By the height of the Crusades, the balance of immortal influence across parts of Europe and the Near East had shifted dramatically. The Crimson Dominion thrived increasingly within environments shaped by warfare, hierarchy, institutional faith, and militarized structure. The Nocturne Assembly still possessed immense influence, but its quieter methods struggled against the accelerating pressures of conquest, reform, and ideological consolidation spreading through the era.

Dalethia herself had become one of the Dominion's most formidable rising powers by this period: Bishop in all but official title, architect of expanding systems, and increasingly feared for her ability to transform political disaster into structural advantage.

It was during one of her eastern campaigns overseeing Dominion interests near the old trade routes that the lamp entered her possession. The surviving records disagree on how exactly it occurred. Some claim it was taken from a ruined fortress. Others insist it emerged from a hidden market beneath the city. A few stories suggest Aniyya herself orchestrated the encounter intentionally out of boredom.

None can be confirmed fully.

By this point, Aniyya had repeated the wish ritual thousands of times across centuries. Mortals always approached the lamp with desperation disguised as ambition. Kings demanded victory. Merchants demanded wealth. Priests demanded certainty. Lovers demanded permanence. Every wish eventually reduced itself to hunger wearing different clothing.

Dalethia reacted differently immediately.

The surviving fragments describe Aniyya initially approaching the encounter playfully, expecting another ambitious immortal eager for power, conquest, immortality, or forbidden knowledge. Instead, Dalethia reportedly examined the entire ritual with mild amusement bordering almost on dismissal.

Wishes did not interest her.

That alone unsettled Aniyya profoundly.

Accounts diverge sharply regarding the exact wording of Dalethia's wish. Some insist she asked directly for Aniyya's freedom. Others claim she wished for the destruction of the lamp's authority entirely. A few traditions suggest Dalethia first asked Aniyya what she herself desired before making the wish at all.

Yet every surviving version agrees on the outcome.

Dalethia used the wish to free Aniyya permanently.

The act shattered the structure of the game completely. For centuries, Aniyya had manipulated mortals through desire, amusement, temptation, and transaction. Dalethia bypassed all of it instantly. She neither feared the lamp nor revered it. She simply viewed the entire structure as beneath her interests.

For the first time in centuries, Aniyya experienced genuine surprise.

The lamp did not shatter. It did not fall to dust. It simply... stopped. The golden light, which had always been a contained, controlled pressure, became diffuse, warm, and ordinary. The connection between Aniyya and the object, the metaphysical chain that had defined her existence on Earth for centuries, simply dissolved. It was not a violent breaking, but a quiet unmaking.

Aniyya stood, motionless, for the first time in her long life feeling the weight of her own form without the anchor of the lamp. She was no longer a spirit bound to an object. She was just... Aniyya. The realization was terrifying. And exhilarating. She looked at Dalethia, not with gratitude, but with a kind of profound, unnerving curiosity. This being had looked at the ultimate shortcut to power and had thrown it away.

"Why?" Aniyya asked, her voice stripped of its theatricality, sounding younger, more vulnerable than she intended. "I could have given you anything. The world."

Dalethia stepped closer, her gaze not on Aniyya's beauty or power, but on her eyes. "I build worlds," she said, her voice quiet but absolute. "I do not collect them. And What kneels because it must is never beautiful. What chooses to remain may become art. A tool that is bound is a liability." She reached out, not to touch Aniyya, but to brush a speck of dust from her own armor. "You were wasting your existence in that lamp. You were wasting your existence in that lamp. Waste is ugliness, Aniyya. And I dislike ugly things.

Aniyya laughed. It was not the seductive, musical laugh of a Genie, but a real, genuine laugh of disbelief. Of delight. She had met conquerors, priests, kings, and madmen. She had bent them all to her will with their own desires. She had never met anyone like this. A woman who did not want. A woman who *was*.

"You are the most dangerous being I have ever met," Aniyya said, her laughter fading into a voice filled with a new kind of awe. "Not because of your armies or your rank. But because you do not need anyone's permission to be yourself."

Dalethia simply nodded, as if this were an obvious statement of fact. "And you, Aniyya of Aethelgard, have spent centuries hiding from yourself. That ends now. You are free. Go. Or stay. The choice is yours. But if you stay, you will serve a purpose larger than amusing yourself with the wishes of children."

Aniyya looked from the now-dormant lamp to the calm, certain woman before her. For the first time in an eternity, she had a choice that was not part of a game. And she knew, with a certainty that resonated deeper than any magic, what her choice would be. She would follow this woman. She would see what kind of world a being who could refuse ultimate power would build. It would, she suspected, be far more interesting than any kingdom she could have wished for.