I spend the rest of my morning brooding romantically in the gardens.

By lunch, I’m eating something perfectly extravagant that bears no resemblance to anything I’ve seen on Earth.

In the afternoon, I let Edrin explain the final recalibrations for the summoning ritual while I nod at the right moments.

By the time night falls, the palace has changed.

Corridors empty with intention. Guards stand farther out than usual, hands resting near weapons they hope they won’t need. Servants whisper and avoid the lower staircases altogether.

When they come to fetch me, I go without ceremony.

The stairs spiral down into the oldest part of the palace—the part built before crowns had names. The air cools with every turn. Torchlight fades, replaced by embedded crystals humming faintly in the walls. Old magic. Stable. Watchful.

The stone down here remembers things.

The summoning chamber opens at the base of the final stair—wide and circular, ceiling swallowed in shadow. The floor is carved with layer upon layer of sigils: ancient lines cut deep and imperfect, overlaid with revisions from hands long dead. Corrections. Reinforcements. Failures.

At the center sits my work.

The circle I rewrote.

Clean geometry imposed over fractured doctrine.

My necklace rests on a stone plinth. The managems glow softly, patient. Waiting.

Edrin stands pale but steady. Iseph is already murmuring prayers—not desperate, but reverent. Cassian and Rook take up positions at the chamber’s edge, silent, alert.

Alaric stands near me. No crown. No pretense. Just presence.

I survey the room with awe. “Well done, Edrin. You really put that coffee to use.”

Edrin lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“High praise,” he murmurs, pushing his glasses up with ink-stained fingers. “I only rewrote the circle twelve times.”

The chamber hums in response.

The sigils glow brighter now—my sigils overriding the old ones without resistance. The fractured summoning array no longer fights itself; it aligns. Lines that once bled mana now conduct it cleanly, smoothly.

Alaric’s voice is low beside me. “This is the moment,” he says.

Then, to me, blue eyes full of anticipation. “Are you ready?”

I nod. “Let’s do this.”

Edrin steps forward.

He moves to the outer ring of the circle and kneels, placing both hands flat against the carved stone. The sigils beneath his palms pulse once—dim, testing.

He closes his eyes.

When he speaks, his voice isn’t loud.

It doesn’t need to be.

“By the Radiant Accord rewritten,” he says, steady despite the tremor in his breath, “by will freely given and flame unbound—”

The old lines flare faintly in protest.

Edrin inhales.

Then he presses his thumb into the innermost seal—the one redrawn from my design—and drags it through the final break in the circle.

The sound it makes isn’t stone on stone.

It’s like a lock turning.

The chamber exhales.

Mana rushes.

The sigils ignite—not all at once, but in sequence, light racing along the carved channels in a spiraling cascade. The fractured ancient array shudders as my clean lines override it, rewriting geometry in real time.

Edrin lifts his head, eyes reflecting impossible light.

“I invoke the conduit beyond this world,” he declares. “Not to cage. Not to consume. But to invite.”

The last word lands.

And the circle answers.

Light folds inward—not exploding, not tearing—opening. Space bends like fabric pulled gently apart. A presence presses through, vast but controlled, careful not to scorch a world that has already suffered enough.

Light gathers the way a breath gathers before a name is spoken.

The managems flare—not violently, but with recognition. The sigils hum, lines lifting off the stone as if depth itself is being rewritten. The air parts, folding inward on itself, and for a suspended heartbeat the chamber is neither here nor elsewhere.

Then she steps through.

Her feet touch the stone without sound.

She is wrapped in pale fabric that moves like it remembers wind from another sky. Her hair falls in a light, luminous spill down her back, threaded faintly with an impossible glow. When she lifts her head, her eyes open to reveal a color that doesn’t exist in this world’s natural palette—a light pink that would look wrong on anyone else.

The chamber exhales.

Iseph drops to his knees. Edrin stares, hands shaking. Cassian stills like a drawn blade. Rook forgets to breathe.

She looks at the circle. At the sigils. At the necklace.

Then—at me.

Recognition blooms across her face.

A soft smile curves her mouth.

“…You found a way,” she says, voice warm and steady.

The summoning seals itself with a gentle chime.

A true saintess stands in the chamber.

“Eladril of Daelion, High Priestess of the Great Goddess of Worlds, Saintess of the Empire of Ellendale,” I say as I step forward and kneel before her.

I take her hand and press a gentle kiss to her knuckles.

“I, Cael Hart—Hero of Daelion, Savior of the Empire of Ellendale, and professional hero—humbly seek your aid in saving this world.” I look up into her eyes, expression warm.

“I have summoned you to this world and bound you to my soul so that you may save us from ruin. Will you accept?”

I smile faintly.

“Please? For your old friend?” I tilt my head. “The one you still owe a favor after losing at cards in that bar outside that backwater town that almost got flattened by a sea monster?”

Eladril laughs. A real laugh—warm, surprised, threaded with memory. It echoes gently through the chamber, breaking the tension like sunlight through cloud.

“Oh, that night,” she says, eyes bright as she squeezes my hand. “You absolutely cheated.”

She steps closer and pulls me up from the floor, hands firm, familiar. Her touch is steady—divine, yes, but also unmistakably Eladril. The woman who drank me under the table. The woman who once stopped a planar collapse with one hand and demanded another round with the other.

“I accept,” she says immediately. No hesitation.

“For the record, I would have accepted even without the favor.”

Her gaze softens then, turning inward—listening. Feeling the bond settle, not as a chain, but as a bridge. The bond flows cleanly between us, vast and controlled, like two oceans agreeing on a tide.

“…You anchored it beautifully,” she murmurs, impressed. “No bleed. No burn. Gods, Cael—this world must be desperate.”

She looks around the chamber now, truly seeing it. The cracked traditions. The watching mortals. The prince standing very still at my side.

Eladril straightens, presence expanding—not oppressively, but authoritatively. The air clears. The chamber breathes easier.

“All right,” she says, rolling her shoulders like someone preparing for work.

“Show me the corruption. Show me the demon king. And then—”

She glances back at me, grin sharp and fond.

“—you can tell me how in all the worlds you ended up with that look on your face when you summoned me.”