Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 277

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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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Episode 47.
Not Every Child Is an Angel (47)
“What time is it?”
The man looked flustered.
“I don’t know.”
Joshua regarded the man with renewed suspicion. He rose and positioned himself as if to block Joshua’s path. “You’re at an age when you should be growing. You slept for four days and nights straight—aren’t you hungry?”
“Four days and nights? Me?”
As Joshua began to respond, his stomach suddenly twisted violently, and he staggered before catching himself. Whether it had been four days and nights or not, one thing was certain—he was ravenous. When he pressed his hand to his forehead, a faint fever lingered. His entire body felt drained, as though he were recovering from an illness. Had I been sick?
Joshua breathed slowly and deliberately, murmuring to himself.
“Your face is unfamiliar to me. Guests don’t easily enter our home. Except during parties and such occasions….”
Joshua trailed off mid-sentence, his mouth falling open.
“…Where is my sister?”
Four days and nights, he had said.
Bloodstained sleeves and flower petals, people and wine glasses clattering to the ground, sounds—all of it came rushing back at once, swirling around him. What had happened? What was it? What was it?
“You mean Ivnoa?”
When the man asked, Joshua shot him a look. But his eyes were unfocused and unstable. The man asked again.
“Do you want to know what happened to your sister?”
“Where…did she go?”
Even as he asked, Joshua knew the question was strange. Yet it was also the essence of what mattered.
“She’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes. From this world now.”
Joshua’s eyes lost focus for a moment, then returned.
“Gone?”
It seemed wrong. Like a lie. Or perhaps the truth, but so insubstantial it might scatter like paper at any moment. The man watched Joshua with patient persistence, observing how the young boy’s expression shifted moment by moment.
“It wasn’t a dream, then.”
The words emerged unexpectedly flat and hollow. Joshua sidestepped the man blocking his path, opened the door, and stepped into the corridor.
He passed through the dimly lit hallway and reached the top of the Staircase. The curved expanse of steps and the yawning void of the hall below resembled an abyss. Joshua began descending. Pausing to look around, he spoke.
“There’s no one here.”
Joshua stopped midway down and sat on the steps. Tan-colored lines formed irregular patterns across the surface, and he traced them with his finger—a game from childhood. He hadn’t played it in years. Not since he was five, that summer.
The line quickly faded and broke. Though he’d already explored this thoroughly as a child, no tan-colored stripe on the entire Staircase stretched more than three hand-spans. The longest one, measuring two hand-spans plus two thumb joints, lay on the twentieth step from the bottom.
He moved toward the railing carved with ivy vines. Since it was dead wood, it wouldn’t change from one day to the next, yet when he examined it, the ivy bore exactly fourteen leaves as he remembered. Of those, thirty-nine had perfect, overlapping outlines. The ivy curved upward twenty-one times and downward twenty-seven times. Among all the shapes the ivy created, he could find six perfect hearts and two clovers. Diamond shapes seemed uncountable, but when he’d checked one day, there were only eleven. He remembered everything perfectly. It was a game finished in childhood. Why was he recalling it now? Beyond the image of himself crouched in the corner of the steps, counting, came the sound of heavy footsteps thundering down, laughter ringing out. Back then, he had prayed his sister wouldn’t notice him as she descended the stairs….
Joshua sprang to his feet and finished descending. He approached an old painting hanging in the hall. Within it was a face that resembled his sister.
The Castle held a proper portrait of Ivnoa, but Joshua found it bore little resemblance. The painters couldn’t observe his sister for long—she never sat still. So they’d sketch based on fleeting impressions, and in their desire to please the patron, they’d always created the portrait of an elegant, composed girl. To Joshua, such portraits were indistinguishable from paintings of some unknown neighbor’s daughter. His sister, if captured truly, should look like the girl in this painting….
With a carefree, reckless smile.
That girl was not the protagonist of this painting, which featured nearly a hundred figures. The protagonists stood at the center—a lavishly dressed man and woman. The First Duke of Arnim, and his wife.
Joshua stepped back. From a distance, the girl resembling his sister blurred into the crowd, nearly invisible. Or perhaps his eyes were blurring.
“Joshua.”
Joshua turned. The man from before stood at the top of the Staircase. He descended and came to Joshua’s side. A large wooden cross hung through the folds of his fluttering cloak, with a small circle at its center.
Joshua turned around. The man from moments before was standing at the top of the Staircase. He came down the Staircase and approached Joshua’s side. A large wooden cross hung through the gaps of his fluttering cloak hem. It had the shape of a small circle at the center of the cross.
He stopped a step away from Joshua and shook his head.
“Don’t.”
Joshua stared at him without answering. A look of sorrow crossed the man’s face.
“Meeting them now would be more than you could bear. Calm your heart. The fact that I’ve appeared before you at all is already something extraordinary.”
“….”
Joshua couldn’t comprehend what the man was saying. Who were “they”? But when his gaze suddenly shifted upward along the staircase, he saw what looked like several dark shadows wavering in the distance. Without a sound, more and more shadows began to move.
“There….”
As Joshua tried to point, the man shifted and blocked his view.
“Don’t look. Come here.”
The man lowered himself and spread his arms wide. Sensing the shadows moving even closer, Joshua felt a chill run through him and instinctively moved to sit beside the man. The man leaned his head toward Joshua’s ear and whispered.
When your heart
weeps in a dark corner,
I borrow your hands
to spin the bluest thread.
When your heart
tumbles and dances through verdant fields,
I borrow your arms
to embrace the saddest flower.
Your heart—
a heart that knows no bounds,
you are the light upon the black hill,
the stillness within the abyss,
the sunlight through birch leaves.
When your heart awakens
and races across slopes and plains,
until you return,
I wait.
It was not a song. It was like an incantation, like tender solace. The man had whispered to Joshua. No—he had prayed for him.
From his ear inward, his mind, then his entire body felt as though it were being washed clean by water. Was it merely imagination? Something felt strange. The twisted knot in his heart seemed to have simply come undone.
“What did you just do?”
Before answering, the man studied Joshua’s eyes carefully, then looked around again. Joshua also looked up toward the staircase. All the wandering shadows had vanished.
“What was that just now?”
When Joshua spoke in the past tense, the man smiled with relief.
“It’s better not to know.”
“But something was there, wasn’t it?”
“You don’t need to know yet. Come now, don’t be afraid. Keep your heart at ease.”
The man grasped the cross hanging from his neck and nodded slowly toward Joshua. Watching him, the fear that had gripped Joshua gradually subsided. It was clear the man possessed a power beyond the ordinary.
“Who are you?”
The man looked around once more, confirmed there was nothing, and spoke.
“Now it’s safe. Who am I, you ask? I am one like a tree, who serves the Seven Sons of the Ice River.”
Joshua recalled his visit to the Monastery and asked.
“Are you a Monk?”
The man shook his head.
“I would say I’m more of the Priesthood.”
“I’m not entirely sure what the Priesthood is, but you seem to possess an unusual power. Would you tell me your name?”
“I’m Kelsniti Meed. You can call me Kels. I’m not an odd person.”
“But you are strange. The words you spoke—were they like magic incantations?”
“Well, that was prayer. I’m not a sorcerer, so I can’t cast magic.”
Kels rose to his feet and gazed down at Joshua gently.
“Why do you think you were able to see me? It’s because an emptiness was born in your heart. As you mourned and yearned for the dead… the boundary between you and me grew thin.”
“What do you mean by that? A boundary?”
“We will meet again.”
Joshua furrowed his brow, pondering the meaning, and asked.
“Does that mean you’re about to disappear now?”
Kels shook his head side to side instead of answering.
“Until we meet again, don’t tell anyone that you’ve seen me. And if another stranger like me ever stares at you intently, don’t speak to them as you did to me. Even if they speak first, don’t answer—pretend you didn’t see them. It would also be good if you left this house for a while.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying, but I need to know who you are!”
“You’ll find out soon enough. There’s no point in telling you now.”
Kels’ feet began climbing the staircase again. Joshua was suddenly seized by an odd premonition and asked.
“Do you know where my sister is right now?”
The man paused briefly.
“Your sister is where I’m about to go.”
“Where is that?”
The man didn’t answer. He reached the second-floor hall and disappeared down the left corridor, raising one hand in a light gesture of farewell.
Joshua rushed up the staircase. He looked beyond the corridor where the man had gone. After standing in silence for a while, he whispered softly, “There’s no one there,” as if someone might be listening.
Kelsniti was certainly a stranger. Yet the feeling that I had seen him somewhere before was overwhelming. Where was it? Long ago, or just moments before.
Joshua came back down the staircase and went to stand before the painting. And soon he found it. Right beside the First Duke of Arnim, there was a man dressed in garments far more ornate than before but still resembling monastic robes. His face was slightly younger than now, yet unmistakably the same.
Children of Rune – Winterer
Author: Jeon Min-hee
Publisher: 14 Months Books
The copyright to this book belongs to the author and 14 Months Books.
To reuse all or part of the contents of this book, written consent from both parties is required.

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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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