The scent of nicely charred pork wafted into the room long before the attendant’s turned the corner, and Lukas’s mouth watered all the while. Already he had filled himself with savory beef soup, tender bread fresh from the oven, chicken glazed with honey and spices, and a sharp soft cheese imported from overseas. Yet the smell alone opened another chasm of space in his stomach, and seeing the meat placed before him he wondered if he would be able to ask for seconds.

“A hot meal does wonders for the spirit,” Maxime said as his own plate was set before him. The man, who had been pulled up from the bottom floor by Rowena and the other knights, had eaten twice what Lukas had, yet no sooner had the attendant left than he set about devouring his meal.

Lukas would have felt some sort of ire for the man, if not for the fact he did the same.

Wonders, indeed. Food as cold as ice had been his only sustenance since leaving that nameless village. And heat does add a flavor all its own.

Three days had passed since their arrival to the Tower. Three days, yet Lukas had not seen hide nor hair of the Head Servant. Unacceptable, he thought, to make an emissary from Highharrow wait in such a manner. The food, at least, was almost enough to make him forget. Almost.

Yet as he swallowed the last scraps of his meal Lukas found himself now well and truly full. Placing his silverware on his plate, Lukas leaned back, held his stomach from either side as if steadying it for proper digestion, then turned his mind to the weaselly Mathias.

“Soon, I promise. Master Laurant is in the final stages now, I guarantee it,” Mathias had said to him the day before. Belly full of warm food or not, Lukas was itching to set out once more and his patience was running thin.

With the meal done and the plates cleared away, Lukas wandered to his room, where Rowena awaited him. Out of her armor, she was dressed in the white robes of the attendants, for once appearing comfortable.

She smiled.

“How was your meal?”

“Delicious. Truly Rowena, you should join us more often. I miss your presence dearly.”

“Miss me, you say. How long are these meals that you miss me so? It is hard to tell sitting here all alone.”

“Short, but not so short that I do not feel your lack of presence.”

Behind her smile was a look of pain. She tried to hide it, but it was as plain as the midday sun on a cloudless day.

“Show me,” he said. She did not protest.

Disrobing, she revealed the pale skin of her chest and shoulders, contrasted with the tanned skin of her face and arms. The greatest contrast, however, was at her belly, which had become a terrible shade of blue, so dark it was almost black.

“It’s worsening,” Lukas said, observing the wound.

The skin was frostbitten, yet from previous diagnosing he knew the damage extended deep. It was not merely the skin, but also her intestines themselves that had been damaged. Rowena withdrew into herself as he poked and prodded at the skin. An attempt at escape. But there was no escape from the prying fingers of Lukas Merveillo, which then began to peel away at the dead black skin at the center of her wound.

“Would that there were a better healer here,” he said, holding up the fragment of decay he’d taken from her belly. Hard and dead, it did not bend as his fingers applied force. Then, at its limit, it snapped into two. It reminded him of stale jerky.

“You are all the healing I need,” she said. An attempt at flirting, Lukas thought at first, until the hope shone through. How could it not? He was Lukas Merveillo, the greatest mage of his time.

Yet…

“I am no healer.”

Delicately, Rowena touched the wound with her own hand, brushing over it from center to edge, where the nerves still lived. She winced.

“Try,” she said.

Cracking his neck and fingers to loosen himself, Lukas formed a ball of mana within him. Closing his eyes, he focused on that power, as well as the power that had surrounded him constantly these past few days. The power of the Stone, which tingled the skin and suffused the air with a cloying, intrusive presence. Then, when he had focused long enough, Lukas pushed the mana into Rowena.

Black skin shed off in thin, rigid layers, with the outermost edges transforming from blue to raw red to sensitive pink. What mattered most, however, was what transformed within the flesh, beyond what eyes could see.

Caressing her intestines with his magic, Lukas felt the roughness of their damage. Soft flesh turned hard, then shattered like glass. Worse, one section of her intestines withered away, splitting in two.

How gruesome, Lukas thought. Then, How did he do it?

Drained of his magic, Lukas stopped, releasing a long held breath. As he slouched his joints cracked and his muscles flared up with sudden and blissful discomfort, as if a massive weight had been taken from him. He was almost proud of his work. The intestines had been joined back together, most of the decay healed. Yet he could not be fully proud of his work. The damage persisted, mortally so. He would need to try again.

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Rowena shook visibly, her hands trembling as they pulled her robes down over her body. Her face had grown a sickly pale color, and sweat beaded her brow.

“Painful?” Lukas asked. She nodded, afraid to reveal the truth yet knowing that Lukas would accept nothing else. “I will go slower next time.”

“Don’t bother. I am not some child in need of coddling. The sooner I am healed the sooner I can return to my duties. Pain or no, be quick.”

Lukas chuckled. “Quick I shall be, then. The sooner you are healed the sooner we can leave.”

“You want us to leave?” There was no hiding the surprise in her voice. This was the Tower of Victory, after all. Hallowed grounds as holy as any in the world and home to magical power that would have any mage salivating. It should have been a time of research, introspection, and prayer.

“I grow… frustrated. I have yet to meet the Head Servant,” he said. His knees creaked as he stood and began to pace about the room. “Three days! Three days we’ve been here, yet this Laurant does not meet with me or any other from our party. We have a mission, damnit!”

Pacing about, Lukas stopped in the corner of the room and rested his hand against the wall. In place of cool stone was a throb of heat, like that of a rock sitting out in the sun on a summer’s day.

“I’d sought the man out myself, yesterday, only for some attendants to ‘politely’ guide me back to our quarters. I have a mind to meet with Mathias again and demand an audience. And I have half a mind to just leave and face the White Wastes with what we have, though I know it’s foolish. I feel like a prisoner.”

“A very good prison it is, I wager. Better here, with warm walls and bright lanterns and the people of our faith, than out there in the cold chasing heathens.”

Lukas gave a disgruntled sigh. As much as it pained him to admit, there was nowhere else to go from here but into the unknown. The Tower was for all intents and purposes, if not officially, the border between Hilva and the White Wastes.

And what a border it is. A highly defensible position, able to defend an onslaught from any direction. And yet peculiarly incapable of stopping the invasion of would-be migrants from the north. Were there walls, he wondered, so long ago when first the Tower was built? Or, more likely, had the Tower been created with some other purpose, now lost to the ages?

Questions Lukas would have very much liked the answer to. And would have found, he imagined, had he been allowed to wander the Tower’s floors.

“I’ve grown restless waiting here,” he said. “I’m going off to wander. Care to join me?”

Rowena touched her stomach. “I think not, Lukas. I’m… tired. Perhaps later.”

“Rest easy, then.”

The grand stairway at the floor’s southern face was alight, as always, with a great many magic lanterns. Powered, no doubt, by the Stone’s mana, the crystal lanterns glowed with a colorless light at all hours of the day, making it impossible to sneak past the guards that stood at either side of the stairwell.

“Greetings, Master Lukas,” a guard said. The others bolted upright from their slothful positions, suddenly alert. Each wielded a simple iron-tipped spear, with none having a trace of armor to speak of. If only I intended to kill them.

“Greetings,” Lukas said. A tension could be felt in the air as they watched him. The four, in their own minds, were mountain cats stalking prey, their muscles ready to pounce at the slightest agitation.

To Lukas, however, they were but an eyesore.

“Where is Mathias?”

“Mathias is unable to meet with you today,” the closest guard on the left said. The two on the right looked away.

If Mathias was unable to meet that would have been the end of it. But Lukas, whose very age could be felt in every joint, had seen a thing or two in his life. Things that allowed him to know when a man was hiding something, without ever saying anything that might reveal the truth.

“Is that so?” The guard nodded in confirmation, waiting patiently for Lukas to understand the futility of the conversation. That was fine by Lukas. He’d already gained more than he’d expected.

Leaving the stairwell, Lukas rounded the corner into the hallway which led to his own quarters. But, as he walked with a firm gait down the hall, Lukas passed his quarters, which resided on the right-hand side, and instead knocked on the door that rested further down the hall on the left-hand side.

“Coming,” a voice said from beyond the door. Lukas tapped his foot with impatience. Amadou opened the door wide, though not so wide as his frightened eyes. “M-master,” he muttered.

“I need something from you,” Lukas said, pushing his way inside. Simon and Karine, sat upon the sofas around a table of drinks, were as surprised as their brother.

“Master,” Karine echoed, standing hastily to greet him.

Simon only stared, mouth agape.

“Shut the door,” Lukas ordered as stern and as loud as circumstances would allow. “Clear the table. Hurry, you louts!”

“What is it?” Simon asked.

“Things have changed. We’ve been here too long without answers, and now our guards are acting strange.”

“Strange?” Karine asked.

“Mathias is up to something and it’s set them on edge. To be frank, I don’t think they know themselves what Mathias is up to. So I’ve come to you three. Amadou, a map of the Tower, if you would.”

Foisting out his hands, the Tower appeared before them in a dazzle of blue and green lights, the shapes fuzzed by the magical interference of the Stone. Lukas found themselves easily enough on the seventh floor. Below them, on the floors they’d already seen, a number of people moved about. The attendants. Yet above them…

“There’s nothing.”

Where there should have been lights revealing the location and number of untold attendants and, Lukas hoped, the location of either Mathias or Laurant, there was instead an empty void of space divided only by the continuing floors.

“What do we do?” Karine asked.

He would have answered, had the revelation not winded him. Like a punch to the gut, he could barely breathe.

“I don’t know.” What was it? Magic? A ruse? The Stone? “I don’t know,” he repeated. “But we can find out. Let’s go. These guards cannot stop us all.”

As his hand touched the door handle the room's magic lanterns went dark, stripping the light from them.

The Argmont trio shuffled uneasily in the darkness. One of them whimpered. Karine was the first to collect herself, conjuring a ball of flames in her hand that lit the room and casting long, evil shadows across the room.

“A trap?” Amadou whispered.

“No,” Lukas said. He could feel it. The familiar creeping sensation that had plagued him for a hundred leagues and more. He reached out with a hand and touched the wall. Then, instinctively, he pulled it away.

Cold.