For the time being, there are whispers and only whispers. There could never be anything else. She would not allow them to evolve to accusations, become daggers and blessings in her enemies’ hands. Defeanening silence, however, had never been an option either. There was always a thundering sound surrounding the Tower. Silence meant danger. An omen that all those who should not know had found out and had taken action. Yes, controllable noise was always for the best.

This is why, when the rumours reach her ears, she pays little attention to them. They don’t come to her as soon as she had liked—as she deserved—regardless of her connections. True to her reputation, the one earned due to actions and not mere gossip, the eldest Agnis daughter and one of Khun Eduan’s brides, had ears and eyes everywhere. A capable strategist, a perfectionist. Life was always unpredictable, especially when it came to the Families, but she always managed to foresee every possible outcome.

And yet, she had managed to fail when it came to her children.

“Whatever happened,” she mumbled to herself, though there was neither guilt nor true curiosity behind her words. There was no point in fantasizing about what a small detail could have done when the game was far from over.

She placed a hand on her abdomen. She had failed with Rafaela. She had failed with Aguero. Two children, both different, both dead, unmourned, two mistakes that for all their differences, they had managed to make a fool of her. Then again, part of the blame laid on her as she had accessed the situation wrongly from the beginning. She had been certain that victory laid on numbers; a game of chess. Have the king, shape her, let her be protected by the knights and bishops, all while forgetting that the entire game might end up depending on a single rook. The King, after all, was always useless on its own and even the Queen could not protect it at all times.

But now, the path was clearer than ever, Agnis knew of what she ought to do. This time, the game would rely only on her—and on her daughter—alone like it was meant to from the start.

.

Kiseia was an Agnis only in name.

It never really mattered, or perhaps it never had enough time to. Back in a time Kiseia barely remembered, she was supposed to become a Princess of Jahad. After all, there was no different fate for a Khun daughter. But her mother had died, another fate reserved for their kind, and Kiseia had been adopted by her aunt. Maybe, if her aunt had truly seen her as her child—or at least as what remained of her sister—if Rafaela did not exist, this would have still been her path. But as there was already an Agnis, older, more elegant, ethereal, a leader, Kiseia couldn’t have been anything but a mere follower.

Not that such thing could ever matter. Kiseia would have been caught dead before even thinking about feeling envious of her cousin, of her sister. Because, in the end, Kiseia was an Agnis only in name; deprived of little birds feeding her information, unable to foresee every outcome, her thirst for leadership quenched before she even knew what the word meant. Kiseia, unlike her aunt, unlike the traitor, unlike her, was born to be a weapon, to be a soldier, to follow through and she planned to die the very same way.

And then, in an unexpected turn of events, Kiseia had found herself drowning in an unknown sea and even when she, against all odds, found herself alive, all that was left was bitterness.

.

It’s a sad sight. She wonders what her aunt would think if she saw her like that; eyes slightly closed, her back leaning against the gravestone. Pityful in every sense of the word, but after all, as Aguero used to point out, Kiseia always failed to meet other people’s expectations. At that time, Kiseia had lashed out, had been furious, but as the years passed she had come to realize that he had been right.

“I will be leaving,” she tells the grave. She isn’t disappointed when there isn’t an answer, not even a breeze. Rafaela is dead, buried and decayed, and Kiseia had never been the one to believe that no one is ever truly gone. “She hasn’t kicked me out, or anything, but it’s bound to happen. She’s planning on a new child.”

Kiseia tries to imagine staying. Her mind goes blank. She could never stay.

“I think you would have been a great sister.” There were too many wrongs in that thought but Kiseia did not dare to think it further. If Rafaela was there, there wouldn’t be a need for a new Agnis child. Of a chance at redemption for their branch. A chance that—and this was truly something Kiseia refused to ever think about—was needed because she hadn’t been a good sister, to begin with.

No, Kiseia would never pin the blame on her. She had been good, she had been great. Kiseia had bled for her. It should have been enough. She should have been enough. And if her brother, stupid and naive Aguero whose thoughts and actions Kiseia would never understand, did not realize how deserving she was, that was his problem alone.

The problem, however, in the Tower, and in life, was that no one’s problem was for their eyes only and so Aguero’s distaste for his sister, his preference for someone else, had become the Agnis family’s problem. Their downfall.

“Isn’t it cruel?” She whispers as she lowers her gaze. Isn’t it cruel for her to be dead, for Aguero to be gone, for the Agnis matriarch to simply have a do-over, while Kiseia stays exactly where she began; in a graveyard. Isn’t it cruel, she wonders once again, for her to still be here.

“Nothing is cruel, one can only be responsible for their actions.” Someone says. It’s almost as if time has stopped around her. The stranger stares at her, or at least that’s what it looks like, and remains silent. It doesn’t help that Kiseia is equally speechless. Eventually, the creature continues. “Do you wish to achieve your dreams?”

.

Kiseia has neither dreams nor wishes.

Still, she agrees.

“And what do you want?”

“Hm,” the creature seems to ponder her question. It’s all fake, Kiseia would be a fool not to know, but his eyes still shine with interest. “A friend, I suppose.”

But Kiseia was a Khun, and Khuns knew that friends were a concept too childish to be true. Yet, the lie did not matter for a soldier like Kiseia. Let her be used, let her be great.

“What should I do?”

.

Her legs are aching and her heart is beating a little too loudly. She holds her knife steadily, refusing to let go of her cool. There is a buzzing sound. The countdown starts. The weapon is drawn.

.

Blue hair, blue eyes and all the blood in the world.

.

When Kiseia was young, a child still reluctantly touching their mother’s hand, she was given a small dagger and sent off to earn her name. When her mother died, she was given a needle and thrown to the wolves to earn her aunt’s approval. When she came of age, she was given Aguero’s hand—something sharper than any blade—and a command to make Rafaela Agnis a Princess of Jahad.

With that in mind, Kiseia had truly been a fool thinking that her future lay anywhere else but in bloodshed.

.

The countdown ends. She’s alive.

What a dreadful sight.

.

“All you want can be found when you climb,” Headon had said. A careful choice of words capable to drag anyone to the Hell they call Tower. But when the person in front of him was Khun Kiseia, the words were nothing but white noise. “What do you desire?”

.

Blood, sleep, and pain in her fingers. None of it matters.

.

She stops at the 20th floor.

.

Kiseia firmly believed that there wasn’t a worthy reason for her to climb to the top. It was a much too dangerous task and neither money nor power could be worth it. Maybe, if it had been anyone else in her family, they would have made it, but Kiseia knew that her power alone wouldn’t take her to the top. Still, she couldn’t exactly give up and go back.

(And if she stayed there, what difference would it make?)

.

The 20th floor is a checkpoint where many people, Kiseia included, can rest until they decide to move farther. This is why there are people who have spent months, even years, residing in. This is also why there are so many rumours.

.

Two things happen as Kiseia lives her days on that damned floor. To her eyes, and for many years down the line, she believes they’re not connected.

.

There are rumours of an Irregular climbing with a past group. An Irregular who must have had some kind of special powers to make people want to work with him. The rumours speak of a monster who most likely threatened his companion into helping him. Other people speak of mind control and a minority simply accuses the group of being an enemy to the Empire. Still, there’s an even smaller group, two or maybe three people who claim to have met the so-called an Irregular and though they refuse to elaborate, they will pick a fight with anyone daring to speak about the Tower’s new monster and his band of misfits.

However, if there is one thing all those who repeat the rumours agree on is that the one who dared defy the Tower’s law and his group must be long dead.

“How foolish,” Kiseia mutters when she first hears the rumour being talked about by a group of people sitting behind her. Tying yourself to an Irregular, a death sentence for a moment of bliss, how empty could one be to choose such fate.

(She thinks of Aguero. The best of fools.)

.

Sometimes, people will stare at her with curiosity. At first, she thought it was fear, she had hoped it was fear. After all, Kiseia refused to engage in conversation, kept to herself and had made quite the impression to anyone who had had the misfortune to be in a Test with her. But no, no one seemed to be scared or even wary of her, they all simply looked at her like she was a puzzle they craved to solve.

.

The rumours spoke of a monster, spoke of a Princess of Jahad—sometimes two or three, depending on who you asked—of brainless beasts, of the best of warriors, anything one could imagine since each person had their own version. There was a constant though, excluding the monster itself, one that spoke of a Khun child tailing after it.

(Kiseia had not heard of that part.)

.

Eventually, Kiseia comes—partly—face to face with her problems on a peaceful afternoon. She is silently eating her lunch, trying to drown out the sounds around her and instead savour the food. Unlike most people, Kiseia found the food provided to be of great taste, especially compared to what they used to have back at home. That is not to say they didn’t have food, just that one of the biggest flaws in their family tree—at least in the Agnis branch—was their bad cooking skills. So, everything Kiseia ate that hadn’t been cooked by her cousins, luckily never their mother, tasted like Heaven.

“Excuse me,” —Kiseia lifted her chin and saw a girl—”you forgot this, yesterday.”

Kiseia blinked at her. The girl, who Kiseia was certain had never seen in her life, was most likely approaching her to strike some kind of deal if she was to judge by the long rabbit ears. After all, Rabbit Ear were known to rarely do things that wouldn’t somehow financially benefit them. Still, the stranger remained silent as she handed a brown notebook to Kiseia.

“I’m no—”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you as soon as I got it but it was pretty late and you were gone and I didn’t know where to find you.” She quickly said as her ears lowered before going back up “I didn’t read it or anything in case it was personal.”

“Thanks,” Kiseia told her making the other one lay her ears back once more smiling shyly “but this isn’t mine.”

“No, no it is.” —Kiseia opens the notebook, carefully examining the notes— “I’ve seen you use it. Not that I’m watching you or anything, that would be weird, I just noticed.”

Kiseia closes the notebook and hands it back to her. “This belongs to a Light Bearer.”

.

And this could have been the end of it.

It isn’t.

.

Three days later, Lixue—as the rabbit girl had introduced herself despite Kiseia not asking her—had placed herself once more in front of Kiseia with the same nervousness she had last time.

“You were right, I’m terribly sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Again, this should have been the end, but Lixue simply sat next to her as if the misunderstanding had somehow made them acquaintances. “You have the same hair and the ‘don’t talk to me, I kill for a living’ demeanour so it makes sense I was confused. But I spoke to the guy, gave him the notebook and all, he didn’t seem to care all that much about it though, but I guess it’s pretty guy behaviour, you know?”

No, actually, Kiseia didn’t know nor did she think she had to.

“Or maybe it’s a Khun thing? I’m not sure. Not that it’d be a bad thing or anything, I thought you were much nicer. It couldn’t be pretty people's behaviour cause you’re–” Lixue paused, blushing forming on her cheeks “Um, what was I saying?”

Kiseia let out a small chuckle as she grabbed a food tray. “You found the Light Bearer and realized his looks match the writing style.”

“No!”

.

Kiseia thinks that if things were a little different, she could get used to this.

.

But we are who we are and what is that but an endless compilation of our own mistakes and our parents’ sins?

.

If Kiseia had simply been a Khun, she would have been a greedy and crafty little thing with no need for companionship. Someone who would simply and restlessly climb above. If only she had been an Agnis, the fatigue inside her would remain—and grow and spread like it already did—but she would still be able to rise and hold everything to try and satisfy her greed. Someone who would miss something vital but still have the world. If she had been just Kiseia, she would stay at the 20th Floor. Someone with a peaceful life.

But in the end, she was Khun Kiseia Agnis and what she tried to hold, she lost and so what else could she do but push it away?

.

Somewhere in between, she finds herself outside the main building in the middle of the night. The air seems to be choking her, but she remains frozen in her position; eyes closed, embracing what feels like a slow death. When she opens her eyes, there is somewhere standing in the distance watching her. Kiseia’s vision is blurry, and the night dark, so she can’t make out what they look like but she’s certain her presence scared them away.

.

This is something Kiseia never learns; there was a blonde girl enjoying the feeling of feet touching the steady ground, of being up and running, of being so light-headed you feel like touching the stars and if, by some kind game of fate, Kiseia had taken a good look at her, it would all have worked out just a little bit better.

.

“Why climb the Tower?” Lixue asks her as if this isn’t the same question that has been tormenting Kiseia’s mind for weeks. However, even if they’re close—as close as Kiseia can allow herself to be with someone—, she can not give her the truth. She simply shrugs.

“Why do you think?”

“My opinion means nothing.”

“I’m a Khun,” she said, more as a reminder to herself than to Lixue. “What could I possibly want other than everything there is?”

.

Two days earlier, Kiseia makes peace with the fact she ought to move on. Must leave the floor and proceed forward before she changes her mind. And what better way to do so by getting herself an ally, to have someone who will force you to drag your achy bones to the top?

And who could be a better person for that but someone who will cruelly put their goal—and what is meant to be Kiseia’s goal—above everything else?

.

Lixue shakes her head and laughs softly. Her eyes twinkle. “My opinion means nothing,” she tells her “but I don’t think that’s it.”

.

There is another Khun on the 20th floor. At first, Kiseia only suspects it as people look at her weirdly, but her suspicions are eventually confirmed by Lixue. Soon after, the moment Kiseia stops being in denial, it becomes apparent that she needs to reach out. Another Khun climbing alongside her could prove troublesome since most, if not all, Khun children disliked each other.

Still, Kiseia hoped that she could turn the situation around if she got to meet them. If it was someone with his eyes on the horizon, aiming to achieve something bigger than themselves, Kiseia could easily suggest an alliance and prove once more that she was a pawn worth having. And if it was someone climbing aimlessly, much like herself, she could simply suggest they leave each other be.

Either way, in order to minimize the damage, Kiseia had to find her father’s other devil spawn—for who the only things she knew were that he was rude (as all Khuns) and a Light Bearer (meaning Kiseia could most likely beat him if it came down to it) and while they weren’t much, they ought to be enough.