around me, I could feel the others watching—Tavin's wide-eyed concern, Caius's poorly hidden smirk, Seren's unreadable stillness.
"I… I meant the process, sir," I stammered, scrambling for safe ground. "It's easier than I expected. The absorption. It was… smooth."
Thale didn't move. Didn't blink. Just studied my face with those sharp, analytical eyes.
"Easier," he repeated, as if tasting the word.
"Yes, sir."
He stepped closer. I could smell peppermint on his breath—sharp and medicinal.
"The Taint is not beautiful, 2147," he said softly, but every word carried weight. "It is seductive. There is a difference. Poison that tastes sweet is still poison. Fire that feels warm still burns."
He placed a hand on my shoulder. The touch was gentle, almost paternal. But his grip was firm.
"If you find yourself drawn to it," Thale continued, his voice dropping lower, "if you experience pleasure during absorption, you are not purifying it. You are surrendering to it. And surrender is the first step toward becoming Unbound."
He let that word—Unbound—hang in the air. I thought of the street. The young Hollow, staggering. The black veins. The whispers.
"Do you understand?" Thale asked.
"Yes, sir," I lied.
The locket pressed against my ribs through my tunic. "Remember," it said. But what was I supposed to remember? That this felt wrong? Or that it felt right?
His eyes searched mine for a long moment. Then he released my shoulder and stepped back, making a careful, deliberate mark in his ledger—longer than the marks he'd made for the others.
"We will be monitoring your progress closely," he said.
As we filed out, I touched my chest where the Taint had settled. Still warm. Still waiting.
I had lied to Thale. But I couldn't lie to myself.
It had felt like coming home.
That afternoon, we had free time on Floor Eight. The Common Room felt different now—heavier, as if the five of us carried new weight the others could sense.
We sat in silence. No one spoke about what had happened. Rule Two hung over us like a blade.
Finally, Tavin leaned close. "Did it hurt for you?"
I thought of the warmth, the colors, the rightness.
"No," I admitted quietly.
His expression shifted—somewhere between relief and envy. "It felt like drowning," he whispered. "Like something was trying to dig through my chest from the inside."
Seren's voice, barely audible: "Mine was cold."
We all turned. She was staring at her hands.
"Not heavy. Not warm. Just… empty. Like it carved out a space and left nothing behind."
Caius said nothing, jaw clenched.
Gawain stared at the wall.
"Thale marked you differently," Tavin said, looking at me. "Did you see? The mark in his book. It was longer."
I had seen.
"He said he'd be monitoring me."
"Because you said it was beautiful," Caius finally spoke, voice sharp with something like accusation. "You told them it felt good."
"I misspoke."
"Did you?" Caius challenged.
I met his eyes. "Yes."
But we both knew I was lying.
Tavin's fingers started tapping again. One, two, three, four.
"What do you think happens," he whispered, "to the ones who feel it wrong? Who like it too much?"
I thought of Aldric. Intake #147. The crossed-out name.
"I don't know," I said.
But I was starting to suspect.