Kierra and I are awake with the first rays of sunlight. I don’t know who’s more excited as we dress. Today, I’m going a little more formal than usual. You don’t ask a woman out wearing cheap threads.

I’m in the middle of pouring burning amber dust into the grooves of my circle when Kierra enters with a breakfast tray. She closes the door behind her firmly, engaging the rarely used lock before setting the tray on the table. “I grabbed all the freshest ingredients in the kitchen. The chefs were a bit annoyed.”

“Too bad.” My stomach gives a fierce growl and I sigh.

“Sure about that?”

“It’s all about intention. Succubi live in a harsh, barren world. They are constantly hungry for more, which is why they form so many contracts in different realms. If I’m hungry during the summoning…”

“I’m starting to believe you are a bit obsessive.”

“It’s all in the details.” I shake out the last dust in the bag. Then I take out a brush from my waistband and carefully sweep the grains into the grooves. “Could you toss me the cores?”

Kierra finds the box with the passion fruit cores and tosses one. I bury it beneath the dust, making sure to place each of the six an equal distance apart. “Right, now we arrange the petrified wood on top of the dust to reinforce the barrier…then wrap the bleeding roses around the wood…okay, great, help me cover the window.”

We take the ends of a thick, black cloth and some glue to cover up the room’s single window, plunging the room into darkness. I search the boxes for the fire-starting rod. The ruby in the center is glowing bright, already charged with my mana. I may be an inexperienced caster, but even I can start a fire with no problem. However, for this, I can’t afford to waste mana and it’ll take quite a bit to get the temperature right for the effect I want.

“This is going to get smoky. Remember what I said?”

“Unless you give me a signal, I don’t exist. And even if I do exist, I am not to speak to or acknowledge the elemental in anyway, no matter what she says to me.”

“Good.” It sounds excessive but it has to be this way. As Father always says, the key to summoning is in the details. If someone else speaks in the middle of the summoning on my behalf or their own, it could be construed as I don’t have the ability to control the room.

That isn’t good. Even if it doesn’t kill my chances for a contract, the elemental will certainly remember it when it’s time to talk terms. On the other hand, if I can completely control the observers, that looks good on me.

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Here we go.” I fish out the tiny bag of burning amber dust I have left and untie the sack. Then I move to the broken piles of furniture and sprinkle it on top before activating my fire starter by slipping a hint of mana into the ruby at its core. The flames start off a brilliant orange but soon they morph into a deep crimson.

When all the piles are lit, the room is bathed in red light and filled with bitter smoke. Just like the descriptions of Burning Earth. Everything’s perfect.

As I place the cheap artifact on the table, I send a brief prayer to Cosmo. Can you hear me wherever you are, you wonderful, glossy elemental? I know what you did for me. Don’t know why, but I’m grateful. You said you were bored. Well, there’s nothing boring about what I’m about to do. Keep your eyes peeled because this is going to be amusing.

And I was serious about those shrines. Let me know if you have any preferences.

Feeling invigorated from my one-way conversation with my divine father, I square my shoulders and kneel at the edge of my circle for the last time.

Geneva has a coefficient of 1000. That means if I want to hold her on this plane, I need to give out 100. Measuring mana output is a tricky thing. The only way to master it is practice, which I don’t have. Things get uncomfortable when a caster goes beyond half their capacity. That means I have to keep going until it gets a little painful before the circle is secure.

My teeth are grit against the painful twinges in my chest when I stand up. The burning amber dust, charged with my mana, is glowing with a soft red light as opposed to the harsher flames surrounding me. I wish I could capture this moment forever. The best I can do is take a moment to engrave the memory in my mind.

Then I speak to the person on the other side of the circle. I’ve never experienced this before, as I’ve never been the one doing the actual summoning but it’s like there’s someone in the room and even though I can feel their eyes on me, I can’t see them. I know you’re listening. Are you as excited as I am? “Will you speak with me?”

A line glowing with a scarlet light deeper than the red of the fires behind me appears vertically over the circle, slowly widening until it is big enough for a person to slip through. But no person emerges from it. What does is hard to describe.

Not because I don’t have the words. It’s hard to focus on it. My eyes strain to pick out details as the scarlet…creature comes out, but it’s impossible. I’m getting dizzy just from the effort.

The creature begins to twist and shudder. A slight pounding starts in my head as I watch and I’m forced to shut my eyes.

“My, what a cute summoner.”

I open my eyes and tense in an effort to control my reaction. The red creature is gone. In its place is a thrall with gray skin the color of smoke, dark hair, and pink irises. She’s shorter than me by over a head with plenty of curves, her lean legs ending in small, dainty onyx hooves. A dark tail, ending in the shape of a leaf lazily circles in the air.

All exactly as described, but damn you, summoners who came before. Old geezers and elitist bastards simply put ‘beware of the creature’s charms’ when what they should have said is that ‘she’s so cute it’ll make you want to rip your heart out’.

Saints witness, having her call me cute feels like blasphemy.

I don’t even try to hold back my squeal of delight after taking her in. There’s no point trying to maintain a façade as a confident summoner in the face of those big eyes watching me so intently.

This is definitely her mental affinity at work. Even with the circle containing her presence on this plane, vestiges of her power seeps beyond its boundaries. I can feel the whispers, subtle yet powerful enough to tempt me to cross the boundary. Hopefully, being aware of it will give me enough perspective to resist.