Encouraged by my coworkers, I rush to the center of the town on my familiar with no regard for the wind biting my cheeks. I can’t waste a second.
“Mooom! Waaah!”
“It’s alright, it’s alright.”
At the market, I catch sight of people lying on the ground and children crying. There are knights in uniform as well; he must be close. There’s a spot in the distance where the crowd thickens; I zero in on it. Making my way through the mixed crowd of knights and civilians, I manage to find Grove. But just as I’m about to call out to him, I see what his eyes are fixed on and find myself unable to speak.
“It’s a deldrat,” mutters one of the knights.
There’s all manner of ways to construct a magic circle to snare or imprison, but the especially fiendish kind, where auxiliary traps are built into the main mechanism such that they trigger when the surface spell is disarmed or tampered with, are called deldrat. In more common parlance, they’re known as nested traps.
“When he rewrote the circle, he tripped something,” says Grove, his eyes unmoving, once he notices me standing beside him. “Inverting the letters made them spell out a different passage.”
According to him, to save the civilians trapped inside, somebody would have to enter the magic circle, redraw the crescent at the center into its inverted form, and invert the writing. Eruve pulled it off, but in the process, he’d been trapped in a barrier at the center just large enough to fit him.
“Hey, what type of circle did it turn into?”
“I...”
“What the hell is that magic circle?! Tell me!”
As I pull Grove by his collar and bring my face close, he places his hands on my fists and says, “‘Execution.’”
A stifled sound escapes my throat. How did that circle of all things end up in the middle of town?
“It’s used against criminals. Nobody could escape it.”
Once it activates, there’s no turning back. The circle won’t dispel itself until it finishes its work.
“Eruve knew it when he went in,” Grove continues, his tone matter-of-fact.
I let go of his collar and stumble away from him.
“Eruve, Eruve...” I stagger close to Eruve and stretch out my hand to him, as if I could still cling to him.
“Ah, Theodora. Have you decided what’s for dinner?” says Eruve, pushing up his hair and smiling gently.
“Don’t give me the dinner talk! You think you’ve bound me to yourself with that promise?! You think I’m stupid?!”
Had I been here from the start, I surely wouldn’t have let him go in there, even if I had to die for it. If he’d had to go, I would’ve gone in his place. Still, I realize that the other knights must’ve had the same thought. Blood drips from Vice-Commander Alkes’s clenched fists. It’s unbearable for him too; this is all he can do to endure.
He must have refused to let anyone else go, for things to have played out this way. I can easily imagine him entering the circle before any of his subordinates could stop him.
And yet, the only word that appears in my mind is “why.” Why did he have to go in?
“As long as you’re here, I’m always going to return to this place. I promise.”
“Why don’t you think about what we ought to have for dinner?”
I shouldn’t have stayed there and waited like a good girl. I should’ve ignored his promise. Even if he hated me for it, even if I caused him trouble, I should’ve come after him.
“There should be some way... Something.”
“Theodora,” utters Eruve.
“That’s right! It’s written on the ground, so I can just destroy the ground along with it.”
“Miss Locktiss,” adds Alkes.
“It might disappear if the circle loses its form.”
“Theodora—” begins Grove.
“Give me a hand here!!!” My hands still on the ground, I glare at the knights around me. “Don’t you go giving up so easily, all of you!!!”
I wish they would fight to the end instead of giving up, even if they know it’s impossible to save him.
Even if there’s no hope of rescuing Eruve, I can’t stay calm while he’s still alive and in front of my eyes. I couldn’t yet comprehend what it meant when all those seasoned knights didn’t move at all.
“Don’t just stand there and watch while your commander is murdered!”
As soon as I shout, a crackling sound and a flash of white light erupts from the magic circle. The crackling gradually intensifies, filling the whole barrier with light.
“Ueh... Egh...”
What transpires before us is far more brutal than I could ever imagine. Some of the knights turn away, unable to look. Some throw up. Words fail, trying to describe what’s happening to Eruve. I could tell you tendrils of arcing lightning flense and char him, layer by layer, scrap by scrap, but it wouldn’t put you here, now, seeing what I see.
The barrier is filled with blood. It runs so thick and deep you can’t make out the circle beneath it.
“Eru...ve...” is all I manage to say, my voice shaking.
Before me lies what used to be a human being until moments ago—this thing was him, and no one else. He, who didn’t scream even in his final moments, enduring the agony with his eyes closed. I’m certain he was there until just a minute ago.
It appears the barrier vanished after the flashing stopped. The accumulated blood splashes across the pavement.
As I stand there in a daze, Eruve’s blood starts moving unnaturally. It creeps along the ground and forms into a sentence: “Burnt to a crisp. Not even good for charcoal anymore.”
Not even...good for charcoal...?
“We’ve got more of the same type of circle and more civilians trapped inside!” shouts a knight, his voice trembling.
“Eruve... Eruve...”
Something bursts inside me. My memory after that is hazy.
“Theodora, you...”
The ground shakes. I feel magic whirling inside me, spilling over every side. A thunder roars in the distance. Grove is shouting something to me, but I can’t make out the words and simply gaze at him.
“Vice-Commander, the other magic circles have been destroyed by lightning! There are some injured, but everyone seems to be safe...”
“Theodora! Get a grip on yourself!”
“—ed, so I...”
“It’s enough, it’s enough already!”
As Grove shakes my shoulders, my senses return to me. By the time my vision comes back into focus, every magic circle has somehow been burnt away. Although everyone says I’d done it all moments ago, I have no idea how I could’ve accomplished such a thing. Even Eruve couldn’t get rid of one of these circles without losing his life, so how could my magic destroy them so easily? It’s unimaginable.
Anyway, I feel incredibly sluggish.
The last of my strength leaves my body, and I collapse.