We navigated from the night market to Roz’s flat in the city center, anticipating itching under my skin. Finally, I’d be able to summon my patron god and fulfill another Slayer quest. Even more satisfying was that I didn’t need Helas’s help to do it.

“This one’s mine,” Roz says, gesturing at a three-story building the color of faded salmon with flower boxes accompanying the big windows facing the street.

She led me up the stairs to the top floor and opened the door to a flat that looked barely inhabited. The small living room had a sofa, and a low table with a few floor cushions was pushed into a corner. What should’ve been a kitchen was filled with potion-making ingredients and tools.

I wouldn’t be surprised if her bedroom had a fully made bed, never slept in.

“This is your place?” I asked. “You live here?”

“Of course. Don’t try to stalk me or anything, though. That wouldn’t be very nice.”

I raised my hands in defeat. “No stalking. Understood.”

“Now let me work.”

She cracked her knuckles and then started reaching for ingredients, skillfully adding them to the cauldron. The base ingredients first: lunar dew and shadow mist. Then mandrake root, lemon tears, myrrh pearls, and whispering wind essence. The next ingredient caught me off guard.

I’d never seen a potion for summoning call for azurite crystal powder.

The words of the lizardfolk she’d called Srax lingered in my mind. For you, dear seeker niece, a precious portion might linger…But… n-none have yet worked?

“So have you tried this potion before?” I asked.

Roz glanced over her shoulder, and I could see an internal debate play on her face. She sighed, turned back to the cauldron to continue working on the potion, and said, “I saw a ritual in Washalasha once that used this potion.”

I studied her from behind. Her long pink hair. Her small frame and expensive clothes. She’d said she had family in Selanatheas, so what had she been doing in the capitol city of the Sevenwinds in Lathyr? Or maybe the better question was…

“How many times have you tried to summon your patron god and failed?”

Her hands stilled and her back stiffened. “What about you? I answered your question before. Only fair this way—an answer for an answer.”

I walked to her side so I could see her face and put a charming smile on. “Only once so far. I was at a temple with my mentor, and her god answered the summon but mine didn’t. Not even the clerics understood why. I’m assuming it’s more than once for you.”

Her brows furrowed. “Yes, more than once. I’m beginning to think…” She stopped herself and took in a shaky breath. “Never mind. No one knows the will of the gods, so there’s no use speculating.”

I disagreed. There was use in speculating, and so I activated [Silver Tongue].

【NOTICE】

You have activated Silver Tongue [Uncommon].

Your charm influences your target into trusting and respecting anything you say for up to ten minutes a day.

Please concentrate on your target...

“What’re you beginning to think?” I asked, leaning closer and catching her red eyes with mine. “Why do you want to summon your patron god?”

She swallowed hard. “That Ket’ha has abandoned me…I need to make sure he hasn’t abandoned me. If he has, then…”

“Then?”

“…Then I’m truly alone and there’s no hope for us.” Her lips trembled and tears welled at her lower lashes.

Silence sounded like white noise around us. I had so many more questions, but it wouldn’t do me any good to upset her. If I pushed her too far, [Silver Tongue] wouldn’t help me.

Slowly, I rested my hands on her shoulders, giving her the opportunity to shy away if she didn’t want the touch. This had always worked to comfort Harorin. While I didn’t mean a single word that came out of my mouth next, that didn’t mean the words weren’t true.

“That’d just mean we were both abandoned,” I said, “so you wouldn’t be alone.”

She blinked and nodded after a moment of hesitation. “Both abandoned…” A pretty smile flashed on her face as she laughed. “You’re right. But let’s hope it works this time though, yeah? It’s almost ready.”

I released her, and she transferred two cups’ worth of potion into a glass vial and plugged it with a stopper. She pocketed it along with another tiny vial she picked up from a drawer. From there, she pulled me to a door that I suspected was a bathroom, but I was wrong.

The door led into the back of a spacious tent lit with hanging lamps that cast shadows against the rugs and pillows on the floor. In the front of the tent, a flap caught in the breeze showed a desert beneath the stars.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Not just anyone could work magic like this. Who was Roz really? What was it that she thought we needed hope for? Why couldn’t we do the summoning in the city?

“Sit,” she said, plopping down on one of the floor pillows and pointing to another nearby.

As she poured the potion into a teapot, I took a seat. She nestled the kettle into a bundle of wood and lit a fire with a simple spell.

“The smoke and the steam will fill the tent,” she said with her attention in the flames as if it’d make them burn hotter and faster. “I’m hoping that’ll enhance the effect. We’ll drink a cup each and then you’ll recite the spell after me.”

We could’ve done that in a room in the city, though. There was another reason we were out here. Likely because no one would know what we were doing out here. Maybe someone was watching Roz. Or maybe nothing good would come out of summoning a god in the city.

The smoke from the fire curled toward the tent ceiling and twisted out of the front flap of the tent. Beneath that acrid smell, the steam from the potion added notes of spice, earth, and citrus to the air. When the smoke and the steam began to burn my eyes, Roz used a mitt to pour us each a cup.

“Drink up.” She tipped hers back and swallowed it down in a hurry.

“…I better not regret this.”

I did the same, surprised that it didn’t burn all the way down, but nearly choked at the aftertaste. At the Temple of the Shevirat back in Bolstaor, the pool of water Helas had us drink from had tasted similar, but the otherworldly quality was missing in the taste.

She kneeled in front of me, her cheeks flush and her eyes glossy, and took off a beaded necklace. It was easily three times as long as it’d appeared.

“Probably not the leash you imagined,” she said as she draped it across her shoulders to mine. Then she held out her hands to me, palms up, and I took them in my own. As if she felt the need to further explain, she added, “I’m improvising.”

“Didn’t expect you’d join me in it, that’s for sure. Are you sure it’s not that you just want to put pretty jewelry on me and hold my hands?”

“That sounds like the potion talking. Now, repeat after me: manio Shevira manio Ket’ha.”

Much simpler than the spell the clerics had used.

We chanted together in the haze building inside the tent, the intensity of the smoke and steam making it harder and harder to pull in a deep breath. My lungs, my head, my eyelids grew heavy with it all until I was sure I’d closed my eyes and fallen asleep.

Something wasn’t right.

【NOTICE】

You have activated Cold-Blooded Nature [Uncommon].

Your senses have sharpened to maintain complete clarity in any situation, giving you control over your mind and body and making you immune to experiences of pain, paralysis, mind control, and brainwashing for one hour a day.

My eyes snapped open to the inside of the darkening tent, my neck straightened as my chest ached for air. My next inhale moved through me thick like tar and stole all sensations from my skin except the cold prickle of my body hair raising.

The clarity I’d hoped would shock me into regaining my senses didn’t come. Neither did the buzzing that always accompanied the skill when it was working against some external force.

Somewhere, a single word escaped from Roz in a trembling whisper. “Oh.”

If she said anything else, the sound was lost to the unnatural, uneasy quiet settling around me.

I’d been expecting an experience similar to the temple, when the mirror in the water had flickered between the different colors and shades of the divine minerals like prism. When Sak’hed had answered the summon back then, she’d radiated compassion and comfort.

But instead, it was like I’d returned to my nightmares. An oppressive darkness. An inescapable silence. An ominous emptiness shivering in the air and down my spine. All of it weighed in my chest and constricted my throat.

Then, like sand settling at the bottom of an hourglass, a gold throne materialized out of the darkness. A faceless figure, robed in black, emerged from behind it. They sat, placed their hands on each armrest, and leaned forward until I caught a glimpse of what had been obscured by shadow.

Rotting flesh and face-splitting smile with pointed teeth accompanied soulless black eyes.

Demon. But how—

My eyes snapped open again to the dark tent, Roz kneeling in front of me with her head craned backward and her hands tightly clasping mine. I followed her line of sight, taking in the darkness clawing at her shoulders like hands, and found a monstrous shadow loomed above her.

As it lowered closer and closer to her, she remained unmoving. As though she hadn’t registered any danger, but her grip and her expression said otherwise. Her mouth hung open. Tears trailed down her cheeks. It was more like she’d decided she couldn’t escape—like she’d accepted her death.

But just like the brief flash of the demon before, my [Demeot Eyes] didn’t react. And just like then, this apparition disappeared like a drawing in the sand.

All that remained was the impossibly heavy feeling in my head and my chest, the tightness of my throat and the thinness of my breaths. I doubled over as a groan struggled out of me, barely audible under the screeching of [Cold-Blooded Nature].

“What—” I tried to speak, but everything I wanted to say was replaced with a flashback I never wanted to see again.

Mom’s death.

My brothers’ betrayal.

My father’s cane cracking over my head.

But those memories were easily dismissed by Harorin’s death. It was the freshest of them all. The rest was tempered by time and expectations. My father killing me? That hadn’t surprised me. Harorin and his friendship had surprised me though.

I groaned again, overwhelmed by a sense of devastation that I’d been trying to avoid. It wasn’t as if I’d wanted to be Harorin’s friend in the first place, and I wouldn’t have befriended him if I’d known it’d feel like this after he died. As much as I tried to push it aside, it came back again and again, [Cold-Blooded Nature] screaming louder and louder until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

【NOTICE】

You have deactivated Cold-Blooded Nature [Uncommon].

You have 37 minutes and 22 seconds of use remaining today.

The shriek of the skill disappeared it, but greater devastation replaced it. I wrapped my arms around myself and ignored the wetness on my face.

“What—” I tried again, but this time the words got stuck in my throat.

“It’s the lunar dew,” Roz whispered through her own tears. “Auntie warned me, but…”

With shaking hands, she took the necklace from my shoulders and produced the small vial she’d pocketed earlier. She uncorked it, her movements jerking as a sob escaped her, and dabbed some of the liquid inside onto her fingertip to transfer onto my lips.

“F-failed again,” she muttered as she did the same for herself. “I can’t believe it. What am I going to do now? I’m so sorry.”

Potent lunar dew had the effect of compelling emotional openness. So I could believe her surprise, her sense of loss, and her apology. What she lost in failing again, I didn’t know and couldn’t guess, but I felt it, too.

“Hold me,” Roz croaked. “Please. Just until the antidote takes effect. Please.”

I took her into my arms. She was shivering, her small body quaking with every new sob that tore out of her. I wished I could reassure her, but I couldn’t even reassure myself.

What would happen if I could never summon Ket’ha?