Chapter 237: Squad 7 - Level 40

Chapter 237: Chapter 237: Squad 7 - Level 40

The updates came in over the following days, usually late at night, and always in the group channel.

Seraphina was first, in the small hours of the second night, with a single line and no ceremony: Thirty-nine. Two more batches of the stabilizing elixir and I will have the third. Do not wait up. Caelen followed the next morning with a terse Forty. and nothing else, which Mirei immediately answered with a string of exclamation marks and the words you absolute show-off, I’m right behind you. Barney’s announcement arrived near midnight, with a picture of a freshly forged breastplate propped against the anvil and the caption Level forty. New armor. No notes. Mirei reached forty two days later, in the middle of a drill, and sent a photo of her bowstring snapping from the sudden jump in draw strength, with the message: Fine. I’ll restring it. Ready when you are.

Rowan read each one on the terrace at Sunny Vale, with the valley dark and quiet below him. Each time, he felt the same small, warm thing settle in his chest. The squad had always moved as one, even when they were apart.

By the fourth night, the channel had gone silent, and the last message sat at the bottom of the screen, from Seraphina:

All four of us are forty. We gather at the academy at dawn. Bring your good boots.

He looked down at the new boots on his feet, and smiled.

The sun rose pale and clear over Sol Aethel Academy, and the courtyard was nearly empty.

Rowan crossed the great gate a few minutes before the bell, his cloak pulled close against the morning chill and his straw hat tilted low. The marble was still damp with dew. A few early students hurried between the pavilions with scrolls tucked under their arms, and more than one of them stopped to stare. But it was a quiet stare, a respectful one, and no one called out. They had learned, in the week since the Tower woke, to let the squad pass.

They were waiting for him beside the old fountain at the center of the court.

Barney stood nearest, arms folded, and Rowan took a moment just to look at him. The armor he wore was unlike anything Rowan had seen him forge before: broad plates of dark, layered alloy, scarred with a faint silver pattern like frost on a windowpane, fitted close over a thick leather harness. A massive tower shield hung across his back. The war hammer at his belt looked newly oiled, and the whole ensemble shone faintly in the morning light.

"Well?" Barney demanded, striking a pose. "Say something nice. I’ve been up three nights."

"It looks incredible," said Rowan, and meant it.

"Of course it does. It’s my best work." Barney grinned and rapped his knuckles on the breastplate, which rang like a bell. "Sacrificial layers on the outside, tempered core underneath, and a little something extra in the shoulder joints that I’m not going to explain because you’d only ask me to make you one."

"Would I be wrong to?"

"You would not."

Beside him, Seraphina sat on the lip of the fountain with a canvas satchel in her lap and a row of corked vials laid out on the stone beside her. She was counting them under her breath, one finger tapping each in turn, her spectacles glinting in the sun. She wore a long, practical coat the color of dry moss, belted with a dozen small pouches, and there were dark smudges under her eyes that told the story of her week. When she looked up and saw Rowan, she gave a short, businesslike nod.

"Thirty-two vials of the standard stabilizer," she said, by way of greeting. "Twelve of the rewritten regenerative. Six of the emergency tonic, which you will not touch unless someone is actively dying. Four of the new compound I refuse to name until I know whether it works."

"That’s reassuring," said Rowan.

"It isn’t meant to be."

A little farther off, Caelen and Mirei stood together, a matched pair as always. Caelen’s gear was simple and sharp, a long sword at his hip and a broad, scarred shield strapped to his forearm, with a gray traveling coat over a suit of lightweight plate. He looked rested for the first time in days. Mirei had her bow unstrung and slung over her shoulder, a fresh bowstring coiled at her belt, and she was already bouncing on her toes with barely contained energy.

"Boss!" she called, waving. "Finally! Look who made it."

"I’m early."

"You’re exactly on time, which is early for you." She jogged over and gave him a quick, fierce hug, then stepped back and looked him up and down, taking in the boots, the gloves, and the new steadiness in the way he stood. Her eyes widened. "You’ve changed. Something about you changed."

"Level forty," said Rowan.

"No, something else." She frowned, then shrugged. "Never mind. It suits you."

Caelen approached last, and gave him a nod that was somehow more eloquent than a speech. "Good to see you," he said. "We’re ready when you are."

For a moment, none of them said anything. The fountain murmured behind them. The bell had not yet rung. Rowan looked around the circle, at the smith in his frost-scarred armor, the alchemist with her counted vials, the vanguard and the archer who had walked every floor side by side, and felt the weight of the years settle gently over him.

Two years ago, they had climbed to the twenty-eighth floor as a squad of strangers who had learned each other under fire. Now they were forty, every one of them, and they stood in the open courtyard at dawn like people who had nowhere else they would rather be.

"Then let’s go," he said.

Headmistress Elena was waiting at the academy gates.

She stood alone, in her simple gray robes, with her hands folded and the morning light catching the silver in her hair. She did not speak as they approached. She only looked at each of them in turn, a long, steady glance that took in the armor, the vials, the weapons, and the faces behind them. When her eyes reached Rowan, something softened at the corners of her mouth.

"I wish I could tell you the academy will keep you safe," she said quietly. "But I know that isn’t what you came here for."

"We came to say thank you," said Seraphina, and everyone looked at her in mild surprise. She adjusted her spectacles and pressed on. "For the lectures. For the use of the labs. For not asking any more questions than were strictly necessary."

Elena’s smile deepened. "You were all remarkable guests." She stepped forward and laid a hand briefly on Rowan’s arm. "Come back to us. The students will want to hear what you find."

"We will," he said.

She nodded once, stepped aside, and let them pass.

The road to the Tower ran south, along the old pilgrim path that had been trodden smooth by generations of climbers. They walked it in a loose line, with Barney’s armor clanking, Mirei humming under her breath, and Caelen scanning the treeline out of long habit. Rowan took the rear, listening to the ground through his new boots. It was calm. It was steady. It was ready.

They reached the Tower in the middle of the afternoon.

It rose before them out of the plain like a mountain that had learned to stand upright, black stone veined with lines of cold blue light. Even from the base, its top was lost in the haze of the upper sky. The great gate at its foot stood open, as it always did, a tall arch of ancient, weathered stone, and from within came a low, steady hum that Rowan could feel in his teeth.