“No, you didn’t witness a miracle,” I pointed out.

  She nodded anyway.

  “Dhriti…” I said, still staring at her like I was trying to process how we’d gone from sewer guard to zealot disciple in thirty seconds. “What you just saw was—”

  “Before my presence leaves,” Cloudy interrupted me. “I think it is time for you to take responsibility.”

  I froze. My mouth snapped shut.

  Responsibility? That word came with a weight you don’t want dropped on your shoulders when you’re still standing in a half?collapsed pocket reality smelling like a fishmonger’s trash heap.

  I swallowed hard and glanced around the room. Nothing. No rain cloud was here, so I couldn’t even yell at him like some cranky grandpa?

  Haha, nice one, Charlie. Deflect with jokes when you’re actually panicking. Classic.

  Screw it, I tilted my head back toward the ceiling, because where else do you look when you want to yell at a divine rain cloud? “Responsibility?” I asked, trying not to let my voice crack.

  “This,” Cloudy said, unhurried, his tone that infuriating brand of calm you only get from entities who don’t have to deal with deadlines or mortality, “is a system for you to manage resources. Every time you break reality, you will decide how to fix it with the allocated resources. Be warned… those resources are also used to stabilize your hybrid system.”

  “What?” I breathed, because that’s all my brain could do. My voice sounded like it’d just been wrung out. “And… don’t you need those resources to, I dunno, fix the system so you can actually isekai people from Earth here? Same way you did with me?”

  “You are the first,” Cloudy replied. “Thus, the herald. You decide.”

  I actually laughed. A dry, too?loud bark that didn’t sound anything like me. “I can’t be the one responsible for the fate of the universe…” My stomach twisted, my fingers clenching around my skirts like I could hold myself together physically. “Demons will attack. I saw the future. We’ll need people here—”

  “So is the burden of a mythical queen.”

  My breath hitched. My whole body felt stiff. “But I’m not one!”

  A pause. Then two quiet words, like a verdict, “sneak peek.”

  And just like that, I felt his presence leave. It wasn’t a sound or a sigh; it was a pressure being lifted off my skull, like the storm above me had finally passed.

  The silence that followed was worse.

  “Queen, what are your orders?” Dhriti asked, rising from her bow. Her voice was steadier now, almost reverent, and her eyes… Dear Saevrin, the way she looked at me. Like I’d just rewritten the laws of physics with my pinky finger.

  “I need to call Mom,” I muttered, rubbing my temple. If I didn’t get Irwen’s take on this, I’d probably end up breaking reality again by accident. And not the fun, game?breaking way.

  I closed my eyes, letting myself fall into that pocket dimension.

  The world blinked, and I was back in my safe space… our little shared a slice of Elsewhere. The transition was like stepping from a swamp into silk: the oppressive sewer heat vanished, replaced by a gentle breeze. My bed was right where I left it… ridiculously oversized, drowning in pillows, the kind of bed you could get lost in for days.

  It didn’t take long before Mom appeared.

  The door burst open with a whisper of magic, and there she was… Irwen, moving like a storm in human form. She crossed the room in an instant, silks swishing around her like she commanded the air itself. “Charlie!”

  Before I could say a word, she swept me into her arms. Her hug was everything… warm, crushing and something I sorely needed.

  “Mom?” I managed, my face buried against her shoulder. Her scent was, as usual, something faintly arcane. “How did you know…” My voice cracked. “Thank you.”

  “You wouldn’t have called me unless you needed something.” She pulled back just far enough to smirk at me, her perfectly arched brow daring me to deny it.

  “Not true! I can’t literally call unless there is—” I started winding up a full Charlie?kid-tantrum, but she didn’t even blink. The look on her face shut me down instantly. I glared half?heartedly. “Not funny.”

  She just nodded and sat gracefully on the edge of my bed. Not as the untouchable monarch, but as my mother… relaxed, approachable, dangerous only if provoked. “What happened?”

  “Uh… well, you see, have I told you about Altandai?” I started pacing because there was no way to say all of this sitting still. “Long story short: I defeated those Queens. But then Karzi—”

  I told her everything.

  Every miserable, humiliating, ridiculous detail spilled out of me as I flopped dramatically across my bed like a teenager ranting after school. She stayed where she was, regal posture somehow not faltering even when she leaned in to listen.

  She asked questions, sharp ones. Her reactions ran the full spectrum… genuine surprise, quiet awe, and a very familiar furious rage at the slavers who’d put me through all this.

  “I’m sending an army there. Today.” Her voice sharpened like ice forming on a sword, her eyes blazing with terrifying light. “They disrespected my daughter? Put you in a barn?! Hunted you like a wolf through their filthy city?!”

  “Mom, calm down!” I scrambled back up and into her arms again. Hugs: the best Irwen?pacifier. “I’ve already got the Royal Navy on the way.”

  She laughed… a low, dangerous sound. Not fully placated. “Ah. Those ships are yours? Now it makes sense. A kingdom doesn’t spring up every day. My spies mentioned someone attempted to blockade you.”

  “Yeah.” I grinned. “Some baron working for Count Itzel tried, but my people struck a bargain with an Admiral.”

  “Good.” She nodded, the frost in her tone melting slightly. “You would have lost too much, and they wouldn’t save you from Altandai. But if you need help—”

  “Yes.” My voice came out small. “I need your help. But… not with that.”

  I flopped back on the bed, staring up at the carved, ornate ceiling… a bit like Patrick’s. “Whiskey room…” I muttered. “No. No! I mean… no sidetracking!” I groaned, sitting up and biting my lip. “I… kinda broke reality?”

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  Her expression tightened. The icy?queen mask didn’t shatter, but I saw the crack.

  “And… the system kinda fixed it? I call him Cloudy. Cute little cloud.” I gestured vaguely upward like that explained anything. “Anyway… a dwarven woman saw me. She thinks I’m a mythical queen. So… I guess I’m building a myth now? He even game a system to fix exploits I made. Tips?”

  She stared at me, unblinking, like only she could… silence so sharp it could cut glass. The weight of it pressed down on me harder than any Binding Stone ever could.

  “Charlie,” she said finally. “You are not a proper queen yet, and you are already building your myth?”

  “When you put it like that…” I muttered, collapsing onto the edge of my bed like a teenager being scolded for sneaking out. I picked at the embroidery on the blanket instead of looking at her. “It’s not like I was doing it on purpose. I was just trying to get under their binding stone.”

  Her head tilted slightly, regal and calculating. “The defense must be great,” she pointed out, tone clipped, “otherwise it would already be compromised.”

  “Yeah… I needed something extra to make it go… uh…” I risked glancing at her, instantly regretted it when I met that withering gaze, and quickly shifted back to staring at anything else. “I mean… tips? How do I deal with her?”

  She wasn’t budging. “Charlie,” she said, and my name hit like a hammer. “What do you plan to do with the Binding Stone? I hope you learned your lesson. Wolves are friends.”

  “Not genocide!” I almost yelled. My voice cracked in the middle. Smooth. “Well… not exactly.” I shrank a little under her stare. “That’s… actually the second favor I need from you…”

  She didn’t interrupt. She just… watched me. Regal, silent, an executioner waiting for the condemned to finish speaking.

  “I need…” My throat was suddenly dry. “Uhm, an empowering demon circle. Specifically, one connected to… pain.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and the air itself seemed to tighten. “Why?”

  “Please, Mom!” I blurted out before she could say no, my hands halfway raised in surrender.

  Her jaw tightened. “I’ve already made a mistake,” she said, voice rising slightly. “I don’t think giving you summoning—”

  “Already got that,” I cut in quickly, waving my hands like that made it better. “I need it to conquer Altandai, y’know?”

  That shut her up.

  Her composure cracked… not much, but enough for me to notice. Her perfectly still expression faltered for a breath, her mask breaking as she blinked. “Conquer?”

  “Yes.” I straightened up, trying to sound way more confident than I actually felt. “The reason for our army isn’t just to rescue me. Well… it was. But I can’t just let it sit. So I’ll make a big boom, summon some demons, and in the chaos, we’ll take the city.”

  She shook her head slowly, a disappointed mother, a queen warning. “You can’t deal with grandmasters. Even if I gave you the circle… which I am still not sure I should.”

  “I have a plan,” I said quickly, words tumbling out before I lost my nerve. “And you have to trust me on this. And… you know I have other ways to get it? Lucy could probably find one. But she’s… uh…” I waved a hand vaguely, “she’s busy being a pirate captain right now. Better use of her time than fetching me demon magic.”

  The thought of Lucy shouting “yarrr” while looting demon circles almost made me laugh. Irwen just stared at me. Her silence felt like a battlefield. Then finally, finally, she gave the smallest nod.

  “You know I would give it to you, right?” She said, and for a moment the frost in her voice melted, just slightly. “You counted on that, didn’t you? Of course I’ll help you however I can.”

  My chest loosened just enough for me to breathe again.

  “Okay,” she continued, her tone returning to that cold, commanding queen?mode that could make lesser people soil themselves. A lot of them did while defending the empire. I was there on the testing servers. “Give me ten minutes of real time and I’ll be back.”

  She paused, then added, “And for the dwarf… give her a place in your kingdom. A high one. She is your first follower. Not today, but explore the system you got for your myth, and at another time we can talk about it.”

  I was back to reality, where Dhriti had hand raised in a sloppy little salute. From her point of view, I had gone nowhere… hopefully. If she’d seen me blink out of existence and back, she’d probably chalk it up to some goddess?nonsense.

  “Okay, Dhriti,” I said, clapping my hands together with all the authority of someone winging it. “What do we do about you?”

  “I’ll serve you, my queen,” she said, no hesitation.

  Well, that was easy. Creepy easy.

  “Okay…” I drew out the word, because, honestly, I hadn’t expected her to just… go with it. “You shall be my… uh…” My brain scrambled for the fanciest title it could come up with. “…high temple guardian!” I tried to mimic Irwen’s icy regality, straightening my back, chin up, like I hadn’t just invented this on the spot. “Your task, when we’re in my kingdom, will be to guard the most important temple. An honor given only to those of highest devotion!”

  It sounded way cooler out loud than it had in my head.

  Dhriti’s posture snapped straight like a puppet on new strings, and before my eyes, her muscles actually swelled. I don’t mean that she flexed… her arms and shoulders literally grew more defined, skin tightening over stronger muscle. The dull look in her eyes sharpened with new purpose.

  She must’ve gotten some kind of class upgrade. Dammit. I want the Identify skill back.

  I want all grandmasters to die.

  “Ugh. Worth a shot,” I muttered under my breath, still watching Dhriti’s transformation like it was my own personal loot drop.

  Fine. Curiosity wasn’t going to kill me… yet. I flipped open my current skills in my menu to see if I could equip Identify without bumping anything too important.

  Yeah, I want to get it, Cloudy.

  Damn it. Now my kingdom menu fix was delayed. Again. Whatever. Priorities. I turned back to Dhriti, mentally pinged Identify as if I were a player again, and there it was:

  Oh, how I missed this. Being able to identify people again felt like slipping into a favorite old pair of boots.

  Wait.

  Rare?!

  And… the High Temple Guardian position didn’t even exist a minute ago!

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