Instead, she summons Vaelor.
Her family’s mountain farm is dying, the soil is failing, winter is coming, and the young woman left to save it has run out of practical answers. So she turns to the old stories her mother believed and calls on a forgotten immortal buried beneath centuries of vines.
Vaelor is real.
He is also a trickster.
The ancient god is bound to serve the mortal who summons him through a limited number of tasks. That sounds like salvation until Liora learns the dangerous part: every instruction matters. Ask badly, and Vaelor will follow the words instead of the intention. Waste too many tasks, and the help she desperately needs will be gone before the farm is safe.
Then they discover the land is not merely neglected.
It is cursed.
Working side by side to restore the fields draws Liora closer to the immortal she was warned never to trust. Vaelor is infuriating, shameless, unexpectedly gentle—and increasingly fascinated by the mortal who treats his freedom as something that matters.
Their attraction creates a new problem neither bargain was designed to solve.
Liora summoned a god because she could not survive alone.
Now she must uncover who cursed her home before her tasks run out—and decide what happens if the one miracle she cannot bear to lose is Vaelor himself.