This is another unintended consequences story. Here's the prompt:
And here's the story.
Wedding Night Feasting
The wedding feast was a distant roar in Wizward’s tower workshop. The lord of the castle had insisted he perform “magic tricks” before the feast like some two-pence juggler. It was humiliating, although not nearly so much as watching his beloved Princess Stephanie marry that preening peacock, Prince Gerard. Steph and he grew up together, although as the son of the House Magician, Wizward was not marriage material for one as high-born as Stephanie. That didn’t diminish his infatuation for her, however.
He couldn’t bear faking joviality any longer than it took him to perform his stupid tricks—none of which showed off his profound skills. Skills that he had kept hidden from his own father, at least until the day his first experiment with Dark Forces went awry and he inherited the title of House Magician.
Alone in the tower, he invoked Step One of the summoning spell. He peered through the ceiling skylight, pleased to see he had manifested storm clouds and lightning. Step Two was more delicate. Opening the sky portal above the castle was a spell he had never attempted and was fraught with danger, but his efforts produced the expected malevolent rent in the night sky.
The timing of Step Three was critical. Wizward waited with sweating palms until he heard the newlyweds’ passion in the honeymoon suite next to his workshop. After all, other princes wouldn’t have interest in a tainted widow, yet a lowly magician could certainly woo her.
Step Three pulled the demon Maziel, hungry for a royal male, through the portal. Maziel dove for the lovers’ dimly lit window, but the storm’s fury blew out their candle. Thwarted, but undeterred, Maziel saw, instead, Wizward’s brightly lit workshop. But finding Wizward an unsatisfying snack, Maziel turned his attention to the wedding feast.
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