บท 187: Intervention

The trial dragged on for hours, a parade of priests, inquisitors, and nobles taking turns before the Pope and his Fathers. Many faces were familiar, but others were strangers, their voices blending into a chorus of accusation and condemnation. They shrieked, ranted, and raved, spouting falsehoods about my character and motivations, dredging up vague events from our adventures that I barely recalled.

I knelt through it all, numb and staring blankly at the ground. Elise. Elise had... no, it couldn't be true. She'd promised.

But the thought gnawed at me. She was the only one who knew the truth of what transpired that fateful day when I traded my soul for hers. No one else could have witnessed the demon's offer, and the chaos of battle had obscured any signs of my forbidden spell casting. Even the other students and demonkin had succumbed to unconsciousness, felled by the overwhelming force of the final curse that had ripped Elise apart.