“Sieg? Why? Lynx opened his eyes just now, right? I heard his voice……”
“Mariela, Lynx is…” Siegmund thought his eyes had met Lynx’s for just an instant. He didn’t know if Lynx had fully registered him. But he felt he could hear Lynx’s silent wish: I’m entrusting her to you. It had been the same sentiment that Lynx had shown him when he passed him his short sword in the rear yard of the Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion—back when they first met.
That’s why he couldn’t stop for even a moment. For Sieg, there was no other option than to accept this charge.
“No… No. NO! This is horrible, Sieg. Why would this happen?! Why did Lynx…”
Potions were magic medicine. They could heal a person’s wounds instantaneously, even when their strength was gone.
However, they couldn’t bring back the dead.
In that moment when his life had burned so low, even potions didn’t work, Lynx had been able to open his eyes and speak. Was it from the potions given to him?
Or was it a miracle made possible by Lynx’s dying wish to see her, to look at her face one last time…?
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!”
Her wails echoed throughout the Labyrinth’s twenty-third stratum, the Shores of Eternal Night, painting it with grief.
✦ ✦ ✦
Siegmund used the last remaining high-grade potion to heal his own wounds enough that he could move and to stop the bleeding on the raptor’s tail. Then he placed Lynx’s body on the raptor’s back, holding the weeping Mariela with his left arm before escaping from the Labyrinth.
At the entrance, the soldier in charge of the alarm bell was someone Sieg had met at the Ahriman Springs. As soon as he grasped what had happened to Lynx, he listened to Sieg’s story about the monsters before letting him and Mariela go. The soldier told the pair to take Lynx back to Sunlight’s Canopy and that he would contact the Black Iron Freight Corps.
Sieg bowed his head deeply for the soldier’s help. He led Mariela, who continued to sob in a foggy daze, toward the shop in the pouring rain.
Thank goodness it’s raining.
The downpour veiled Sieg and Mariela, including their expressions.
Amber was the first to notice them entering through the back door when they arrived at Sunlight’s Canopy. After seeing Lynx’s body and hearing from Sieg that the Black Iron Freight Corps had been contacted by way of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces, she took charge without letting any emotion show.
“Something urgent has come up. I’m very sorry, but we’ll need to close the shop for the day,” she said, ushering the regulars home before locking the doors.
A carriage came to get Caroline, and Amber asked her to take the children home. After Sunlight’s Canopy was empty, she told Sieg to change clothes and treat his injuries. She took Mariela, who still looked like her soul had left her body, and gave her a bath before fitting her in a new outfit.
Lynx was laid on Nierenberg’s examination table in the section of the living room that had been remodeled. His facial expression struck them as a bit uncomfortable, but there was a serene smile that played across his lips.
✦ ✦ ✦
Not long after Sieg finished changing, all the members of the Black Iron Freight Corps aside from Dick arrived at Sunlight’s Canopy.
All of them were lost for words at the sight of Lynx’s body, which was almost unidentifiable. Lieutenant Malraux quickly exchanged looks with the healer, Franz, and the animal trainer, Yuric, then sharply reined in Edgan, who had grabbed the unresisting Sieg.
Franz inspected the wound on Lynx’s body, while Yuric disappeared to the rear yard, probably to get information from the raptor.
Edgan had seized Sieg and raised his fist, but he saw the expression on his face and could neither strike him nor lower his fist.
“How…did this happen…?” Edgan spat at Sieg.
Malraux, too, pressed him in a harsh tone. “What of Miss Mariela? She’s safe, I gather.”
“Mariela is unhurt, but she’s in no condition to talk. We’ve lit dream incense to let her sleep. I’ll explain what happened in her place.”
Sieg described the situation: How they’d gone to the twenty-third stratum to gather lunamagia, how the death lizards had made a sudden appearance, how Jay had acted, and how Lynx had…
Yuric returned, and Franz finished his examination. They both corroborated Sieg’s account.
The raptor had witnessed the death lizards and the moment when Jay thrust Mariela in front of him, and it had explained this to Yuric. Well, “explained” would be giving it too much credit. The raptors didn’t have the intellect to use language. It conveyed what happened with a few scattered images.
Yuric understood that the raptor was fearful of the death lizards, angry at Jay, and consumed by sadness: I’m sad Lynx died. I’m sad Mariela is crying.
The information from the raptor and Lynx’s wound corroborated Sieg’s story.
“I knew it. We shoulda killed Jay back then,” Yuric snarled.
The other members of the Black Iron Freight Corps, Malraux, Franz, Donnino, and Grandel awkwardly kept their mouths shut, regretting leaving the agitator, Jay, to his own devices.
Dick finally came in, late. His face blanched when he saw the unrecognizable body of Lynx, who’d looked up to him like an older brother. Malraux explained what had happened, and at the part where the death lizards appeared, Dick gritted his teeth and clenched his fists hard enough that they started to bleed.
It’s because we retreated before killing the red dragon…
He never expected their failure with the dragon to be driven home this way. Lynx had lost his life because they couldn’t handle the monster. Burdened by his comrade’s sacrifice and Sieg’s narrow escape, Dick could find nothing to say.
“For today, we will take Lynx home. Sieg, I am sure you are exhausted as well, but I assume you understand your duty. Support Miss Mariela,” ordered Malraux.
“I will.” Sieg bowed his head deeply.
He was profoundly grateful for the man’s consideration—and almost trust—in letting him continue to protect Mariela, despite the fact he was worthless…and unable to save Lynx.