The red letters hung in the air like a promise and a threat.
TRIAL ONE INITIATED
Silence pressed down for a single heartbeat. Then the whole room answered at once. Lights flickered. The air grew colder. The summoning tool pulsed on Alex's palm in a slow, steady beat that matched his own pulse. The glow was deeper than before—no longer warm or gentle. It felt like iron warmed until it burned.
Luna moved first. She slid from the bed and stood between Alex and the door. Her hand reached for a small rune knife on the shelf, a simple blade for cutting bindings and warding lines. She had never needed it for Alex before. Now she held it like a promise.
Sophia's stance hardened. She crossed the room and set her hands on either side of Alex's shoulders. The weight of her palm steadied him. Her warrior eyes searched the dark corners as if preparing for an enemy that had not yet shown its face.
Elena stayed very still. Her face went quiet, thoughtful. She let a circle of silver light settle in her palm and listen, as if magic could eavesdrop on fate itself. Her fingers drew tiny shapes in the air, but did not speak. She wanted to understand the rules before she acted.
Alex felt the pressure of all of them. He felt the tool like a living thing, hot and patient. He tried to breathe slowly, but breath caught in his throat. Fear was a thin blade. It sliced and stung, but it did not stop him.
A voice rose from nowhere and everywhere. It sounded like wind moving through stone, like pages turning in a book that had no cover. The voice was not cruel. It was patient, like a teacher who has waited a very long time.
First rule, it said. Define your terms. Know what you have borrowed.
The sentence landed in Alex's head. It was clear and small and terrible. He understood. The tool had expectations. The bargain had rules. Those rules were waking now.
"What do you want?" Alex asked, though the voice had said enough.
Play and then prove, the voice answered. Give what you have not yet given. Show the depth of your choice. Or give me what I ask.
Luna's eyes narrowed. "Show the depth?" she repeated aloud. "How do we prove affection to a thing that measures souls?"
The voice softened. Affection cannot be shown in words alone. It must be seen. The bond must be tested where it matters. Where it holds or breaks.
A circle of shadow opened on the floor like a mouth. It was black and quiet and full of the same patient light. From its center rose images—clear as glass, sharp as memory. Each image was a mirror. Each mirror showed something Alex knew too well: the women he had brought into this world.
They were not scenes of pleasure. The first mirror showed Sophia standing alone, her eyes distant, her armor empty at her side. The second showed Elena wandering through an empty library, her hand touching books that were gone. The third showed Luna in a garden at midnight, weeping beneath moonlight.
Alex felt his stomach drop. The mirrors moved and twisted. The images changed fast, like a set of cards flipped with a blunt hand. Now the mirrors showed other things: his rooms stripped bare, curtains drawn closed, the summoning tool glowing with a different light, and the palace gates open while figures in dark robes carried away bundles wrapped in white.
"It shows what could be," Elena whispered. "What might happen if the bond fails."
Sophia's hand tightened on Alex's shoulder until he felt the bone beneath her palm. "So we defend what is real," she said.
The voice spoke again. Trial one will judge attachment. You will be shown the world without that bond. You will feel its loss. Those who remain must prove they stay by choice, not by design. Those who are made may be taken if the tether is weak.
Alex's heart hammered. "That's a test," he said, voice thin. "We are being judged."
Yes, the voice said. And judged by forces that do not sleep. Begin.
A pale light washed the room. It did not come from any lamp. It came from the mirrors on the floor. Alex felt a pull at his chest, like a thread being tugged by a slow and patient hand. He knew the test would call for sacrifice. He knew it might ask for something he could not give.
"Stay together," Luna said, quietly but firmly. She took his hand and Elena's, and Sophia wrapped an arm around both of them. The small circle felt steady for a moment.
The first image moved. It showed Sophia again. This time she stood on the palace roof as rain pelted down. Her face was dark with fury, but there was no anger in her eyes—only determination. She reached down and dropped a small, shining object into the storm. The object disappeared, swallowed by the night.
A sound rose like metal against stone. It was not music. It was a bell that did not ring but warned. The mirror dissolved. The room felt emptier.
"What did she drop?" Alex asked.
The voice answered. A token. A portion of your claim given away. Give what is asked. Or lose the token's value.
"Give what is asked?" Alex echoed. "Who asks? What token?"
Elena's lips pressed thin. "These trials speak in riddles," she muttered. "But their pattern is clear. Power measures sacrifice. The more you keep, the more you owe."
Sophia stared at Alex. "Do you remember when you first used the tool?" she asked. "Did you attach safeguards? Promises? Rules that you thought were small?"
Alex closed his eyes. He did remember the moment. The voice at the dark place had spoken and he had been desperate. He had not read the fine letters. He had not thought how a thing that takes must also want return.
"I didn't think about tokens," he said. "Not really."
"You thought about love," Luna said softly. "But bargains do not count love the same way people do."
The second mirror changed. Now it played a different scene. It showed Elena alone in the halls of the palace. She stopped before a mirror and looked into it. Her reflection did not smile back. Instead, it looked away. Elena's hands trembled as she held a book that had no writing. The book's pages were blank. She closed it and the words did not return.
A wind moved through the chamber though the doors were closed. The smell of old paper and dust filled the air. Alex's hands went cold. "If someone takes their memory, will they still be themselves?" he asked.
Luna answered, thinking. "Memory and choice are tied. If you remove memory, you remove the proof that a bond was ever chosen."
The voice said, Prove it. Let them choose again under pressure. If their choice remains, the bond holds. If not, the tether is clipped and the creation returns.
A third mirror appeared. It showed the three women side by side. They walked into a room that resembled Alex's chamber. They stood before a great door. A figure stood on the other side, shadowed and patient. A voice spoke to them from the shadow. It offered safety, power, and protection. The women listened. The shadow drew close. The mirror shuddered and the shadow's hand reached in.
Alex felt sick. "That could be anyone," he said. "It could be me."
Sophia shook her head. "It could be the bargain itself. It could be the entity that laid claim."
Elena's face hardened. "So the trial will put temptations before them. It will offer ease in exchange for a pivot of loyalty."
"Then we must be honest," Luna said. "We must tell them who we are and why we choose to stay."
Alex nodded. The plan felt small next to the weight of the test. "Tell them now," he said. "Tell them the truth."
He began to speak, words pouring out in a rush. He told them the truth about his accident, about the deal he did not fully understand, about the tool's glow and its hunger. He told them about the way he had wanted comfort more than power. He told them about fear and about the nights he lay awake, wondering if the women he loved were only shapes he had made.
Sophia listened, eyes fixed on him, voice low when she answered. "I was made because you wanted me. But I chose to be more than that. I would stand with you whether you had power or not. The test cannot take my choice away."
Elena's fingers brushed Alex's cheek. "I remember nothing of my past beyond my own making here," she said, "but I remember the choice to stay. That is mine, and the trial cannot take that because it is not a thing that can be given away."
Luna added, "I see the currents of magic. I know why bargains sharpen their teeth. But I also know the sound of free will. I can feel it now. We stay because we want to, not because you command us. That will be our answer."
The mirrors trembled. The voice fell silent for a moment. Then, like a tide drawing back, each mirror emptied. The images faded. The shadow circle closed slowly, folding itself out of sight.
You have answered well, the voice said. You have shown words.
Alex exhaled. His body felt lighter for the first time since the trial began.
But the voice was not finished.
Yet words are not the measure, it said. Action is.
The air shifted again. The summoning tool flared a new light. A thin line of silver unrolled from its surface and wound like thread through the room. The thread threaded itself through each of the women and into Alex's chest, then spread outward to touch the palace walls and the night beyond.
Second rule, the voice announced. Demonstrate sacrifice. Show us what you will lose in return for keeping what you made.
Alex's blood ran cold. He had expected choices and pride. He had not expected cost.
"What do you mean—sacrifice?" he whispered.
Give a portion of the bond's shelter, the voice said. Give a memory, give a comfort, bind a part of your future. Choose, and the tether holds. Refuse, and the link breaks.
Luna's hand tightened on his. "We cannot give your memories," she said quickly. "That would change you."
"You are asking him to cut his past," Elena said, voice thin. "Is that even possible?"
Sophia looked like she had already decided. "If it keeps them whole," she said. "Then we choose sacrifice. But we choose what we will lose together, not as pawns."
A silence fell heavier than before. Alex felt the thread through his chest. He could imagine the price: a memory, the scent of his mother's voice, the name of someone he loved, the moment before the accident. He could give up any one of those and still hold something dear. But the thought of losing part of himself made his stomach twist.
"Do I have to be the one to give?" he asked.
The binder must bind, the voice replied. The origin gives what it borrows. You created them. You must offer part of what you own.
The palace felt smaller. The world outside, for the first time, seemed not only distant but hungry.
Alex thought of all the nights he had spent alone before the deal. He thought of the crash that had sent his life into darkness. He thought of the voice that had promised a second chance. Nothing about his past was sacred now. Everything was currency.
He closed his eyes.
He remembered a small café with chipped tiles. He remembered a woman's laugh that had once warmed the room. He remembered the smell of coffee at dawn with someone's hand over his. He had never thought these memories would mean anything in the ledger of bargains.
He opened his eyes and made his choice.
"I give up the taste of coffee on my tongue," he said. The words startled even him. "I give up that comfort. I let that memory go. Keep everyone else. Keep their choice. Keep the bond."
The thread tightened as the words left his mouth. It felt like a knot being pulled. For a flash, his chest ached with loss. He could almost taste the bitter and sweet of that morning, and then the flavor was gone like wind over water.
The silver line shuddered. The women shivered as if they felt the change.
The voice spoke once more. Sacrifice accepted.
Relief hit him like rain. It soaked through the chamber and left him shivering. For a moment, Alex imagined the world had shifted and everything would now be safe.
It did not.
A new sound rose from outside. It was low and mechanical, like a drum beaten under the earth. It made the walls hum. The palace doors trembled.
Third rule, the voice said. The cost of keeping what you made will be watched. Collectors will come to measure your thrift. You cannot avoid them.
Alex stared at the door. He had thought trial one would be a private thing—testing bonds and hearts. He had not expected witnesses.
The humming grew into a call. Figures could be seen on the highest towers now, silhouettes moving like men carrying staffs. They were not human in the way he had met humans before. Their faces were set in iron masks that reflected no light. They moved in perfect order.
Luna's eyes widened. "Collectors," she whispered.
Sophia spat a curse. "They come to take what is owed."
Elena's jaw tightened. "They are the ones that enforce balance. They will not be bargained with."
Alex felt the thread of silver tightening again. The scent of rain came back, but this time it smelled like metal and old coins. The tool's light shifted. It traced lines from the palace to the towers, from the towers to a wider network. The bargain was deeper than he thought.
"We need a plan," Sophia said. Her voice was steel. "We can fight them. We can hide them. We can bargain."
"We can run," Elena offered.
Luna shook her head. "Running will make them search. They prefer lists. They will follow footprints. Hiding will only slow them."
Alex's mind went a thousand places at once. The idea of the women being taken by faceless collectors sickened him. He had already traded something of himself. He had more he was willing to give, but he worried what those next sacrifices might demand.
He thought of Garr in the old story—someone who gave his life to protect a secret. He had vowed not to let sacrifices be wasted. He would not let anyone be taken for a debt he could repay.
"We fight," he said. His voice felt small inside the huge room, but it held something hard. "If they come, we meet them. We show them we are not mere possessions."
Sophia smiled with a flash of teeth. "Good. Fight with me."
Elena added, "Work with me. Let me find ways to mask them."
Luna said, quietly, "We will need more than courage. We will need allies."
The palace doors burst outward then, not from force but from the quiet opening of a wide metal mouth. Shadows poured in along with the sound of the drum. The collectors spread like black flowers across the courtyard, each man tall and precise.
They walked with a slow, calling step. No one shouted. No one ran. They moved as if nothing could stop them.
Alex's throat tightened.
The tool on his palm burned a new color. Letters wrote themselves across its surface in a language he had not seen before, then translated like a whisper straight into his mind.
Collector One: Arrival. Assessing. Offer measured. Fail results in reclamation.
The words were small and sharp.
Beyond the courtyard, the towers' eyes blinked awake, red lights like pools opening in stone.
Alex could not deny it now: the bargain had watchers. The price would be enforced with a hands-made law.
He turned to his companions. Their faces were pale with tension, but resolute.
"We stand together," Sophia said, and there was no more to say.
They moved to the chamber door as one. Outside, the collectors walked closer, their steps making the ground sing. The very air seemed to line up for judgment.
Alex put the tool back into his pocket. It was cold now. He felt the loss of the taste of coffee like a shadow behind his teeth. He could not call the past back. He could only step forward.
The first collector reached the palace steps and looked up. The mask did not show eyes, but Alex felt that the figure could see everything—how he had chosen, what he had given, and what he might yet refuse.
The figure raised a staff. Small lights winked along its length. A paper, thin and pale, unrolled from the top. Words formed on the page like frost.
"Inventory," the mask said in a voice that was both a bell and a ledger. "List all claims. Present the binder. Show the tether."
Alex swallowed. His hands shook.
Sophia stepped forward. "We will do more than list," she said. "We will show that these are not objects to be collected."
The collector's staff glowed. The paper fluttered. The words on it changed, then steadied like a final law. The page read: ONE DAY GRACE. PROVE THE VALUE OR SURRENDER AN ITEM OF EQUAL WORTH.
Alex's mouth went dry. One day.
The collector bowed once, a mock of respect. It turned and spread its arms. More figures moved around the courtyard, each carrying a paper that listed claims in numbers and in code.
Every protector in the city would be able to read their meaning. A clock began somewhere in Alex's mind, ticking down.
He had one day.
One single day to prove the depth of choice. One day to bind the tether with more than words and a single memory.
They had to prepare.
They had to choose what to show and what to hide.
They had to gather allies in the time a bell could ring.
Alex felt the tool heavy in his pocket. The bargain still breathed, patient as thunder.
They had chosen to stay together. Now the world had given its answer.
Outside, the collectors began to move like tide, methodical and patient. The palace's lights trembled.
And inside, Alex felt the first true crack in paradise.
A distant bell tolled three times. The collectors raised their staffs. The first name on their pages glowed. Alex's own name pulsed where it should not have.