"Crow! Do it again!"
I looked down at the ogre children—little monsters who already stood half my height—jumping and shouting like I'd just performed some legendary Ranker technique instead of a cheap Shinsu parlor trick.
Their eyes were bright.
Too bright for this place.
The air here always tasted like old metal and dry snow. Even when the sky was clear, it felt like the world had been left out too long—forgotten in the back of the Tower's pantry until it turned cold and quiet and mean.
A discarded pocket.
A place the Tower didn't invite people into anymore.
And yet… these kids were laughing like they'd never heard the word "discarded."
"Sure," I said, rubbing the head of the loudest one until he started pouting at the attention shift. "But this time, someone else picks the animal."
A dozen voices erupted at once.
"Bird!"
"Wolf!"
"Tiger!"
"Big snake!"
"Fish!"
"Big fish!"
It became noise—happy noise—bouncing off the ice-crusted stone walls and dying somewhere in the distance like the Tower didn't know what to do with it.
Then a softer voice cut through the chaos.
"Dragon."
I glanced toward the sound.
A small ogre girl stood slightly apart from the swarm, hugging a ragged teddy bear like it was an heirloom. One of its button eyes was missing. The stitching looked like it had been repaired three different times by three different people, each one trying to keep it alive out of stubbornness rather than skill.
She didn't shout. Didn't demand.
She just held my gaze like she'd already decided what she wanted and didn't see the point in raising her voice for it.
I gave her a thumbs up.
"Good pick."
Her ears twitched like she didn't expect to be taken seriously.
"I'll do you one better," I said, grinning as the kids leaned in. "Instead of one dragon… we'll do two."
A cheer went up so loud it startled a few birds perched on the far ice ledges—thin, gray things that looked like the Tower had carved them out of leftover winter.
I snapped my fingers.
The fireball I'd been keeping suspended above us—stable, contained, lazy—split into two smaller orbs.
Then four.
Then eight.
The heat didn't spike. The pressure didn't flare.
The trick wasn't power.
The trick was control.
Each orb elongated into a thin, serpentine shape. Tiny wings formed along their sides—simple, clean constructs that didn't waste Shinsu on details that didn't matter. A heartbeat later, eight miniature dragons spiraled through the air, chasing each other in tight loops like living ribbons of flame.
The children lost their minds.
They sprinted after the dragons like they were butterflies, arms flailing, laughter echoing across the frozen wasteland.
For a second, the Tower felt… wrong.
Not because of danger.
Because the sound didn't match the setting.
This place was supposed to be quiet in the way graves were quiet.
Instead, it sounded like a festival.
Behind the kids, the adults were busy being humbled.
Toyin stood in the center of the tribe's training yard like an unmovable pillar, sweat steaming off his shoulders in the cold. His breath came out in thick bursts that vanished too fast, as if the air itself was trying to swallow proof of effort.
He wasn't just teaching them techniques—he was teaching them why the techniques mattered.
And because his people only understood truth through force…
He'd spent the last week sparring every warrior who stepped forward.
Every single one.
They came at him with pride. With rage. With desperation. With the old belief that strength made you right.
They left the circle with bruises and silence.
Not because Toyin was cruel—
—but because he was operating on a higher platform than them now, and there was no gentle way to explain that.
Watching him teach made me feel something close to satisfaction.
Not because they were losing.
Because they were learning.
Because they weren't running.
Because even the stubborn ones who hated being shown they were small still came back the next day and stepped into the circle again.
That was tribe behavior.
Not survival behavior.
Tribes planned for tomorrow.
Survivors only planned for the next hour.
"Crow, can we fly again with the birds!"
A kid grabbed my sleeve with both hands like I was a living ride at an amusement park.
I sighed dramatically like I was suffering under the weight of leadership.
Then I did it anyway.
"Fine," I said, raising both hands. "But don't blame me if you throw up on each other."
I drew Shinsu up from the air, softening it into a buoyant current beneath their feet. It wasn't the brute lift most people used—no hard pressure, no sudden yank. More like a gentle river that remembered how to hold things without crushing them.
The kids squealed as their bodies lifted off the ground, floating in a loose cluster above the yard.
They shrieked with delight.
I nudged the current forward, gentle as a slow river, letting them drift through the air while the miniature dragons spiraled around them like escort guards in a parade.
The frozen wasteland—this dead, closed section of the Tower—filled with the sound of children laughing.
Below, hardened ogre warriors were being drilled into the ground like pillars meant to hold that laughter up.
And for a moment, even the tribe's old ones stopped scowling.
They watched.
Not smiling.
But not interrupting.
That was as close as you got to approval from people who'd grown up hearing "no" from the Tower itself.
Selena walked up beside me without a sound, her presence as quiet as a shadow that didn't need permission to exist. Her eyes moved across the yard like she was counting variables: morale, stamina, threat lines, exits, how many seconds it would take to move the children if something went wrong.
"You're making them forget where they are," she said.
Her tone wasn't disapproval.
Just observation.
"That's the point," I replied.
Selena's gaze slid over Toyin correcting stances, elders watching, warriors taking turns being broken and rebuilt.
Then her eyes returned to me.
I lowered my voice.
"Selena, can you check in on Hwa Ryun? If possible, I want her to bring supplies. Food. Clothing. Toys. Anything she can carry."
Selena's expression didn't shift, but her answer came instantly.
"She'll need help getting in here."
I frowned.
"This section is closed?"
"Closed," Selena confirmed. "Not sealed by an Administrator's active hostility—but given away. Abandoned. A dead pocket the Tower doesn't invite people into."
She looked up at the sky like she was listening to something behind the air—like the Tower's silence had a voice if you stood still long enough.
"Even as a caretaker, I don't have authority to bring outsiders into a section the Tower has 'discarded.' If you want her here, you'll need an invitation that the Tower recognizes."
My eyes narrowed.
"An Administrator invitation?"
"Not the Administrator," Selena said. "Not directly. The tribe."
I glanced down at the ogres below, and understanding clicked.
The Tower treated this place as "their" domain now. A claimed refuge. A pocket of reality held up by the people stubborn enough to live inside it.
"That means—" I started.
Selena nodded once.
"You'll need one of the ogres to escort the invitation. A resident. Someone the Tower acknowledges as part of this place. If they bring her in, the Tower will allow the path."
I exhaled slowly.
Of course it wasn't simple.
Nothing in this Tower was ever simple.
Even kindness required paperwork.
I lowered the children's flight speed, turning their drifting into a gentle circle above the yard. Slow enough that none of them panicked. Slow enough that if one slipped, the Shinsu would catch them like a net.
Then I waved at the small girl with the teddy bear.
"Abyin," Toyin had called her earlier, if I remembered right.
She spotted my gesture immediately and hurried over with surprising discipline for someone her age, stopping a few steps away and bowing her head in a greeting she'd clearly been trained into.
Not fear.
Training.
That mattered.
I crouched so my eyes met hers.
"What's your name, kid?" I asked.
She blinked once, then answered like it mattered.
"Abyin," she said. "Abyin of the Toyin family."
I nodded.
"Good. Abyin, I need you to help my friend bring food and toys for you guys."
Her eyes widened slightly at the word toys, but she didn't lose her composure. The teddy bear tightened in her grip like she didn't want anyone to see how much it mattered.
She looked between the other children flying overhead and the adults training below, then back to me.
Then she nodded like she'd been given a mission in a war council.
"I can do it."
I smiled and patted her head gently—careful, because ogres didn't like being treated like pets, even when they were children.
"Good."
Then I leaned in a little closer so only she could hear.
"But first," I said, "I promised you dragons."
Her grip tightened on the teddy bear.
I held my hand palm-up.
"Your element is ice, right?"
She hesitated. Not because she didn't know—because admitting it meant admitting she was different from the ones who swung clubs and relied on brute strength.
"…Yes."
"Then we're going to make a dragon that matches you," I said. "Not flame. Not heat. Ice."
Her eyes flickered with something like hunger.
Not for food.
For ability.
I could feel it in her—the same thing I'd seen in kids back home before the Tower ruined them.
A desire to be useful.
To be strong.
To matter.
I drew Shinsu down and cooled it until the air around my palm fogged. The fog curled around my fingers, thickening until frost formed along my skin like a glove.
A thin layer of ice spiraled in the shape of a tiny dragon spine. It wasn't perfect. It didn't need to be.
It needed to be possible.
"Watch," I told her. "The trick isn't forcing it. The trick is letting it take the shape it wants—then correcting it."
Abyin leaned in, eyes locked.
"You don't fight the Shinsu," I said quietly. "You guide it."
Selena stood behind me, silent again.
But I could feel the larger thing behind all of this—the weight shifting, the Tower's invisible bookkeeping, the way certain burdens didn't disappear.
They just moved.
Like debts.
Like attention.
Like karma disguised as fate.
Baam's name was getting lighter in places it used to be heavy.
And in exchange—
Other names were beginning to draw attention.
I kept my face calm.
If I reacted, Selena would know I'd noticed.
If Selena knew, then this would turn into a conversation.
And I didn't want the conversation.
Not yet.
The kids above us laughed again, the sound bright enough to insult the Tower.
I focused on the ice in my palm and shaped it into a small dragon that fluttered once, clumsy but alive. Its wings were thin. Its body crooked. It looked more like a shard of winter pretending to be a creature.
But it moved.
Abyin's mouth opened in awe.
I handed it to her.
It was cold, but it didn't bite.
"Now you," I said. "Make the spine first."
Her hands lifted slowly, trembling with effort. The Shinsu around her fingers responded—hesitant, thin, uncertain—like it wasn't used to being asked to do anything delicate.
But it responded.
And that was the whole point.
As she struggled, I glanced toward Toyin.
He looked back at me over the heads of his warriors—sweat steaming, eyes steady.
He didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
He understood what I was doing.
Not just entertaining children.
Building pillars.
Because if this place was going to survive—
If this tribe was going to climb even when the Tower pretended they didn't exist—
Then the children had to be stronger than the despair they were born into.
And if Hwa Ryun could reach us with supplies…
If I could pull a thread from Baam's path and anchor it here…
Then maybe, for once, the Tower would be forced to acknowledge something it tried to throw away.
Abyin's frost dragon finally formed—crooked, half-melted, but real.
She stared at it like it was a crown.
I nodded once.
"Good," I told her. "That's step one."
Her eyes lifted.
"What's step two?"
I smiled.
"Step two," I said, "is learning how to make it bite."
Behind me, Selena's voice came softly—almost amused.
"That's your solution to everything."
I didn't deny it.
Some problems weren't solved by kindness.
Some were solved by teaching the next generation how to survive the Tower's quiet cruelty—without becoming cruel themselves.
And in the distance, where no one here could see it, the Tower's unseen eyes shifted—subtle, patient, interested.
Like it had finally noticed something moving sideways.