Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 478

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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 248.
Playing Oneself (24)
The 960-vintage champagne was the same age as Theo. Since it hadn’t been shaken, barely any bubbles rose to the surface. I poured half a glass from my own chalice, the one with blue threading at the rim. There was no one to clink glasses with, but I wasn’t the sort to let such trifles rob me of savoring success.
Had he succeeded?
Despite all the plans that had crumbled, Theo affirmed it. I had reached my original objective. Everything else was merely a byproduct that came later—nothing more than a side path that emerged along the way. What had preceded ambition? Hatred. I had reached the end of hatred.
Theo had made many efforts to eliminate Joshua before he reached the Castle. Yet in the realm of the unconscious and desire, it seemed I had been waiting for this moment to meet him again. Strange as it was, that very strangeness brought satisfaction. I had wanted so desperately, so madly to show him—a puppet identical to Demonic Joshua, yet nothing but a marionette of Theostid da Moro.
So I could afford to be content.
Theo rose before lifting the glass and approached the window, gazing down at the forest. My chamber did not face south. Beyond the westward window lay a meticulously trimmed latticed garden occupying half the view, and beyond it, the Nightingale Forest with its naturally luxuriant trees.
Even if not visible from here, Anistan would be somewhere in a corner of that forest. Though I would not raise a glass with him now. When Anistan had come from the Rural Manor and, unable to resist my persuasion, returned to Jade Ring Castle, Theo had shown him the champagne and chalice being placed in the cabinet. A toast we would share when success came, I had said.
Back then, Anistan had still been quite sound.
Like everyone else, my friend had abandoned me. At the moment of success, I stood alone. Solitude mattered not. A smile rose to my lips, transforming into hearty laughter. There was no one I couldn’t overcome, and no one I wished to console more than myself. Theostid da Moro was a troublesome, greedy man who never knew satisfaction, who grasped for more than his abilities deserved and was cast aside—yet I wept not. Rather, I was the one who smiled.
Theo turned back toward the chamber. And stopped.
“Theo, hello?”
In the chair across from where I had been sitting, the one I had been staring at intently—there she sat. Her head tilted with that characteristic curiosity, one arm draped casually over the armrest, exactly as I had imagined while gazing at that empty seat. A pale pink dress covered the chair’s legs and spread beneath the table. The same dress she had worn five years ago, save for the absence of bloodstains.
“What are you doing?”
“…Thinking.”
My footsteps faltered. I was not as startled as I might have been. Perhaps because I had always anticipated such a day. Perhaps this was not the first time. Perhaps I simply could not remember.
“Thinking about what?”
The feet beneath the dress swung carelessly back and forth. Theo approached the chair and sat. I examined the face of the wife I had parted with so long ago, scrutinizing every detail. It was unchanged from years past, truly unaltered. The dimple etched like a painting in her peachy cheeks, the slightly upturned nose tip beneath which lay a short philtrum and small lips. I had been captivated when she was a six-year-old girl, and even after a dozen years of constant observation, I had never tired of her—a fairy-like child. Those who said she was too simple-minded to love understood nothing. Those who believed love could be feigned for fourteen years were fools. Love cannot be hidden. No counterfeit can be made.
“Ivnoa.”
“Yes?”
“I want to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“That night, the day before… you told me not to be surprised no matter what happened to you… didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
Ivnoa’s dark eyes fixed upon Theo. Just as she had believed that whatever story Theo told was fascinating. Looking into those eyes, Theo became the boy again—the one who would laugh carelessly and leap about, holding Ivnoa’s hand as they walked quietly through the corridors of Jade Ring Castle.
“Did you know everything that would happen the next day?”
Ivnoa shook her head.
“No.”
“Then why did you say such a thing?”
“Because I was afraid you would hold me back.”
“Joshua’s cup… you drinking from it? So that’s why you smiled at me then? To tell me not to hold you back?”
The same smile from that day bloomed across Ivnoa’s face. Theo lost himself in that smile.
“If you had held me back, I wouldn’t have died. Because I didn’t want to part from you.”
Movement ceased. Wind entered, rustling only her hair.
“I didn’t know you were trying to kill Joshua. But I knew I would die. I only learned how it would happen when the time came.”
It was a clarity of explanation she could never have managed in life. Theo exhaled roughly.
“You knew you would die? How?”
“Someone whispered to me long ago. Just a voice. That I would die that day. So I thought, ah, I see, and accepted it.”
Theo’s face went deathly pale.
“Why didn’t you tell me? You just accepted such words without question? Do you know how many times I’ve seen you bleeding in my dreams? How often I’ve jolted awake in terror? And yet you could face death so calmly?”
“Yes. Because….”
Ivnoa smiled again, but this time it was not the smile of a simpleton.
“That voice told me that if I died, Joshua wouldn’t die. My younger brother Joshua was destined to die at twelve, but if I died first, he would be spared. So I could understand it.”
“I can’t understand it. You’re more precious to me than Joshua, more precious than anyone in this world. How could you make such a choice on your own?”
“The voice told me. On the days when Mother suffered greatly carrying Joshua, as I lay beside her, it said that child would not be born alive. Joshua was fated to die before birth, and then once more after being born. But if I wished, I could change it. So I asked her to do exactly that. So I told Joshua in Mother’s womb as well. That I would take all the simplemindedness, all the death, all the Demonic madness. I would give him none of it. He remembered until he was two, but it seems he doesn’t anymore.”
Theo’s lips trembled.
“I can’t believe such words. How could such a thing be possible? Why should one person’s life become the sacrifice for another!”
Theo shook his head and struck the table. Wine splashed from the glass and fell. Ivnoa smiled softly.
“You don’t have to believe it. But I choose to believe it. That I protected my brother. And you as well….”
“Me?”
“Yes. If you had taken my glass that day, you wouldn’t have survived until now. So my smile protected you….”
Tears glistened at the corners of Ivnoa’s eyes. Theo could say nothing more. He simply reached out instinctively to wipe away her tears. Ive’s lips trembled weakly.
“I’m thirsty.”
Theo reached for the champagne he had been about to drink, then laughed instead. As he laughed, his throat tightened.
“You said this didn’t taste good.”
“It’s fine now.”
Ivnoa took Theo’s glass and raised it slightly as if to toast. Theo rose from his seat and brought the green-stemmed glass he had intended for Anistan. He poured champagne into it.
The glasses clinked together.
Ivnoa brought her glass to her lips. The golden liquid flowed in. Now there was no spitting it back out, no coughing up blood.
Theo also brought the glass to his lips. After taking a sip, he asked.
“Then let me ask you one more thing.”
Tears gathered again in Ivnoa’s eyes. She smiled with tears still brimming.
“Yes.”
“When you were held in Joshua’s arms back then… did you say that you forgave me…?”
Even as Joshua wept while speaking these words earlier, Theo had remained unmoved. But suddenly tears poured forth. They streamed down his cheeks abundantly. He could not remember the last time he had wept.
“Yes.”
Warmth flooded through his chest. It was profoundly warm. Theo set down his glass and extended his hand to Ivnoa. As he leaned forward across the table, the hem of her pink skirt came into view. There, crimson bloodstains appeared. One, then another, like flower petals falling.
“I forgive you.”
They embraced each other. They believed they embraced. The glass on the table was knocked over and spilled. They did not hear it fall.
Act 14. Outgrow
1. Butterfly Cocoon
Summer burns away to nothing
and golden ash remains in the Meadow.
People gather the ash
and brew bread and wine.
Fill your belly with summer
or freeze to death in winter.
As Maximian rushed through the entrance of the Castle, he encountered Hispaniae. The old man’s face was flushed crimson. He had clearly come in great haste. Maximian cried out.
“Why are you only arriving now!”
The first floor’s antechamber churned with servants and attendants in disarray. They chattered amongst themselves and rushed about in confusion, so preoccupied that no one thought to ask Maximian’s group how they had arrived. Crossing the Grand Hall toward the staircase, they encountered an elderly Silent Steward, who, upon glimpsing Hispaniae’s face, seized his arm as though about to burst into wailing and dragged him forward.
“Please, go upstairs at once!”
Riche followed, catching whispers that rippled through the servants. Stabbed with a blade, they said… The chamber is drenched in blood… He may not survive… Hush… Who dares speak of it… Keep everyone out…
Maximian and Hispaniae pushed through the crowds that filled the staircase and corridor, running without regard for who stood in their way—indeed, without even glancing at them. Riche, her arm bound, struggled to navigate through the throng and arrived slightly behind. As they reached the Duke’s chamber, even more people clogged the entrance. Knights loyal to the Duke stood guard with rigid formality, while only the head maidservant hurried inside carrying a basin and towels. When the knights with spears blocked the doorway, Hispaniae spoke.
“I am Hispaniae von Arnim, the Duke’s uncle.”
It had been decades since Hispaniae von Arnim had spoken that name upon entering Jade Ring Castle. The spears withdrew, and the three entered.
What struck the eye first was blood.
Everywhere the gaze fell—tables, chairs, carpets—all were drenched in it. The Duke’s trusted retainers, Baron Edmel and Lord Marlon, his secretary Hessel, three lightly-armored guards, and the head maidservant surrounded the tea table. As Hispaniae approached, Baron Edmel bowed and yielded his place. Maximian pushed past those beside him and leaned in to look down.
Joshua lay on the floor.
Against the profusion of blood scattered about, Joshua in his black clothes appeared almost untouched at first glance. Indeed, it seemed the Duke Arnim sitting beside him was the one who had been wounded. The Duke’s gown, cradling his son as he lay, was soaked crimson.
Yet upon closer inspection, the entire black shirt was a mass of blood. Blood that had flowed down his left sleeve pooled beneath the table like a spring. Bleeding continued still from his chest. The doctor had not yet arrived. All those gathered could do was attempt to staunch the wound with towels. Several towels, bright red with saturation, lay stacked in the basin, yet the cloth pressed against his chest continued to darken with fresh blood.
Joshua was pallid. Even his closed eyelids were ashen. His exposed skin had turned bluish in places, and his lips were no longer merely blue but violet.
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 this book’s contents, 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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