There are seven of them now, spread across the seven levels. The youngest, Lin, still cries at night, pressing her ear to the cold floor, listening for the heartbeat of the world below. The eldest, Sereia, has not spoken in three decades—not because she can’t, but because she has learned that silence is the only language the stars understand.
A new name already taking its place.
It’s the first thing each girl notices—a low, electric thrum in the bones, rising from the ancient stone spirals. The Tower has stood for a thousand years, scraping a bruised sky. And for a thousand years, it has chosen them: one from every generation, plucked from villages, from cities, from the arms of sleeping families. Girls of The Tower
They arrive as girls. They become something else. There are seven of them now, spread across the seven levels
They are not prisoners. That’s the cruel joke. The door at the base of the Tower is never locked. Any girl may leave at any time. A new name already taking its place