Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 123

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 123.
Two Swords, Four Names (7)
“Ugh….”
My head throbbed slightly. Whether it was mere fancy or reality, it seemed as though all my friends around me had frozen in place. I shook off the confusion and caught Endymion’s outstretched hand.
“Come down here, you rascal!”
Endymion’s body was remarkably light. As I pulled his hand, he spun backward in a graceful arc and landed lightly on his feet. Yet the face that met mine bore none of the bright laughter from moments before.
Endymion spoke.
「Your memories are returning, aren’t they?」
His voice suddenly felt like an insubstantial tremor. Was it an illusion? He stood right before me, just as real as I was….
「Think about it slowly. There’s no need to rush.」
With those words, Endymion snatched up the twig I had discarded, waved it about, and dashed among the other children. His voice returned to its ordinary cadence.
“Come on! I’ll take you all on! Nikitis! It was you who convinced Daphnen that Endymion is such a straightforward fellow that an ambush would surely guarantee victory, wasn’t it?”
I turned around. I watched Endymion’s retreating figure as he ran off with my twig, then suddenly looked down at my empty hands. It felt as though something should be there, but it wasn’t.
The day came when the children departed for the Continent.
Seven children had passed the trial. Four adults accompanied them to protect them, making eleven in total who set out.
Though they departed together, upon reaching the Continent they would split into three groups, each taking a different path, and even in Silverskull they were to act as strangers to one another.
The adults were seasoned travelers with extensive experience on the Continent, but for the children, this was their first time. A crowd of a dozen or so would inevitably draw attention. The bearing and speech of children raised on the Island differed noticeably from those born on the Continent.
Among the Silverskull contestants was naturally Hector. Of the boys who had been in their circle, only Likos accompanied Hector.
Ekion and the other children had failed to qualify. There were two girls, and a female monk was included in the expedition to accompany them.
While Daphnen lay unconscious, all the Island’s hopes were pinned on Hector. From early April, the entire village buzzed with the expectation that this time, a new champion would emerge.
To some degree, Priest Peloros, Hector’s father, had deliberately stoked these expectations. Yet many genuinely wished for the triumph of an Island-born boy.
Children from the Island typically performed well in Silverskull, but in truth, only one true champion had ever emerged—the Ilios Priest.
Though it could hardly be called a grand send-off, a considerable crowd had gathered at the Dock.
Soon three ships set sail. They would travel by way of Ebb Tide Island, just as I had, and make landfall somewhere in the Lemme Crystal Archipelago.
The specific island of landing was for each group to decide, but approaching Elbe Island, where relic-hunting vessels frequently traveled, was the least conspicuous method.
Isolet appeared at the send-off for reasons she could not quite name.
She did not converse with others, but her lingering gaze upon the departing ships caught the attention of several onlookers. Her expression, as always, revealed little of her emotions.
As the sea breeze swept across her, a strand of white hair brushed against the corner of her right eye. In silence, she thought of a certain boy who had once asked her about this very hair.
“Oh, aren’t you Isolet?”
A man suddenly appeared before her and greeted her familiarly. It was Enios, the man who had once come to Nauplion in Lemme under the name Dansen.
Since his return to the Island, he had been assigned to guard the Dock, so he rarely encountered the villagers.
“Ah… it’s been a long time.”
Enios, who had been close to Nauplion like a brother since childhood, remembered young Isolet well.
“After bringing Boris—no, Daphnen—I haven’t ventured into the village much, so I feel like this is the first time seeing you in ages. Did you come to see off the children heading to Silverskull? But wait, why aren’t you going to Silverskull yourself?”
Isolet merely smiled silently. Enios gazed at the two swords crossed and bound upon her back, his expression tinged with regret as he smiled.
“With you, I’m certain you would bring a second Silverskull victory to the Island, following the Ilios Priest.”
Though he ate and slept at the Dock, he had picked up most of the village gossip.
“The other children will do well enough.”
As I spoke these words, the events of last evening surfaced in my mind. Perhaps that was the reason I had come here, I thought.
Last evening, Hector had come to find me.
This was already his third visit. When he first came, he had apologized for his past rudeness. Even Isolet, who had shown little interest in whether he apologized or not, easily discerned that his true purpose was not an apology at all.
Yet Hector had hesitated and ultimately left without speaking his mind. He had come twice more in that manner, with no real business to conduct.
When he arrived for the third time, standing before an openly displeased Isolet, Hector abruptly asked if he might examine the twin swords that the Ilios Priest had once wielded.
It was an absurd request. Everything that had belonged to her father was sacred to Isolet, and the swords in particular were ones he had carried since childhood without ever replacing them. They were now precious heirlooms that she herself used.
She never separated the blades from her body because she felt as though her father’s spirit dwelt within them. She would not have permitted it even from someone else—his audacity knew no bounds.
Isolet did not respond at first, but when his words were repeated several times, she finally spoke.
“You have insulted me once again. It seems my sword wishes to answer in my stead.”
Hector’s face had grown rigid, his expression grave and unyielding.
“Only once would suffice.”
Isolet rotated her right hand and grasped the hilt of her blade.
“Do you believe I cannot kill you?”
Had he spoken even one word more, she truly would have drawn her sword. Yet Hector merely glanced weakly at Isolet’s face before turning and leaving.
She also recalled what had happened that afternoon. On her way back from Despoina’s House, Hector had seized her in the courtyard before the Town Hall, where many people gathered.
And he had spoken loudly, as though ensuring everyone could hear: that should he go to Silverskull, he would honor the memory of the late Ilios Priest on her behalf.
It was not merely absurd—it was infuriating. If he remembered what he had done, how could he dare speak such words?
Yet Hector would not have spoken so without reason. What could he possibly want?
Even if Hector were to triumph at Silverskull, it would have nothing to do with elevating her father’s honor. She alone was the inheritor of her father’s twin-sword technique called “Tiela.” Unless she herself went forth and won, there was no other glory to be had.
But Isolet knew that the position she had chosen for herself was the best place to remain. When the council had convened following Daphnen’s disappearance, she had clearly observed the expression on Liriope’s face as she sat in the center of the chamber. That girl… she truly possessed a fierce possessiveness.
“Isolet?”
Enios roused Isolet from her thoughts. The ships were already disappearing beyond the horizon. Isolet smiled as though in pain, then withdrew from that place.
Ever since discovering the vanished stone step, Isolet had visited Despoina’s House every day. And she would spend an hour or two in silence before Daphnen’s bed.
She brought no distractions with her. She simply sat and gazed upon the sleeping face of the young boy.
Despoina, who had initially tried to provide companionship, eventually realized it was better to leave her alone and refrained from interfering.
That day too, when Isolet arrived, she exchanged a brief conversation with Despoina, who was preparing to leave for the Town Hall.
“Still no sign of awakening. His body bears not a single wound, yet some profound dream holds him captive. Like a half-death.”
A moment later, Despoina shook her head and spoke.
“But it is truly strange. Ordinarily, whenever a spirit leaves the body and wanders, regardless of the cause, it forgets the original world within days and becomes absorbed into death. Then the remaining body grows cold and eventually becomes a corpse. Yet this child’s body does not change at all. He consumes neither food nor even water, and yet how can he remain so peaceful even after a month has passed? Is there some mystery beyond my understanding dwelling within him?”
After Despoina departed for the Town Hall, Isolet stood alone, gazing down at the boy’s pale eyelids.
She wondered where his spirit wandered. Was it still within the Island? Or perhaps it had flown to the Continent, pursuing tenacious memories, seeking the dead Elder Brother whom the boy loved with an intensity bordering on obsession.
If that were so, he should not return—yet why did his body remain warm?
What was he waiting for? Where did he wish to return?
What the Island had given him, what he had left behind on the Island—over a year that was both short and long, a spring that had begun at some point, a golden-arrow summer, a silent autumn and a long winter, things she had neither wished to lose nor to possess, yet some had faded while others had deepened, and before she knew it, new memories had arrived, crossing fences and leaping streams, scaling walls and climbing toward a hidden chamber, walking without ceasing…
To the ice castle within her heart, some April arrives without warning.
She lowered the knee she had been holding against her chest and drew the chair closer to the bed. As she brought her fingers near the sleeping boy’s lips, she felt a faint breath escape.
The moisture touching her fingertips, followed by coolness, then warmth once more…
Isolet’s lips moved silently. Desires she had believed erased returned in succession, piercing through her mind.
Peace, and isolation, and the desperate prayer not to lose, and the desire to be compensated for her wounds, and the impulse to triumph and the yearning for honor… and ultimately, the wish to possess.
As long as one lived, how could one become a being without desire?
She placed her hand upon the blue-black hair scattered across the white sheet—hair that had grown over a year and now fell past his shoulders. A boy who had grown alone like a solitary thicket.
She bent close and whispered into his ear. If the desire of the living could call the boy back, it mattered not what it was. And so she sought to let him hear her oldest wish, one she had never forgotten for a single moment.
For his sake, I resolved to be more honest with myself than I had ever been before my own desires.
‘You cannot leave yet. There remains work in this land that only you can accomplish. You must return. You must return without fail.’
‘Your destiny is not yours alone. Your victory is not for you alone.’
‘Prove once more the worth of that name to those presumptuous enough to borrow my Father’s legacy.’
‘And show that the position you are to inherit is most fitting for you.’
‘The seat of the Priest of the Sword, once my Father’s—I can grant it to you alone.’
A single successor to take my place.
I wished for that to be you.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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