Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 382

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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 152.
May Your Final Performance
Be Your Greatest (27)
Ines gazed into the eyes of Mrs. Molte, who was playing the role of the Countess of Bandeville. The next line of dialogue caught in her throat, refusing to emerge. That line had struck her heart. Joshua’s peril and Ines’s dilemma—she could save neither, escape neither. Trapped between them, unable to choose. Such emotion transformed her into Marie de Trois, unable to speak her words freely, and the audience tumbled into that same abyss of feeling.
“Nothing will help. I… I’ve fallen in love with him. There’s no excuse left for me. Only the fact that I hurt him, only the fact that it was I who did it remains.”
The tempest of her heart was answered by the orchestra. With violent melody, she sang. In those scant ten days, Joshua had carved time from nowhere to teach Ines. He himself had chosen her as the leading lady, and so he had sacrificed sleep for private lessons, determined to draw forth every ounce of the talent he’d discovered in such a brief span.
Before today’s performance, Joshua had applied her makeup with his own hands. As one might handle a masterpiece, he had drawn forth every measure of beauty from her unremarkable face. All of it was to perfect the stage he loved so dearly, and having created it, he would not abandon it. Even with death aimed at him, even knowing this fact plainly.
He had spoken to her just before taking the stage, turning to look at Ines one final time.
‘The moment an actor betrays the stage, the actor’s life ends as well.’
For such a Joshua, Ines could sing. As he had taught her, she could let her voice—laden with anguish—ring out to touch the heavens, and she could add her strength to perfect the stage upon which he had staked his life.
Until the curtain finally fell.
Maximian was nowhere to be found. It had been that way since morning. Riche had questioned everyone she knew, but no one had seen him. She had considered going to search for him, then decided she could not leave this place. But where had he gone? Could it be that he had truly abandoned his friend and departed, just as he’d said with his own mouth?
The last time had been when he’d stormed out of the Theater Dressing Room after a fierce quarrel with Joshua the night before. Riche had gone back to Kalaimon’s House, but Maximian had not returned there either. And Joshua had not come either.
So there had been no opportunity to tell him what she’d learned yesterday. Riche had woken, eaten a careful breakfast alone, and thought to herself: You two, knowing neither compromise nor reconciliation, understanding nothing of the significance of breakfast. Fine, keep fighting today. Until one of you has a hole through the back of your skull. I’ll be there to see it.
She had come with that expectation, but since one of them hadn’t shown his face at all, the fight hadn’t happened yet. Riche grew suspicious and continued to feel uneasy. Her premonition was not good.
Riche stood in the dark corner beside the stage. She could not tear her eyes from Joshua the entire time. In any case, the performance had to end. Even if she wanted to escape, it would only be after Joshua descended from the stage. No plan could begin before the performance ended. Joshua would not permit it.
Maximilien tells his siblings that he will marry Princess Albertine. The princess was thirteen years his senior, but her dowry was substantial, and once her mother—who suffers from having lost her only other child and remains childless—dies, a respectable territory will fall into his hands. Considering only the original objective, she was an ideal match. Only if one could endure her arrogant, even savage temperament, her collection of centipedes and venomous insects, and the sinister rumors that she may have poisoned her brother.
Marie is scheduled to depart at noon that day. Though his siblings give him subtle hints, Maximilien holds firm and does not go to the Dock. Yet he cannot stop glancing at the clock. Soon noon passes, and fifteen minutes have elapsed, when Maximilien suddenly springs to his feet and rushes outside. Climbing to the top of the Tower, he sees the ship already departing from the Dock, receding into the distance. He stands in silence, then turns away, then sings.
To believe in promises and tears and kisses
Is the work of fools.
I do not believe in such things.
Neither will you now.
Though I remember, let us forget it all
You must have suffered from me as well.
I too am one who cannot be forgiven
You and I spoke lies
May your eyes chase new stars
I will offer prayers from this place.
What I sought to gain by selling my life
Was only the peace of those I love.
I believe peace will come to you as well.
He stops singing and gazes forward, his eyes searching the distance as if seeking something. It was time to descend from the Tower. Then the light swept across the audience seating once more.
In the moment Maximilien’s eyes fixed upon the flag on Marie’s departing ship, it was Joshua—not Maximilien—who saw it.
A black hat.
As his head moved, the familiar contour of a jaw revealed itself beneath the hat’s brim.
A gaze fixed upon him. A gaze he could not help but recognize.
“….”
A hesitation flowed—whether brief or endless, he could not say. The gleam of a raptor’s eye hunting a fledgling, the impulse to flee from the captor’s gaze rose from deep within his chest, and when it reached his throat, it collided with another emotion and shattered into fragments. Fear and rage intermingled, and his own powerlessness before an adversary he could not oppose clashed with a self that shone with an intensity incomparable to anyone else in the world, and a clear consciousness surged forth—one that demanded expression, could not be hidden.
I will not die.
Never by your hand.
I, who possess a fate so powerful it sweeps away the destinies of others,
Demonic Joshua will not fall to the likes of you!
Not knowing who I am,
I’ve lived on my father’s land—
a small island of nothing but rocky outcrops and waves.
That island’s master is my fate itself.
Starting from the position I inherited,
I do not flee from my own territory.
I exhaust every possibility within my reach.
Those who call it impossible
will not do my work for me.
I know the hands reaching for me.
I know those who seek to strike me down.
I feel the footsteps drawing near.
They will find no laughter here.
They cannot seize what is mine.
Everything I protect, all that I hold,
not a single thing shall they take.
The actors waiting to continue the next scene were deeply bewildered. The song Joshua was singing did not exist in the script. Naturally, there was no accompaniment. It was as though it had been created in that very moment, flowing only from Joshua’s lips.
You’re still watching me, aren’t you?
In the darkness, hands concealed,
waiting for me to reveal an opening,
smiling in secret, aren’t you?
Is your seat comfortable? Can you see well?
Can you see my eyes watching you?
Watch carefully—watch me here.
Watch my will that yields not to you.
I do not fear you, creature of nothing.
No—I will devour you instead.
Enemy who hunts me with the eyes of a wolf,
Fate itself, murderer—
I will never die!
Joshua’s gaze fixed upon a single point—one seat in the audience seating that darkened and brightened with each shift of the stage lights. He concentrated his sight, his senses, his voice entirely upon the figure watching him from that place.
That figure was watching Joshua too. He knew Joshua was singing toward him. For one who could snuff out a life as easily as an infant in a cradle, the prey did not flee—it glared back. If a young bird were to stand its ground against a hawk circling with talons bared, perhaps the hawk would feel something like this. The gaze burns like fire itself.
No—distance obscures the pupils. Yet the fury pouring from that voice cascaded upon a single person with dizzying force. Fierce determination surges through the heart, piercing it. Even as it overwhelms hundreds, it bears down as though intent on stopping the breath of one alone.
I think I owe you gratitude
for filling my life with tension,
for giving me the will to protect my existence.
A life lived without purpose—
this life, now, suits me perfectly.
So then, will you join me?
Shall we share this glass of wine?
Here’s to you, watching me!
Here’s to that right hand of yours!
The lights died. It was the moment the scene shifted, but the audience who had watched yesterday’s performance stood bewildered by the sudden turn of events, yet simultaneously overwhelmed—they forgot even to applaud. Then, from somewhere in the front of the audience seating, someone began to clap slowly, loudly, distinctly.
Clap, clap, clap.
As though that were a signal, a storm of applause swept through the Grand Hall. Not yet at the climax, not yet at the ending—yet without anyone leading the way, people rose to their feet, and a standing ovation poured forth across the entire hall. It continued. Rough breathing and exclamations mingled with the applause that seemed as though it would never end.
The entire Grand Hall grew hot, as though infected by the fervor of the song. Yet no matter how hot it became, no one left their seat.
Riche bolted toward the Waiting Room. Joshua had to change costumes in the next scene. In that brief moment, she would see him. She had felt something too. In the final lyrics, she had understood clearly. Who he had sung for, toward whom Demonic Joshua’s madness had been directed!
She met Joshua just before the Waiting Room. He had changed into fresh clothes, but his forehead still glistened with sweat. What shone even more brilliantly were Joshua’s eyes—pupils bright and vivid as though they would gleam without light itself, tangled with moisture that could have been tears or perspiration.
Yet he was utterly exhausted.
“Riche.”
Just before Joshua took the Stage for the next scene, his lips brushed past her ear.
“Sixth row, tenth from the left.”
The Stage blazed with light once more. Joshua walked into it with confidence, completely concealing his exhaustion, stepping into the play where a bright ending now awaited.
To others it might have sounded like a cipher, but Riche understood Joshua’s words. Standing rooted to that spot, she stared through the audience seating, which appeared relatively dark against the bright Stage.
In that moment, the lighting swept across the audience seating once more.
Riche did not miss it. Sixth row, tenth from the left… that seat….
Was empty.
When Riche turned around, her face drained of color, there stood behind her the person she had searched for all day without finding.
Maximian spoke.
“Watch him from here. We’ll talk about the rest later.”

Children of Rune – Winterer
Author: Jeon Min-hee
Publisher: 14 Months Publishing
The publishing rights to this book belong to the author and 14 Months Publishing.
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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