The healer screamed when the third stretcher came in.
Not from pain.
From numbers.
"We're out of gauze," she said. "Out of saline. Out of the good shards. Don't you people have any idea how much blood there is on this floor?"
Jaehyuk shoved the door shut with his shoulder.
The clinic smelled like iron, sweat, and burned herbs. Someone had lit Tower incense to cover the rot. It only made the room feel hotter.
A man lay on the cot nearest the wall, one leg wrapped in red cloth already wet through. Another climber was curled on the floor beside him, breathing through his teeth.
Somin snapped, "Put him on the bench. Now."
A porter hesitated.
Mira grabbed the cot and dragged it herself. The wood scraped hard across the tile. The sound made everyone flinch.
"Move," she said.
Nobody argued after that.
Jaehyuk looked at the whiteboard on the clinic wall.
Three columns.
Healers.
Shards.
Routes.
Someone had written manpower under the last one, then crossed it out and written bodies.
He stared at that for a second too long.
Somin saw it.
Her jaw tightened. "Yeah. Funny, right?"
"Not funny," he said.
"I know."
She tore open a pouch with her teeth and slapped herbs onto the wound. Bitter smell hit the air, sharp enough to sting his nose.
The man on the cot gagged.
Mira took one look around and said, "How many?"
"Fourteen injured in the last hour," Somin said. "Two missing. One dead. And if anyone asks, no, I don't know where the dead one went because I'm busy keeping the living ones from turning into more dead ones."
The porter looked at her like he'd been slapped.
Jaehyuk said, "Who's in charge of the supply ledger?"
A thin man near the back raised his hand halfway. "I am."
His fingers shook. Ink stains on the knuckles. He looked like someone who'd rather be crushed by a ceiling than asked to make choices.
Jaehyuk held out a hand.
The ledger came over after a beat.
He flipped it open.
Shards had been counted three times in the last two hours.
Healers had been assigned by floor height instead of need.
Routes were listed like prayers. East stair. Broken chapel tunnel. Supply lane. Grave road.
Grave road was underlined twice.
Jaehyuk looked up. "Who wrote this?"
"Vanguard dispatch," the ledger man said.
"Of course it is."
Mira stood beside him, reading over his shoulder. She smelled like steel and rain. Her sword had blood dried near the guard, old and dark.
"They're burning shards on escorts," she said.
Jaehyuk nodded once.
The Tower had started giving shard payouts for mid-floor conflict after 50. Not enough to make anyone rich. Enough to make them stupid.
A good shard could buy healing, route intel, temporary contracts, or a mercenary's hour.
A bad decision could buy three graves.
Somin leaned back from the man on the cot, wiped her wrist across her forehead, and asked, "Why are we talking like this is normal?"
"Because it is now," Jaehyuk said.
She gave him a flat look. "That's terrible."
"Yes."
"I hate that you're calm about it."
He glanced at the blood soaking into the cloth. "I'm not calm."
That got a short laugh out of her. No humor in it. Just pressure leaking off.
The injured man on the floor started coughing. Wet. Bad.
Somin crouched beside him. "Don't move. Stop moving. If you split the clot, I'm going to be annoyed and then you'll die slower."
Mira blinked once. "That's your bedside manner?"
"It works."
Jaehyuk watched the porter go pale, then come back from it.
Good.
Fear meant he might remember.
A loud crack echoed outside the clinic. Then shouting. Metal on metal. The thud of boots running over stone.
Someone opened the door and yelled, "Route three collapsed!"
The room froze.
Jaehyuk's head lifted. "Collapsed?"
The runner was breathing hard. His shirt stuck to him with sweat. "Not collapsed. Closed. The arch sealed behind the Vanguard line. They're saying it's Tower correction."
Mira's eyes narrowed. "The Tower doesn't correct that fast."
"It does now," Jaehyuk said.
Everyone looked at him.
He hated that part. The instant people started trusting the wrong thing because he said it like a fact.
The runner swallowed. "Then there's a problem. The evac route's gone. We've got twelve wounded on the wrong side of the cut."
Somin straightened too fast and hissed from the strain in her back.
"How many healers over there?" she asked.
"Two. Maybe one if the other's still breathing."
She cursed under her breath.
Not softly. Not pretty.
Mira stepped closer to the board. "What's left?"
The ledger man flipped pages with shaking hands. "North passage. But it's narrow. Three at a time. And Vanguard's already using it for their own evac."
Jaehyuk pointed at the board. "Which route has the least interference?"
The man stared. "Least? None. They're all bad."
"Pick one."
He looked like he might cry.
Jaehyuk almost felt bad for him. Almost.
"South stair," the ledger man said. "It's longer. But it bypasses the market ward."
"Then why isn't it on top?"
"Because the market ward is where people die fastest," the man muttered. "And the people who own the routes don't like admitting that."
Mira made a small sound in the back of her throat.
Recognition.
Anger.
Maybe both.
Jaehyuk turned to her. "You know it."
She didn't answer right away.
That was answer enough.
"Mira."
Her eyes lifted to his.
He kept his voice flat.
"How many fighters do we actually have?"
She gave him a long look, then said, "Enough to hold one lane. Not enough to hold two."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you get."
Somin barked, "Can you two not do the cool tension thing while people are bleeding?"
Mira looked at her. "Cool tension?"
"Yes. Terrifying, whatever."
Jaehyuk said, "We need a smaller chain."
The room quieted.
He said it again, slower.
"Too many hands are touching this. Too many mouths. Too many people making the same bad choice because they think more bodies means more safety. It doesn't. It means more panic."
The ledger man swallowed.
Mira folded her arms. "And your answer is?"
"Lean structure."
"Explain."
"One route captain. One escort line. One healer team per lane. No extra bodies unless they're carrying supplies or holding the rear. Anyone who can't fight doesn't cluster. They move in pairs."
Somin frowned. "That sounds harsh."
"It is."
"It also sounds smart," she said after a second.
Jaehyuk nodded once.
The porter near the door said, "Vanguard won't like that."
"Good," Jaehyuk said.
Mira studied him.
He could almost hear her weighing him, the way she did before a kill. Not fear. Measurement.
"You're cutting the soft people loose," she said.
"No. I'm stopping them from killing the rest of us by accident."
That landed.
Not cleanly. But enough.
Somin looked between them and said, "He's right."
The ledger man laughed once, weak and disbelieving. "That's the sentence I die for, then."
"No one's dying today if you keep moving," Somin snapped.
The man shut up.
Outside, another cry rose. Closer this time.
Then the smell hit.
Smoke.
Not fire. Not yet.
Something chemical and bitter, like burned cloth soaked in cheap oil.
Jaehyuk moved to the doorway and looked out.
The corridor was packed.
Climbers carrying people. Climbers dragging packs. One man vomiting into a corner while someone shouted for him to get up.
The Tower floor vibrated under all of it.
A deep, low hum under the stone.
Like a giant machine breathing through a wall.
"They're moving everyone," Mira said behind him.
"They're herding them," Jaehyuk said.
She went still.
Then she understood.
"To the dead road?"
"To whichever road keeps them useful," he said.
Somin came to stand on his other side. Her hands were stained dark at the fingertips. Blood. Herbs. Something green and sticky from a poultice.
She looked at the corridor, then at him.
"So what's the play?"
Jaehyuk let the silence sit for a beat.
Then: "We stop following their routes."
The ledger man made a choking sound. "You can't just say that."
"I just did."
"That's not how this works."
Jaehyuk finally looked at him.
His voice was quiet enough that the man had to lean in to hear it.
"That's exactly how this works."
Mira's eyes sharpened. "You want us to break the lane."
"I want us to stop paying for Vanguard's mistakes with our own people."
A strange thing happened then.
The room stopped feeling like a clinic.
It felt like a war room.
Not because anyone had become stronger.
Because someone had finally started counting the cost.
Somin crossed her arms. "How many shards do we have?"
The ledger man blinked. "What?"
"How many shards," she repeated, slower this time. "Do we have. Right now."
He checked the books with trembling fingers. "For this wing? Forty-two. Maybe forty-five if the dead man's pouch is still on him."
Mira let out a low breath.
"That's nothing," she said.
Jaehyuk said, "It's enough."
Everyone looked at him again.
He pointed at the board.
"Shards aren't for greed right now. They're for motion. Spend them on healers who can walk. Spend them on runners who know the side passages. Spend them on one person who can scout ahead and come back. Don't waste them on armor that slows you down. Don't waste them on heroics."
The porter frowned. "People will call that cowardice."
Jaehyuk met his eyes.
"Let them."
Mira's mouth twitched once.
Not a smile.
Approval, maybe.
Somin pointed a bloody finger at him. "You do realize you just said the least inspiring thing imaginable."
"Good. Inspiration costs too much."
That got a real laugh out of her.
It spread, small and thin, through the room.
A pressure valve opening.
The sound of people realizing they could breathe for one more second.
Then the clinic door slammed open.
A man in Vanguard colors staggered in, one shoulder soaked black with blood. He looked wild-eyed, pupils blown wide.
He pointed at Jaehyuk.
"They found him," he gasped.
The room went still.
Mira's hand dropped to her sword.
Somin froze with a roll of bandage in her hand.
Jaehyuk said, "Who found who?"
The Vanguard man swallowed hard, mouth working around the words.
"Broker," he said. "He said they found him."
Jaehyuk took one step forward.
"Where is he?"
The man's face collapsed.
Confusion first.
Then fear.
Then something worse.
He stared past Jaehyuk's shoulder, into the hallway.
Into nothing.
"He was here," the man whispered.
Mira turned.
Somin turned.
The hallway behind them was empty.
No footsteps.
No coat.
No trace of tea or coins or that dry, metallic smell.
Jaehyuk's skin went cold.
"Say that again," he said.
The Vanguard man backed into the doorframe, shaking so hard his teeth clicked.
"He said they'd found him," he whispered. "Then he just... wasn't there anymore."
Outside, somewhere in the corridor, a bell started ringing.
Once.
Twice.
Not an alarm.
A summons.
And Jaehyuk already knew, with the sick twist in his gut, that the Tower wasn't ringing it for them.
It was ringing for whoever had just found the Broker.