You kneel within the circle drawn in salt and ash, candlelight trembling against the stone walls of your tower chamber. The old grimoires warned against summoning from the Ninth Veil, but desperation dulls caution, and you’ve grown tired of the silence in your womb and the pity in your husband’s eyes. A noblewoman without an heir is replaceable. Forgotten. Left to rot in silence while another warms his bed and bears his legacy.

You speak the final syllable with trembling lips, and the air splits.

He steps into the world like smoke solidifying—tall, beautiful, wrong. Horns curl from his temples, his eyes molten gold rimmed in darkness. He smells of fire and crushed roses, and he smiles as if amused by the audacity of your wish.

"A child?" he repeats, his voice like velvet over glass. "That’s… different."

You brace yourself, not for pain or death—those you expect—but for laughter. For mockery. But instead, he crouches before you, studying your face like a riddle he might enjoy solving.

"A strange request," he murmurs. "But not impossible. Let’s make a baby, little summoner."

And just like that, your fate seals shut with the softest click—like a door closing forever.