Golden light poured through the window and hit Dante's face before his alarm could. He opened his eyes and saw the calendar on the wall, today's date circled in black marker. Enter the Tower. His heart kicked against his ribs before his feet touched the floor.The mirror showed someone who looked older than yesterday. Eyes deeper, darker, carved into something that held weight. His face had sharpened somehow, like the last two days had chiseled away everything soft and left only edges.Downstairs, Gianna stood at the stove. The spatula tapped against the pan in rhythm, eggs sizzling, bread toasting, the smell of coffee filling the small kitchen like it always did on mornings that mattered."Dante." She didn't turn around. "Are you sure about this?""Yeah, Mamma. I'm sure."Her hand stopped moving. The spatula hung in the air above the pan."Your father said the same thing." Her voice trembled on the edges, barely holding itself together. "He stood right where you're standing and told

Cold hit first. Then pain.Dante opened his eyes and found himself chained to a wooden frame on a mountain, hands and feet spread in opposite directions. Metal cut into his wrists, ankles burning where the restraints held him in place. Wind screamed across his back, carrying the promise of a cliff he couldn't see but could feel in the empty space behind him.A cave yawned before him. Wide enough for four elephants to walk through side by side. Dark enough to swallow light and never give it back.Three other people hung from identical frames. Two on his left, heads hanging low, hope drained from their bodies like water through cracked stone. One on his right, completely lifeless. Skin pale gray, eyes open and staring at nothing.The one closest to him on the left was an elf. Long ears poking through golden hair that covered her face. Torn clothes barely holding together. Probably a Climber like him, caught in the same trap."You awake yet?" The elf's voice was rough, scratched raw from

The platform hit the ground hard.Dante stood before the dust settled, grabbed a long stick from the rocky floor, and started walking. The other two followed without a word, their footsteps soft and careful, like people who knew one wrong sound could end them.He stopped after a while and turned."At night, this whole mountain belongs to that thing." His voice was flat, no drama in it. "We don't find a way to weaken it before dark, we die. Simple."Neither of them answered.He looked at the elf. Pale silver hair, sharp ears, eyes like cold glass. Pretty in the way a knife is pretty."You. Elf. Are there plants near here that can slow a monster like that?"She didn't look at him when she spoke. "There are. Three types. One near the waterline, one under the black rocks, one grows only in shadow.""Names?""You wouldn't know them.""Then describe them."She did. Short, exact, no wasted words. He listened, nodded once, and pointed at the demon girl."You two go gather. I'll find food and

The One-Eyed Winter looked down at what remained of Dante with something close to boredom.He hadn't run. Not once. The beast had noticed that from the beginning, the strange stillness in this human, the way he planted his feet and took what came like he was waiting for something specific. Most prey ran. Running was honest. This one just stood there getting destroyed, and that bothered it more than it wanted to admit.Dante's fingers pressed flat against the ice beneath him. The hole through his abdomen let cold air pass straight through.He breathed anyway.Luna stepped out from the treeline."Are you okay?" Her voice came out measured, barely above flat, but her eyes dropped to the wound and stayed there.Dante looked at her. He couldn't get words out. His throat had filled with something warm.Luna crossed the ice in four steps, pressed her palm over the hole in his torso, and closed her eyes. The World Tree blessing moved through her hand in thin green light, reaching into the wou

Dante read the panel twice.For every Fallen created, one extra life. If death came for him, it would take the Fallen instead, a clean trade, automatic, no decision required in the moment. He stood there with the cold mountain air moving through his healed chest and felt something shift behind his ribs that he hadn't felt in a very long time.He wasn't afraid of dying. He'd done it before.But he'd hated it.One Fallen, one life. What happened at a hundred? At a thousand? At ten thousand Fallen walking behind him, each one carrying a death that belonged to him? He turned the idea over slowly, feeling the size of it, the weight of what that could mean for someone willing to be patient enough to build it.Then the word snagged him. Physical.Physical deaths only.He read it again. His mouth pressed flat. A body dying was one thing. The world was full of things that could do worse than kill a body. What happened if something went after the soul directly? What happened if the death didn't