Take Me Away, Dark Lord!

The enchanted canvas of the Illusorium, despite being wreathed in magical green fire, was ripped wide open.

A massive, ten-foot gash appeared in the wall, revealing the dark, humid, blessed night air of the Verdant Gate outside.

”OUT! GO, GO, GO RIGHT NOW!” Lucas roared, shoving a panicked civilian out of the way.

Gallahan threw himself through the flaming gap, hitting the dirt outside and instantly spinning around, his sword raised to defend the breach.

Boris didn’t slow down.

He lowered his shoulder and bulldozed his way through the burning canvas, bursting out of the emerald inferno like a cannonball, hitting the muddy ground of the market square with a heavy, earth-shaking THUD.

Lucas was the last one out, tumbling through the gap just as the green flames surged forward, attempting to seal the breach.

They were out.

The cool, humid night air of the jungle city hit them, a shocking, beautiful contrast to the blistering heat of the tent.

The market square was in absolute chaos; mercenaries were running toward the burning tent with buckets of water, merchants were screaming, and the sky was illuminated by the towering, unnatural green bonfire.

Boris staggered forward a few steps, coughing violently as the thick smoke cleared his lungs.

He dropped to his knees in the mud, his massive chest heaving, his adrenaline crashing hard.

”Perimeter secure!” Gallahan shouted, his white aura flaring as he scanned the chaotic market square for assassins. ”Lucas, Boris, report!”

”We are clear!” Lucas coughed, leaning heavily on his sword, wiping soot from his scarred face. ”The flames are magical; they didn’t catch our cloaks. Boris, is the lady uninjured?”

Boris let out a massive, shuddering breath of relief.

They had done it.

They had breached a magical inferno and extracted the Archduke’s daughter without a single scratch.

”She is safe, Commander,” Boris grinned, looking down at his arms, preparing to loosen his iron grip on the child he had shielded with his own life. ”I have her right here. You can open your eyes now, Mushroom.”

Boris opened his arms.

The scarred knight looked down at his chest.

For exactly one, silent second, the universe stopped existing.

There was no crimson dress.

There was no white ribbon.

There was no small, dark-haired child with a missing tooth smiling up at him.

Sir Boris’s arms were wrapped around empty air.

He was holding nothing.

”M-My Lady?” Boris whispered.

The sound was not a word; it was a physical failure of his vocal cords.

He blinked.

He looked down at his burlap cloak, patted his own chest, and frantically patted the mud around his knees, his hands desperately grabbing at the dirt, searching for a tiny body that must have somehow slipped from his grip.

”Boris,” Lucas snapped, stepping forward, his eyes wide with confusion. ”Where is she? Did you drop her in the breach?”

”No,” Boris gasped, his face draining of all blood, turning the color of old ash. His single eye was wide with absolute horror. ”No, I had her. I had her against my chest. I never let go. I swear on the Light, Lucas, I never let go!”

Gallahan spun around, his golden eyes wide with panic. ”What do you mean you never let go?! She is not there!”

The three legendary commanders of the Black Bastion, men who feared absolutely nothing in the mortal realm, stood frozen in the mud, staring at the empty space in front of Boris’s chest.

The heat of the burning tent behind them did not matter.

The screaming crowd did not matter.

A cold, soul-crushing dread slammed into them with the force of a falling mountain.

They had held her.

Boris had felt her weight, her breathing against his chest as they ran through the fire.

And then, she was simply... gone.

As if she had evaporated into thin air.

As if she had never existed in his arms at all.

”SERAPHINA!” Gallahan screamed, his voice cracking, tearing his vocal cords as he spun around, screaming into the chaotic, panicking crowd of the market square. ”LADY SERAPHINA!”

Around them, the chaos of the fire was shifting.

It wasn’t just a panic to extinguish the flames anymore.

Through the thick, acrid smoke, other parents were bursting out of the flaming rips in the canvas, tumbling into the mud.

A woman in a torn merchant’s dress fell to her knees a few yards away, clutching her empty arms to her chest, shrieking in agony.

”My boy! Where is my boy?! I was holding his hand! He’s gone!”

A mercenary further down the line was frantically digging through the mud, screaming the name of his little sister.

It wasn’t just Seraphina.

Every single child who had been inside the Grand Illusorium.

Every single child who had cheered for the fire-breathers.

Every single child who had caught a free gift from the sky.

They had all vanished into thin air the exact moment the green fire erupted.

Sir Lucas’s scarred face twisted into a mask of horror, his eyes dropped to the mud near Gallahan’s boots.

Falling from the pocket of Gallahan’s burlap cloak, lying discarded and filthy in the damp earth, was the small, roughly stitched purple plush rabbit the Trickster had thrown to them.

The button eyes stared up at the sky, utterly lifeless, mocking them.

The gifts.

’A gift for the innocent. A miracle for the pure...’

The gifts hadn’t been souvenirs.

They had been targets, the metaphysical anchors for a mass, high-tier spatial spell that had triggered the moment the green fire acted as a flashbang distraction.

The plushie had reeked of rotten meat and old copper because it was soaked in spatial blood magic.

And Gallahan, the arrogant, overconfident knight, had stuffed it directly into his pocket, keeping the anchor right next to the child.

”No,” Gallahan whispered, dropping to his knees in the mud, staring at the plush rabbit as if it were a venomous snake.

His pristine white cloak soaked up the filth, but he didn’t feel it.