A magic circle…?
The moment the array flared in response to her Od, Rita’s gaze hardened.
‘This structure… it’s from my world.’
She had encountered plenty of arrays during her stay at Birch Castle—some woven for simple household comforts, others for defense. Yet not a single one resembled the craft she knew. Having absorbed far more theory than the average gunner thanks to a certain mechanic, she had readily noticed what this realm’s arrays lacked: the indispensable filtration wards against mana contamination.
‘With no demonic beasts roaming this realm, there was never any need to guard against corruption. But this one…’
Woven directly into its core was that unmistakable, familiar filter.
‘I know this design. I know its purpose.’
It was a stasis array designed to suspend a living vessel indefinitely. Despite all the labyrinthine layers grafted on top, its foundational intent was singular: lock a body into suspended animation and halt the march of decay.
Back home, healers used such wards as a desperate gamble to buy time for grievous wounds beyond immediate mending. Or, far more darkly, to anchor a husk that had been shorn of its soul.
‘No… it couldn’t be.’
A cold dread coiled down Rita’s spine as she reached for the glowing lines. She coaxed a thread of Od into the outer boundary—a warding mechanism meant to seal the interior. The lock was configured to open only to an intricate cipher, but beneath her touch, the wards collapsed without resistance.
It had already been unsealed.
The geometric bands fractured, bleeding pale brilliance as the floor opened. Something rose steadily from the churning void beneath.
A casket, forged to hold a single human frame.
Binding glyphs crawled across its flanks, though its heavy lid sat jarred open as if wrenched loose from within. Still buoyed by the deep waters, Rita reached out and shoved the stone cover aside.
It was empty. Whoever had once slept here was gone, leaving only dense, grotesque runes etched along the inner cavity. Rita stared down into the hollow stone, tracing the tightly packed markings with an uneasy gaze.
‘I can’t decipher the words… but the cadence of the script belongs to home.’
Ollie would have untangled it in a heartbeat. Grimacing at the limits of her own knowledge, Rita ran her fingers across the carved grooves—
Ba-dump!
Her chest seized. Flesh, blood, and the core of her very soul screamed with an unbearable, deafening roar.
‘It’s here.’
‘Right here.’
‘The piece that was torn away from me.’
‘Take it back. Tear it away. Reclaim yourself.’
‘Shatter this cage and take back what is yours.’
Instinct seized the helm before thought could follow.
Like a dying wanderer collapsing onto a spring in the parched sands. Like a seed clawing through the earth, blind with desperate hunger for the light.
Od coalesced at her fingertips, compressing into a dense pellet of blazing gold. She curled her hand. A brilliant linear rail ignited along the ridge of her index finger like a polished gun barrel, and with a flick of her thumb, she seated the round into the chamber.
She drew a bead on the geometric center of the array. The gleaming muzzle of her finger pointed straight at the seal inscribed within the casket. Her eyes narrowed.
Crack!
The depths convulsed. The shockwave parted the drowned gloom like a comet tearing through the night.
A clean strike.
Golden brilliance erupted outward, disintegrating the stone sarcophagus in a violent flare. The intricate binding script disintegrated into drifting ash, dragging the stasis array down into complete collapse.
Rumble!
A thunderous roar ripped through the dark as an immense geyser breached the surface, hoisting an arc of golden fire that painted the clouds above.
The placid water churned into a violent vortex. Stricken fish were hurled into the moonlight, glittering silver before tumbling back down. The towering spray peaked, shattering into a torrential curtain that rained upon the shores.
“Lili!”
Rosetta screamed, hammering her fists against the surrounding earthen wall. The barrier dissolved beneath her blows like dry sand, and stumbling through the loose dirt, she broke into a wild sprint toward the bank.
“Lili! Lili!”
The breath she had nearly lost beneath the waves meant nothing now. Only the suffocating terror of catching a fleeting glimpse of her child—only to watch her vanish again—burned in her mind.
She plunged straight into the lake, wading until the water rose past her ribs. Just as she prepared to dive, the surface parted. A slender figure broke the water like a phantom emerging from the abyss.
Wet strands of gold framed her pale face as she pushed them back, blinking dazedly through the water pooling on her lashes.
Rosetta reached out, her voice splitting the quiet night.
“Lilietta!”
Lilietta turned toward the sound. The vacant shock that held her features rigid suddenly gave way. The tears caught in her lashes spilled over, and in a fragile whisper that seemed ready to shatter at the slightest breath, she parted her lips.
“…Mom.”
Rosetta swept forward and gathered her into her arms. Beneath her hands, the girl’s slight frame shuddered violently, her pulse hammering against her ribs.
In that embrace, Lilietta finally recognized the crushing ache of what she had lost. The yearning had been so vast, so prolonged, that she had forgotten she was even grieving.
Before she had ever walked as Rita… she had been Lilietta. And like a broken dam, the stolen years came rushing back.
Laughter and tears, foolish squabbles and tearful apologies, bursts of temper and sweet laughter. Countless days had gathered color and weight as she grew, weaving together the life she had once inhabited.
And then the terror. The night everything was stripped away. The cold, suffocating dark of a stone casket sinking into the depths of the lake.
She had been so afraid. It had hurt so much. She had wanted so desperately to return to their side.
She had a family. She had a mother.
Yet even the grief of missing them had been stolen away, washed clean from her hollowed mind.
Rita—no, Lilietta—clutched at Rosetta’s sodden garments and broke into a wail, her face crumpling into the weeping child she had never ceased to be.
“Mom…”
The word was all she could manage, sticking in her throat amid ragged gasps.
“Mom… I… I was…”
Rosetta only nodded, cradling her as though every broken breath had already told the tale.
“Yes, my darling. I know.”
She framed Lilietta’s tear-drenched cheeks with trembling palms.
“I missed you so much.”
Words could never bridge that yawning ache.
Lilietta buried her face in her mother’s chest, weeping without restraint, and Rosetta held her as though she would never loosen her grip again.
Lured by the deafening blast and the tower of light, the castle guards and servants finally breached the tree line. Yet when their lanterns illuminated the lake, they found only mother and daughter, kneeling together in the water and holding each other close.
Ten years in this realm, and twelve in another. At long last, Lilietta had come home.
***
1. Recovery
“…Ri… Brother Ri…”
“Mnh…”
Ten-year-old Lilietta tugged gently at her sixteen-year-old brother’s sleeve.
Richard had spent the entire afternoon enduring grueling drills in the yard and lay buried deep in exhaustion. A flicker of remorse stayed her hand, and she let go to look over her shoulder.
The hall beyond his ajar door was submerged in heavy, ink-black quiet. In that darkness, it seemed as if something had just shifted.
‘Come.’
‘Come to me.’
In her nightmare, a hooded figure had beckoned to her with a terrifying voice. She had fled in tears, waking with a start just as cold fingers brushed her skin.
She knew that if she went back to her room alone, that shadowy figure would be waiting.
‘I’m so scared…’
Trembling, the little girl shook her brother’s arm with greater urgency.
“Ri, please… wake up…”
“Ugh… what is it…?”
Richard grumbled, his heavy lids parting just enough to glimpse her. He knew it was his sister, but the thick haze of sleep blinded him to how bloodless her little face had grown.
“Lili?”
“I had a bad dream.”
The words tumbled out in a frightened rush.
“Will you stay with me until I fall asleep? There was this strange man, and he—”
“A dream?”
He yawned, swatting tiredly at the air.
“Dreams aren't real… you know better than that, Lili…”
“B-but he was so scary…”
“You’re fine. Go back to bed. Nothing’s going to…”
The sentence died as sleep dragged him back under. Left stranded at the edge of his bed, Lilietta fought back tears, her tiny fingers twisting together until her knuckles were white.
‘Ri said it was just a dream. Nothing will happen. I’m fine. I’m a big girl, and big girls aren’t afraid of silly nightmares.’
Repeating the silent mantra to bolster her courage, the young girl crept out of her brother’s chamber and crept into the dim corridor.
Near the far corner, a warm gleam caught her eye. A figure stood bathed in soft lantern light just outside her bedroom door.
Lilietta halted, but the tension fled her chest the moment the golden glow revealed a familiar face.
“Hannah!”
“Young… Miss…”
The maid-in-training holding the lamp was Hannah, a girl of twelve with soft chestnut hair. Her mother had served the household until illness claimed her, after which the Duke and Duchess had taken the orphaned child into their care.
Though she was still learning service beneath the head housekeeper, she had already been promised as Lilietta’s future personal attendant.
Of course, she was far too young to manage a lady’s household needs alone. For now, her primary duty was simply to keep Lilietta company, offering comfort to a sickly child often confined to her bed.
A true companion.
Lilietta had been thrilled from the moment she heard the news. Children her age were scarce within the walls of Birch Castle, and she had counted down the days until Hannah’s lessons would finish and they could be together.
Yet now, Hannah only stood before the open doorway, staring through her with hollow, unblinking eyes.