Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 219

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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 219.
Choose the Dawn (31)
“With less than half a year remaining, it’s impossible to study every subject thoroughly, isn’t it? I’ve already purchased all the books, but which should I focus on? I need to excel at two subjects or be reasonably competent in three. I’m continuing sword training with you, and magic is completely foreign to me, so that will be difficult. What about mathematics? I watched Father calculate so many times.”
Lucian’s tutor smiled and spoke from beside him.
“Young Master Lucian, mathematics is not easy either. Merely being good at calculations isn’t sufficient. If you’re confident in your diligence, history would be ideal—you can simply memorize everything. Classical literature and rhetoric seem to be the most challenging. Ancient languages are extremely difficult to learn initially, and rhetoric doesn’t seem to suit your temperament well.”
Even so, Lucian spent considerable time muttering to himself, weighing one subject against another. Boris watched with an amused smile.
As he did, he wondered what subjects he himself would choose if he hadn’t even decided to attend school yet. Swordsmanship was obvious, and if he could rely solely on chanting, music would have been ideal, but since he couldn’t sing, that was impossible. Then…
“…so perhaps history and mathematics would be best after all… Oh, Boris! I nearly forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
Lucian withdrew a letter from his pocket and handed it over. It was stained as though it had been wet by rain and then dried.
Boris accepted it reflexively and examined the envelope, but there was no sender’s name.
“On my way back earlier, I encountered someone near the house whom I’d seen before. You know, that beautiful older sister who told you to bet money on yourself when you won at Silverskull? She gave me this for you…”
Lucian couldn’t continue. Boris had suddenly seized his shoulders with a firm grip.
Questions poured out in an urgent tone he’d never heard before.
“You saw her at Silverskull? What did she look like? How old?”
“Why are you like this? She’s about twenty, very beautiful, carries two swords, has very short hair… Oh, blonde hair with just a touch of white mixed in… Boris?”
…
Boris released Lucian’s shoulders.
Throughout their time together, this was the first time Lucian had seen Boris so shaken. His face had gone pale, then flushed with color.
His eyes, no longer focused on Lucian, lost their focus for a moment before turning sharply toward the window—searching as though she might somehow be there. But outside was already dark.
Boris stepped back several paces and tore open the letter.
If we could meet,
outside the West Terrace.
10 p.m.

There was no name, no signature, but such things weren’t necessary. His eyes suddenly blurred at the familiar handwriting.
No—Boris shook his head. There was no need for that. If she had sought him out, there must be something urgent.
“Lucian, I’m stepping out for a moment.”
“It said to meet, didn’t it?”
Boris answered quietly, noticing a flicker of unease cross Lucian’s eyes.
“I’ll be back soon.”

The West Terrace held three lamps so large they illuminated beyond the walls. Boris knew who had placed them there.
A single horse stood tethered some distance from the stone wall.
The ground, churned to mud by rain that had fallen all day, clung to his feet with each step. Though the rain had ceased, the damp air stung his nostrils. It was a cool night.
A dark silhouette shifted slightly.
“It’s been a while.”
“….”
The moment her voice reached him, emotion overwhelmed me and I swallowed the words. When Boris remained silent, she drew closer.
The breath of someone I had believed I would never meet again in this lifetime dispersed white into the night air.
Her face remained hidden in shadow, but I could see only the luminous outline of light flowing through her hair. That golden hue….
I had carefully preserved the lock of hair she gave me on that final day, yet I had deliberately never taken it out to look at it. Could such a thing truly happen in his lifetime?
“You’ve… grown.”
Boris noticed her voice trembling slightly as well.
In that moment of recognition, my chest suddenly tightened, and I found myself breathless with an overwhelming need to speak—not just any words, but one particular phrase I could not bear to leave unsaid.
I tried to judge whether it was right to speak, but everything became tangled. Desperately, madly, I needed to say that one thing.
“I’ve missed you, Isolet.”
Whether we had been parted for a hundred years or merely a single day had become impossible to discern.
From the darkness came the marble-like voice that Boris had so cherished, answering him.
“I have as well.”
Patter, tap, tap… pitter-patter-patter.
Whoosh….
The rain began to pour again. Heavier than what had fallen during the day, the downpour instantly drenched both their hair and clothes.
The rain felt as though it scattered reason itself. The sound deafened the ears, and heat rose white from their wet bodies. Breathing became irregular. I reached out my hand… and seized Isolet’s wrist. The delicate warmth made my body tingle. Our pulses overlapped, racing in unison.
“Ah….”
Held by the wrist, Isolet said nothing.
Drenched by rain pouring from the dark sky, the thought of fleeing to a place where no one else existed, of wanting to go together, drifted through the darkness like incense smoke, scattering and fading away.
Isolet’s other hand came forward, grasping Boris’s wrist, and withdrew her own from his grip. As their hands separated, my heart was suddenly blocked by noise.
Just before selfish desires could push aside the last remnant of reason, a voice came from behind.
“The rain is falling… please come inside and talk. I won’t intrude.”
It was Lucian, who had come out with an umbrella in hand, without a servant to attend him.
Hearing his unusually cautious voice, Boris gradually returned to his ordinary self.
A fire burned in the hearth, and warm tea had been prepared. It was a small guest room used when Lucian received visitors, a place normally kept closed as it saw little use.
The servants kept it clean, so the interior was immaculate. Yet because it was not a room meant for habitation, it felt somewhat cold.
Having shown the two into that room, Lucian spoke with a remarkably masterful air, telling Isolet not to worry as he would arrange bedding for her and she should make herself comfortable.
He offered to provide dry clothes as well, but Isolet politely declined. Boris understood that she had no intention of staying even one night.
After Lucian left, for a time the only sound was the crackling of the fireplace.
After a long while, Boris asked how she had found this place.
“The Nauplion Priest told me that you are not the sort to begin new adventures. Even if you returned to the Continent, you would settle somewhere you already knew. And he mentioned that you once nearly became an apprentice to the Blacksmith at the Castle in Gwale. He said if you had chosen that path then, your life would have been different.”
It astonished me that Nauplion had already seen through an answer I myself had not known before the mirror of Ganapoli revealed it. Nauplion truly understood what sort of person Boris was.
After a moment, Isolet spoke abruptly.
“The Priest seems quite unwell.”
Isolet watched as Boris’s eyes blinked several times before gradually widening. After a long moment, Boris suppressed his voice and asked.
“Are you speaking of the Nauplion Priest?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What’s wrong with him? Did something happen to him? Was there a duel?”
“Nothing like that. It’s an old chronic illness of his. It’s gotten worse.”
At the word “chronic illness,” Boris, who had been about to ask something, froze. He lowered his head, then shook it, and after muttering something under his breath, his lips trembled faintly.
A cascade of memories flipped through his mind like pages in a rapid book. He asked himself—didn’t he already know? Yes, he did know.
What kind of illness it was.
“Is it… very serious?”
“Unfortunately… they say the end of this year will be the limit. According to what Morpheus said.”
Boris, who had been keeping his head down, suddenly clenched his fists and shot to his feet. As Isolet lifted her gaze, she saw that his face was streaked with tears. Unable to control his expression, he cried out into the empty air.
“Why… why did you lie to me like that? Why, how could you!”
Isolet lowered her eyes. She understood the meaning behind Boris’s words. She had already heard the lie that Nauplion had told Boris when he left the island. She knew it was because he feared Boris would not leave.
“If I had known… I would never have left, even if it meant death…”
His voice came in broken fragments, his throat constricted. Isolet kept her lips sealed, her gaze fixed on a corner of the fireplace.
A moment later, she opened her eyes and spoke.
“When I learned everything, I too didn’t know what to say. Yes, it’s right that you hate me. He used the last thing that could save his own life for me, and he lied to you, saying that even he was healed by it—something that can only cure one person. I only learned of the Red Heart’s existence recently, when Priestess Despoina told me the whole story. Going back further, his actions were entirely because of me and Father—because of us, parent and child.”
Boris stared only at the edge of the table with reddened eyes. Isolet’s voice continued.
“After I learned of the Red Heart’s existence and its healing power, the first thing I questioned was this: why wasn’t the heart left by the original monster used to heal the Nauplion Priest? After all, he was the only survivor of that battle. I know better than anyone that Father could not return alive. I knew he must have used that technique—the one that takes one’s own life to kill the enemy as well. Recently, when I received Father’s research journal from Morpheus, I found a record stating that he had discovered the heart’s purpose. So then, why?”
Water dripped from her clothes, spreading across the floor.
“I wondered, for the first time, whether it might have been Father’s stubbornness.”
Boris already knew. The Ilios Priest had destroyed the Red Heart in anger over his disciple’s actions. But he did not want to tell Isolet this.
“Long ago, when I was young, I happened to discover the secret of the letters carved into Father’s sword and begged him to make one like it. He said he was sorry, but he didn’t know how to make it, and he didn’t even know where that sword came from. After that, I inherited Father’s sword, but only much later did I wonder who had made it. After I saw that you had the same sword.”
Isolet’s voice had sunk like wet hair, as if she had already endured countless agonies and had nothing left to disturb her.
“You said that sword was lent to you by the Nauplion Priest. If it’s his sword, who made it? Then I saw the same sword one more time, and eventually, just as I suspected, I learned that Oinopion—the master who taught the Nauplion Priest—had made it. Yes, to speak the truth: on that dawn of fate when Father chose the path of death, I met the Nauplion Priest.”
Night deepened. Along with all the secrets that had been hidden.
“He told me he would surely protect Father, and that he would repay an old debt in that way. After the betrothal incident, that was the first time he and I spoke, and it became the last for a long time afterward.”

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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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