Chapter 123
At the absurd statement, Eir’s mouth fell open dumbly—just as someone urgently approached Rubel with business.
Swift as a striking hawk, Rubel yanked the curtain shut as if unwilling to let even a single strand of Eir’s hair be exposed outside, then wheeled his horse around.
Only when they’d put considerable distance between themselves and the carriage did Rubel slow his pace to ask.
“Did you find anything?”
“The priest accompanying us isn’t specialized in identifying witch shadows…….”
“Never mind that. Just tell me if the sigil appeared. Did you detect a sigil at the cliff’s edge?”
Rubel pressed calmly.
Before leaving the island, he’d stationed men to investigate the magic lingering below that precipice. Powerful spells always left traces, and recently, priests had developed methods to purify residual shadows and reveal their foundational sigils—like magical fingerprints.
Though they couldn’t yet decipher the sigils’ exact meanings, the patterns could indicate how many witches had been present, whether they’d encountered them before, and potentially allow tracking.
But witch shadows often dissipated quickly, and unless the priest was highly skilled, the sigils would blur beyond recognition.
When the knight hesitated, Rubel sighed and spoke, assuming the worst.
“Even if it’s messy, we have ways to identify it. Just answer—did the sigil appear?”
The knight, seeming troubled, finally nodded after glancing toward Eir’s carriage.
“Yes. But…… it’s the same sigil found at the site of your abduction, Commander.”
Rubel’s eyebrows shot up. Seeing his incomprehension, the knight clarified while stealing looks at Eir’s carriage—implying the magic at the cliff had also been Eir’s doing.
Yet Rubel’s face hardened as if hearing nonsense. He’d clearly seen the black rabbit himself, and never doubted Eir’s claim about her “friend” helping.
By now, Rubel had reached a point where he scarcely suspected Eir of lying.
If her words were true, then the magic that brought them to the island wasn’t hers either, but this “friend’s”.
Now that he thought about it, something had been off back then too.
When Rubel asked why they’d come here and how long they’d stay, Eir had answered as if the magic wasn’t hers at all.
“You…… think this is within my abilities?”
“Isn’t it?”
At his reasonable assumption, she’d looked genuinely shocked, then spent the entire subsequent conversation giving vague, fantastical descriptions as if recounting something beyond her understanding.
Rubel had assumed she was just being her usual airheaded self—but if it truly was her “friend’s” magic, her ignorance made sense.
‘But can she really call that a friend?’
Any witch who’d helped Eir would have noticed the bracelet on her wrist. They’d know using magic could tear her arm off—so why assist her?
“She’s being used.”
Rubel reached this conclusion swiftly.
Eir’s naive talk of “friends” was nonsense. She was being manipulated, and that witch was only pretending friendship to exploit her.
But for what purpose?
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