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Chapter 1 - The Summoning

The circle of light burned blue, then white, until it swallowed the room.

Aiden Rogue didn't even have time to shout. One moment he was stumbling back from the flickering monitor in the university lab, the next his stomach dropped as though the floor had vanished. Every molecule in his body turned inside out.

When the light died, the world was wrong.

Stone instead of linoleum. Smoke instead of the scent of burnt circuits. Chanting voices, dozens of them, rose and fell in a rhythm that made his skin crawl. He landed hard on his knees inside a ring of runes carved into marble. Braziers hissed. Robes fluttered. Faces, all female, stared at him in absolute silence.

He coughed, tasted ash, and said the first thing that came to mind.

"Where...what is this?"

A woman at the front, no older than twenty but wearing a crown of silver vines, lowered her staff. "It worked," she whispered. "By the Matron's will, it truly worked."

Dozens of others echoed her in disbelief. It worked. The Progenitor lives.

Aiden blinked. Progenitor?

He pushed himself up, but the circle's outer line glowed in warning. The heat stung his skin.

"Stay within the seal," the crowned woman said quickly. "It isn't safe until the binding is complete."

"Binding? I...I think you've got the wrong guy."

Her expression softened, equal parts awe and apology. "There are no wrong ones, only the chosen. The orb found you."

The orb. She pointed toward a sphere hovering above the circle. It pulsed once, then cracked. A sound like shattering glass echoed through the chamber, and shards of blue energy scattered like dying stars.

Every voice fell silent.

"No…" the crowned woman breathed. "The Orb of Return… it's spent."

Someone screamed that they couldn't summon again. Someone else called it a sign of destiny. Aiden stepped back, heart pounding. Whatever had brought him here, it had just broken. And every eye in the room now looked at him as though he were both miracle and meal.

"I'm sorry," he said, forcing a shaky smile. "I think there's been a mistake. I'm not...whatever you're expecting."

"You are the last hope of Seravelle," said the crowned woman. "The one who will renew life."

Her words didn't make sense until the weight of every gaze hit him: desperate, reverent, hungry for salvation. All women. Not one man among them.

Aiden's throat went dry. "Renew… life?"

The woman nodded slowly. "The age of drought will end through you. The world can live again."

He understood then, too well.

And he ran.

The circle's edge flared as he crossed it, but the glow fizzled, weakened by the shattered orb. Robes tangled behind him; shouts echoed down corridors of stone. He found a door, slammed through it, and kept moving. Hallways blurred into night air. Rain hit his face, cold and real.

He didn't stop until the temple spires vanished behind forest shadows.

By dawn his legs ached and his mind refused to believe any of it.

A sky with two moons watched him from above. Trees shimmered faintly with veins of light. Birds, or something like them, sang in languages of bells.

All women. They summoned me here. To… repopulate?

He laughed once, sharp and hollow. "This is insane."

A branch snapped. Instinct threw him into a crouch.

A figure stepped from the mist, a girl in travel leathers, pale hair clinging to her cheek. She carried no weapon, only a small lantern glowing with soft mana.

"You shouldn't be here," she whispered. "They'll find you."

He recognized her: one of the chanters, the youngest.

"You were in that room."

She nodded, eyes downcast. "I'm Lyra. I helped call you. And I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" He backed away. "For kidnapping me into another dimension?"

"For what comes next." She set the lantern between them. "The Council won't stop. You're…the only man alive. They'll use you until you break."

Aiden wanted to tell her she was wrong, that there had to be others, but the conviction in her voice chilled him more than the dawn.

"I can help you," she said. "But you need to move before the search parties reach the forest road."

"Why would you help me?"

"Because I broke the seal. It's my fault you could run. If they learn that…" She swallowed. "Please."

Her sincerity left him no room to doubt.

He exhaled, the fog of his breath mixing with the lantern's glow. "Fine. Lead the way."

They traveled until the sun bled orange through the canopy. Lyra spoke little, guiding him through old paths carved by roots and half-buried stones. She told him about Seravelle in fragments: a world that had lost its men generations ago to a plague that turned magic against its bearers; how mana itself had begun to fade; how every new birth was weaker than the last.

"The ritual was our last hope," she said. "To summon a being untouched by the Blight. Someone who could restore balance."

"I'm not a god," Aiden said.

"No," she replied, glancing at him, "you're human. That's rarer."

When they stopped by a stream, Aiden caught his reflection in the water, mud-streaked face, torn jacket, eyes too wide. The idea that he was unique on an entire world pressed on him like gravity.

"What happens if they catch me?"

"They'll take you to the capital," Lyra said. "The Matron Orders will keep you in the Sanctum until the Queen decrees what to do."

"'What to do' meaning..."

She looked away. "You know what they summoned you for."

Aiden stared at the rushing water. The thought turned his stomach. Whatever desperation had driven these people, he couldn't be that solution.

"There has to be another way," he said quietly.

"I think so too," Lyra murmured. "Maybe we can find it."

That night they sheltered beneath a fallen tree. Lyra slept lightly, one hand on the hilt of a dagger she barely knew how to use. Aiden watched the embers fade, thoughts spinning.

He was in another world.

He was the only man.

And somewhere behind the dark horizon, an empire was already hunting him.

He tightened his fists. "I'm not their savior," he whispered. "Just a guy who wants to go home."

But a deeper voice, the one that had kept him alive through every mad hour since the light, answered back: Home might be gone. The only way out is through.

When the first patrol torches glimmered far off among the trees, Aiden shook Lyra awake. Together they slipped into the mist, two shadows moving toward an uncertain dawn.

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