Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 461

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

Episode 231.
Playing Oneself (7)
Morning came to this world as well.
Stars that had twinkled through the night were gradually veiled by pale mist. The Forest, which I had thought existed only in darkness, cradled crimson, gold, and sea-blue hues. A dark path coiled its tail through the trees, and wind pursued it. As the sun climbed upon the branches, golden leaves fell in handfuls and scattered. Leaves that drifted between amaranth and purslane flowers soon drank in their verdant color.
Unseen birds rustled from somewhere. Were the birds truly real? Did the trees live? This place was a Tomb. Only one lay buried here, and another was buried alive. However beautiful the flowers that grew around the Tomb, they were never plucked for festival wreaths.
While I slept beside my beloved’s coffin, again and again, the Forest grew. All magic had been devoted to sealing, leaving only a handful remaining—yet I knew not where such power came from. The stone anchor, torn from the Sea and driven into earth, had kept here all things that must remain from drifting away. Sealing, heart, memory, promise.
Joshua and Maximian looked down at the lines Anarose had drawn on the ground. For now, they appeared to be nothing more than marks traced in soil, but she said they would carry them back to the Beach where they had first arrived.
Joshua lifted his head and spoke.
“Is there anything you’d like me to tell Kelce?”
Anarose paused in thought before answering.
“I would prefer you not mention that you met me here.”
Joshua was taken aback.
“But if Kelce hears news of you, surely….”
“He will grieve.”
There was nothing to say against the truth. Yet Joshua soon shook his head.
“Don’t ask me to do something so difficult.”
He said this despite having already accepted far harsher conditions—to eliminate the one who possessed the fragment and return to die by Anarose’s hand. Then he turned to look at Maximian.
“I would want to know what happens to Maximian, no matter what.”
Anarose’s gaze shifted to Maximian.
“You said he was your friend. Is he to Icabon what Kelce was to him?”
“No. He’s the kind of person who hits me on the back of the head and knocks me unconscious whenever I try to do something he doesn’t approve of.”
Joshua said this without smiling.
“Yet I am sufficiently satisfied.”
Maximian spoke.
“I’m not satisfied.”
“I already knew that much.”
Joshua turned his head back to Anarose.
“Still, Maximian ultimately came all the way here. Because of me. We were friends who met in childhood. Like Icabon and Kelce. When Icabon set his resolve, the first person to truly sympathize with his purpose was likely Kelce. From that promise came an oath, and eventually it led to the People of Promise. I wonder if Icabon, who sought to honor his promise with the People of Promise, perhaps wished to honor that first promise he made with Kelce in his youth. Just as I came here carrying the promise I made with my friend Maximian, tossing pebbles into a stream.”
Anarose gazed at them both for a moment, then asked.
“What promise did you make?”
Joshua smiled slightly.
“We promised to go to the Sea together.”
Maximian muttered from beside him.
“I never agreed to that.”
Joshua’s smile faded as he continued.
“However, I’m not bringing up Kelce’s story to ask you to forgive the People of Promise. Your honor belongs to you alone—no one else can weigh its measure.”
Anarose simply looked at Joshua calmly. Maximian sighed, thinking she likely shared Joshua’s sentiment. These naturally troublesome people could not be reformed even by nagging.
Now it was time to depart. Of course, as long as the contract remained, it was not a permanent farewell.
“Will you sleep again after we leave?”
“No. Not until the sealing is complete. After that, I will sleep.”
“When will that be?”
“After you eliminate the one who possesses the fragment, and years pass with the fragment unable to return.”
Anarose, too, seemed uncertain of the timeline. Correcting a seal once broken was extraordinarily difficult, and it would likely take considerable time.
Joshua nodded, then suddenly furrowed his brow, his expression growing troubled.
“Then, alone all this while—how have you endured?”
Sunlight descended upon Anarose’s face. With it came something faint that bloomed at the corners of her lips.
“As I have until now.”
“I cannot fathom it well.”
“It is like waiting for someone who promised to arrive at noon but never came. If one does not grow anxious, one can even see the flowers blooming beside the bench.”
Speaking of the one she loved, hearing news of a friend—she who had once been so fragile her slender frame seemed ready to shatter, convulsing with anguish and suffering, now spoke of her centuries of imprisonment as though it were merely a dream. Joshua could ask nothing more and hesitated before offering a smile.
“Sunset Island has been uninhabited for a long time now. Long before the tidal waves or magical storms returned. Though you likely understand why.”
Anarose spoke calmly.
“It is a place with far too little to sustain life without magic.”
“Are you not curious how I reached you in this place, with no one to guide me?”
Maximian spoke.
“You said earlier you came with Kelce.”
“I came with Kelce to the entrance, but as you know, this inner sanctum is a place where spirits cannot enter.”
Anarose gazed at Joshua without answering. Joshua met her eyes in return. Beyond her narrow eyelids, a green pattern swirled. It resembled the morning sea of the island. It resembled blue moss dwelling within a fossil. It was moving. A green that awakened, rippled, and bloomed forth.
Had the pupils from before she buried herself in that tomb returned?
“Icabon.”
When that name left Joshua’s lips, wind scattered once more.
“He once wrote a poem for a green liqueur.”
Absinthe’s gleam
A green more shimmering still
From within the heart
A southern fish
That flicks its tail once and flees
In that instant, melody was born. With the returning wind, Anarose’s burned hair scattered ash. Between the two standing face to face lay an image that would soon carry one of them far away. One step forward and it would be so. Then Joshua extended his hand.
“It was you who guided me here.”
Anarose sent her thoughts to Joshua instead of answering.
I did not know who you were.
“Yes. I did not know either. Not until I came here did I know I would meet you, that you were alive, that this place was your tomb.”
I do not know how you were able to open the door.
“But it was you. You opened the door for me, guided me through the labyrinth. This place you call a tomb—it brought me to you.”
This tomb is nothing but cold stone.
“Yet it is wrought from your heart. A heart of stone, and yet within it, flowers grow.”
The stone chamber had been illuminated by flowers. Through stone basins, trees had sprouted, and after enduring for so long, they burst forth all at once in firework-like blooms.
Had Anarose ever seen the landscape Joshua beheld? Perhaps not. Yet in that moment, she blinked several times, as though she had witnessed the white petals dancing through the chamber within Joshua’s mind.
Anarose’s hand rose to meet Joshua’s extended palm. Joshua extended his left hand as well, cradling her hand between both of his. A delicate hand, yet bearing the callus on the middle finger of one who frequently held a pen. In that instant, Joshua felt the illusion of becoming Icabon. Within Anarose’s eyes dwelt a green that could not be found anywhere else in the world.
It was only for a moment. The love of centuries past remained in this place, transformed into a tomb.
The moment my foot touched the ground, light suddenly burst forth from the pattern drawn in the soil, obliterating my vision.
4. The Secret of the Pinwheel Flower
To give a pinwheel flower is a proposal
To receive that flower is an engagement
To return it is a broken promise
To embroider and keep a pinwheel flower is a hidden heart
To paint it with a brush is a heart yearning to be understood
To dry it is a heart trying to forget
To discover a pinwheel flower is to learn of love
To pluck that flower is to fall in love
To discard it is for love to end….
A single bird was flying along the Beach.
It glided low along the Coastline, then westward, circling once around the small dune that the tide was gradually eroding where the Sandy Beach ended, before returning. This time too, it didn’t forget to swoop low as if to tease, nearly brushing the eyebrows of the two figures.
“That damned creature—this is the fifth time already.”
Transparent waves tickled the belly of the sailboat with a yawn. Beneath the foam, fragments of broken shells gleamed with mother-of-pearl lustre as they slumbered.
“If we could just catch ten of those things and make them pull the Ship, wouldn’t that work?”
Joshua suddenly spoke with surprising maturity.
“We’ve simply grown too accustomed to flying all this time.”
Maximian tried to look at Joshua sitting beside him by moving only his eyes, but the angle didn’t align properly.
“I’m genuinely comforted that you pointed that out.”
“Thank you for the sincere answer.”
The two abandoned the attempt to face each other and returned their attention to the sky. Yet all that passed overhead was a bird making its sixth crossing along the Coastline.
“There’s no point in sitting here like this.”
Maximian rose from the Stern where he’d been sitting and jumped down. Only then, with his face finally visible, did Joshua feign surprise with a mischievous grin and ask.
“Oh, have you finally resolved to row?”
“If you’re about to say something like ‘since you haven’t resolved to, I’ll row alone’ or some such nonsense, spare yourself the effort. That’s not what this is.”
“I wasn’t planning to say that… Did you come up with some good idea?”
Maximian rummaged through his bundle of belongings for a while. At last, his fingers found what he sought. He pulled it out and thrust it abruptly before Joshua’s nose—a crumpled stack of yellowed paper.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
Already worn to begin with, the bundle of paper had become even more trash-like after being rolled up inside the bag. It was the Sacred Chant Tradition sheet music I had obtained at the Hometown Tavern. Maximian even took the trouble of unrolling the paper for him. Of course, his helpfulness ended there.
“Surely you’re not suggesting I fix this score right now and conjure wind to move the Ship?”
“Of course, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Even if I were to try something like this….”
“I’m going to trust in Demonic’s ability. I trust, I truly trust.”
Maximian returned to the sailboat, sprawled out flat, and began to feign sleep.
Children of Rune – Winterer
Author: Jeon Min-hee
Publisher: 14 Months Publishing
The copyright to this book belongs 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.

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