The tower hadn't been there yesterday.
Kael was certain of it. He'd walked this stretch of the Ashfen road a hundred times, knew every broken stone, every crooked signpost, every place where the mud swallowed your boot to the ankle. There had been ruins here once, sure. There were ruins everywhere in the Ashfen. But not like this.
Not standing.
The structure rose from the fog in mismatched tiers, a squat stone base that didn't quite match the arch above it, a walkway that connected to a wall that connected to nothing at all. It looked less like something built and more like something assembled. Like the land itself had rolled the pieces together in the night and said: this will do.
He should have kept walking.
He didn't.
The first thing he noticed was the door, heavy oak, iron-banded, slightly ajar. The second thing he noticed was the light inside. Not firelight. Something cooler. Pulsing.
The third thing he noticed was the dice.
They were everywhere. Scattered across the threshold stones, lined along the windowsills, pressed into the mortar between the blocks like they'd been there since the foundation was laid. Dozens of them. All different sizes. All showing their highest face.
Kael crouched and picked one up. A standard six-sider, worn smooth. It sat warm in his palm.
Behind him, something shifted in the fog. A footstep. Or not.
He set the die down exactly where he'd found it, a habit his mother had drilled into him before he could read. You don't move things that have been placed with intent. He straightened slowly.
The door, he noticed, was now fully open.
The light inside pulsed once. Like a breath.
Kael thought about the road home. He thought about the coin in his pocket with no heads and no tails, just a symbol he'd never been able to identify. He thought about every choice that had felt less like a choice and more like a result.
Then he stepped through.
Behind him, a single die rolled across the threshold stone.
It landed on one.
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