The Adventures of Sorceress Miya

Miya Lancaster

The Kingdom of Veindor. The Human Academy of Magic. This was the quarter where less affluent mages and students who could not afford private lodgings usually lived. Magic was a constant presence here—someone was always practicing illusions, while someone else was trying to brew potions on a windowsill. But what was happening in one of those attic rooms today went far beyond any ordinary bit of student mischief.

Warm candlelight pooled across the dim room, thick and golden, catching the cracked spines of ancient grimoires and casting long shadows from the looming furniture. On the floor, a summoning circle drawn in ritual charcoal and sealed with the fresh blood of a five-toed mountain starling pulsed with power. Its lines hummed, straining under a pressure that did not belong to this world.

Incredible! She had actually done it!

Miya stood frozen, scarcely breathing. Her eyes were wide with a wild, intoxicating blend of ecstasy and soul-chilling terror as darkness gathered at the center of the circle, tearing through the fabric of space. The spell had worked perfectly. She—a mere apprentice who had stolen a forbidden high-level summoning scroll right from under the magisters’ noses—had done the impossible.

When she was a child, her father, a mage of no great strength who had never risen beyond the rank of journeyman, took her to the Academy’s founding festival every year. Amid the crowds and brilliant displays, mages and students performed wonders: turning water into wine, transforming the living into the inanimate and back again, and summoning demons from the Abyss.

Holding her father’s hand, Miya watched with breathless fascination and a hint of fear, dreaming that one day she would stand there herself and command the true, living darkness. Later, she learned that most of those demons were clever phantoms. But the dream had already sunk its roots too deep. She swore she would summon a real demon and become the greatest sorceress of her age. And now that childhood ambition was taking physical form before her eyes.

The darkness within the circle dispersed, and the demon fully materialized.

At first glance, he could have passed for human—an extraordinarily handsome man with sharp, predatory, aristocratic features. He looked no older than twenty-seven. Nearly two meters tall, graceful as a panther about to spring, he stood barefoot inside the pentagram. He wore only a simple black silk shirt with the collar open and dark, close-fitting trousers cropped above the ankles. A neat slit at the back of the trousers allowed a long tail, black as midnight, to emerge. It moved slowly and fluidly, like a cat’s tail—not nervously or threateningly, but with the same lazy grace that defined his entire appearance.

His hair was black as the Abyss from which he had been summoned, falling untidily across his forehead. But two details shattered any illusion of human elegance. His eyes burned with molten, poisonous gold, their pupils narrowed to vertical slits. His fingers ended in claws black as pitch, sharp enough to make anyone think twice about coming close.

Such a primal, concentrated sense of danger radiated from him that everything inside Miya contracted into an icy knot. Her soul, which she had never given much thought to, seemed to drop straight into her shoes. As the demon finished materializing, the air grew heavy, thick with the smell of ozone and dry, scorched earth. Then his gaze slid over her—slow, assessing, faintly amused—and she felt it like a touch against her skin.

She tried to reassure herself.

If I hide his eyes beneath an illusion, conceal his claws, and disguise his tail… he could walk through any city without attracting a second glance. The perfect bodyguard. All that remained was to recite the formula of absolute obedience and fasten the mental collar around his neck.

Gathering the last drops of her rapidly evaporating courage, Miya drew a deep breath, raised her chin defiantly, and parted her lips, ready to unleash the thunderous weave of the spell. But before she could make a sound, a lazy, mocking, utterly weary voice, smooth as velvet, cut through the silence.

“So?”

Miya choked on the first word, broke into a coughing fit, and doubled over, instantly losing every ounce of her majestic grandeur as the queen of demonic charms.

Kron.

A High Demon known simply as Kron was not merely annoyed. He was furious—a fury he concealed masterfully behind a mask of lazy, feline indifference.

He had not been dragged away from some tedious task, nor interrupted in the middle of the usual, exhausting routine of the Infernal Realm, such as torturing sinners or sorting infernal paperwork. The summoning magic had rudely yanked him away at the single worst possible moment. For the past two hours, Kron had been conducting a flawless, subtle seduction of a devilishly delectable demoness.

The conversation had flowed like wine, things had been steadily progressing toward the bedroom, and the little minx had already been biting her plump lips, stretching provocatively, and arching her back with a promise of an unforgettable night. Kron had been just about to make his move when—snap. A sudden rupture in reality, a flash of someone else’s magic, and here he was. His evening had been ruined, completely and irrevocably. Even if he dealt with this mortal in a matter of seconds, there would be no way to return to that exact moment and recapture the same mood. Which meant that this insolent summoner owed him compensation. Of the most depraved kind.

The laws of creation were absolute, so Kron obeyed the summons. Even during the transition, the experienced predator tested his restraints. Much to his profound annoyance, the binding circle imprisoning him had been drawn flawlessly. There was not a single mistake in the runes, and the geometry vibrated with raw power.

Kron took his time looking around, assessing the situation. A small, rather cozy attic room: a chest of drawers, a table, a couple of chairs, a wide bed against the wall, a rolled-up rug... and a thoroughly terrified girl standing frozen in the center of the room, outside the summoning circle. Kron’s tail flicked behind him, slow and thoughtful, like a cat whose interest had suddenly been piqued.

Demons of the Abyss, seriously? Kron had genuinely expected to find a shrewd archmage, deeply entangled in court intrigues, with whom he could negotiate a few profitable deals. Instead, standing before him was a walking disaster dressed in a stiff corset, tight trousers, and a long cloak trailing across the floor.

The girl was paralyzed with fear. Kron could clearly see her knees trembling beneath the folds of her cloak, her fingers gripping the fabric so tightly that her knuckles had gone white. And yet she was doing her absolute best to play the role of a fierce queen—shoulders squared, face frozen in an expression of haughty superiority. But her wide, terrified pupils gave her away completely.

With a mental sigh, Kron decided to prod the poor thing into action before she fainted from sheer terror.

“So?” he repeated, folding his arms across his chest and tilting his head slightly.

The mortal swallowed convulsively, struggling to catch her breath, and finally managed to force out her first words. Proud, loud, and almost shrill:

“State your name, demon!”

Kron could not restrain himself. He let out an openly contemptuous laugh, followed by a yawn that exposed pearly white fangs sharper than anything a human could possess.

Has she lost her mind? Summon a High Demon through a generic key without even knowing whom she’s calling or why? Judging by that warlike yet panicked tone, she isn’t bluffing. Which means only one thing: this little fool found an ancient text, memorized the pronunciation, and read it aloud without bothering to translate the text or learn the terms of the bargain.

Kron slowly and fluidly paced along the edge of the circle, like an enormous, well-fed cat studying a mouse. His tail went still behind him—then, with one sudden, swift, soundless motion, sliced through the air as though drawing a line beneath some private conclusion. His gaze, heavy and lingering, openly undressed her, sliding over her figure before coming to rest on the curve of her hips and the breasts pushed upward by her corset. Under that gaze, the girl faltered at once, her face flooding with a deep, burning blush, and she took a timid step backward, earning another mocking smile from Kron.

He studied her aura, expecting to find the familiar filth that usually drove mortals to summon creatures of the Abyss. But to his surprise, the girl’s mental field was remarkably clean. There was no rot in her, no trace of betrayal, cowardly informer’s instincts, petty spite, or vile deeds. She was proud, ambitious, foolish, and desperate—but she was not corrupt.

This one will be fun to play with.

“Kron,” he introduced himself, letting his voice rumble low and seductive, like the whisper of gold slipping through one’s fingers.

Miya Lancaster.

A triumphant spark instantly lit up in the sorceress’s eyes. He gave me his name! He is submitting, and he can’t cross the line! The terror inside her retreated for a fraction of a second, giving way to pure, intoxicating triumph. If this monster had acknowledged her power, then it was time to put him to work.

Gathering all the mental energy she could muster, she rattled off the formula of absolute enslavement in a rapid, ringing stream of words. Miya poured every ounce of her will and the last remnants of her mana into the spell, expecting the circle to flare a furious crimson as it forged an unbreakable bond inside his mind...

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The protective runes on the floor did not even flicker. No connection formed. The demon merely narrowed his impossible yellow eyes, sparks of open, mocking amusement dancing deep within them. Meanwhile, his tail slowly stretched straight out behind him, almost ceremonially, and came to a stop pointing directly at her forehead. For a moment, Miya could have sworn even the tail was laughing at her.

“How old are you, girl?” he asked. The High Demon’s icy tone was now heavily seasoned with an irony that made the sorceress want nothing more than to stamp her foot in frustration.

“I am not a girl!” she snapped, feeling the heat of shame and anger flood her cheeks. “And that’s none of your business!”

Why didn’t the spell work? She had checked the structure three times! The demonology textbooks said it in black and white... wait. What exactly had they said about High Demons?

“Oh, not a girl anymore, are you?” Kron smirked, and that predatory smile made her shrink inwardly once again. He was simply playing with her like a cat playing with a half-dead mouse. “And yet? I need a number for the records, my precious.”

“Twenty-three,” she muttered reluctantly, steadying her breathing and doing everything in her power not to look at his bare chest. Or his tail. Especially his tail, which was now swaying lazily from side to side—completely independent, completely smug.