Dante should have known the Abyssal Brokers wouldn’t let him walk away without a demonstration.

  They didn’t deal in trust. They didn’t waste time with reassurances. Words were flimsy things, easily twisted, easily broken. No—what the Brokers valued was proof. Proof that you understood the cost, proof that you grasped the weight of a contract, proof that you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that everything you gained had already left a wound somewhere in its wake.

  And so, when the Broker led him down into the depths of the Undermarket, past the flickering glow of Pactflame lanterns, past doors that smelled of ink and blood and something older, Dante knew—

  This was a test.

  Not one he could pass with brute force. Not one he could talk his way out of.

  This was a Pactmaker’s trial.

  The room they entered was silent. Too silent. It wasn’t just an absence of noise—it was an absence of presence. No echoes. No air shifting. The sound of his own breath felt foreign, like it didn’t belong here. The kind of void that made the skin crawl, that made the mind doubt itself.

  At the center stood a table.

  Not old, not new, not made of anything remarkable. Just a table. And yet, it carried weight. Not the weight of wood and nails, but something deeper, something unspoken.

  Atop it, three items:

  4. A silver locket, its chain tangled, its surface worn smooth, as if held too tightly for too long.

  5. A folded scrap of paper, edges burned, words barely visible beneath the scorch marks.

  6. A single, unlit candle, its wax untouched, waiting for a spark that had never come.

  Dante didn’t recognize any of them.

  And yet, as he stepped closer, something inside him stirred. A wrongness, a phantom ache just beneath the surface of his thoughts, like a dream half-remembered.

  The Broker smiled. A knowing, lazy thing. "One of these belongs to you.”

  Dante frowned. “What?”

  The Broker gestured lazily. “The Abyss always collects. But sometimes, it takes… indirectly.” A pause. A glint of amusement in those sharp, knowing eyes. "Memories. Attachments. Pieces of what makes you, you. Things you’ve already lost but never noticed.”

  Dante’s throat went dry.

  Something was missing.

  He had felt it for years now—a hollow space, a whisper of something stolen. An absence that wasn’t quite pain, but close enough to make him wonder. It had never been clear what had been taken. Until now.

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  The realization settled over him like a slow, creeping frost. This wasn’t just about a lost trinket, some forgotten keepsake buried beneath the weight of years. This was deeper. The kind of absence that left shadows in the soul, spaces where something vital had once been. A memory that no longer existed. A name he should have known. A promise whispered in the dark and then—gone.

  The worst part? He hadn’t even noticed. How many times had he retraced his past, searching for answers that refused to take shape? How many nights had he stared at the ceiling, convinced there was something just out of reach, something that didn’t quite fit? The Abyss hadn’t just taken. It had stolen without leaving a scar. And that terrified him more than any debt, more than any enemy.

  Because if it had happened once, it could happen again. If he walked away now, if he refused to choose—what else would he lose? What pieces of himself were already slipping through his fingers, waiting to be devoured by the silent, hungry void?

  Now, the Abyss was offering him a choice.

  Now, the Abyss was offering him a choice.

  One thing returned. The others? Erased forever.

  This wasn’t just about survival. It wasn’t even about power.

  It was about value.

  What did he need the most?

  His past? (The locket.)

  A truth he’d forgotten? (The paper.)

  Or a future yet to be burned? (The candle.)

  His fingers hovered over the objects, each one radiating a pull that was almost instinctual. Not magic, not some supernatural compulsion—something worse. Recognition. As if his body remembered what his mind could not, as if his very bones knew which piece had been his before it was stolen away. And yet, when he tried to focus, to grasp the edges of that missing piece, it slipped like sand through his fingers.

  Was the locket once pressed into his palm by a hand he should have remembered? Did the paper hold words that had once shaped his path, words he had written, spoken, lived by? And the candle—was it a promise never fulfilled, or a fate he had abandoned before it could consume him? The weight of the decision settled in his chest, suffocating. No choice was without consequence. No path was without loss.

  And that was the real trick, wasn’t it? The Abyss wasn’t just testing what he wanted back. It was testing what he was willing to lose forever.

  The Abyssal Mark burned cold against his skin, pulsing like a second heartbeat, like it already knew what he would choose. Like it was waiting for him to admit it.

  Dante exhaled slowly. Then, he reached out.

  And chose.

  The table vanished. The void collapsed.

  Sound rushed back in all at once—a sharp intake of breath, the distant murmur of the Undermarket beyond these walls, the quiet hum of something watching.

  When he opened his eyes, he was back in the Broker’s office.

  The room felt smaller than before, the air thick with something unspoken. Not magic, not fear—something deeper. A shift in the balance, like the moment after a deal is struck but before the consequences unfold. The Broker watched him with an expression Dante couldn’t quite read—amusement, curiosity, and just a hint of satisfaction. As if he had expected this choice all along. As if the game had already moved to its next phase.

  Dante’s grip tightened around the object, its weight too familiar, yet utterly alien. His mind raced, searching for the missing connections, for the memories that should have surfaced the moment he touched it. But the Abyss was never that generous. It didn’t give—it bargained. Whatever he had reclaimed, it wasn’t free. The price had been paid the moment he reached out. And though he didn’t know what had been taken in return, he could feel the loss. A void, subtle but undeniable, pressing at the edges of his thoughts like an ache he couldn’t name.

  He exhaled slowly, forcing himself to meet the Broker’s gaze. “What did it cost?” His voice was steady, but he already knew the answer. The Broker’s smirk was sharp as ever, but there was something else beneath it—a quiet, knowing amusement. “That, Dante,” he said, swirling his glass, “is for you to figure out.”

  The item he had chosen—his piece of the past, the truth, or the future—was clutched in his hands, as real as the pounding of his heart.

  And in that moment, he understood—

  He wasn’t just in debt to the Abyss anymore.

  He was marked by it.