Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 89

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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 89.
Blood That Won’t Fade (2)
The interior was dark.
I fumbled my way toward the bed. I had no doubt that Daphnen would be sleeping in the adjacent one. I stripped off my clothes and tossed them carelessly onto a chair, found my own bed, crawled into it, and sighed as I closed my eyes.
Then suddenly they snapped open again.
I called out to the boy softly.
“Boris!”
There was no answer. I called again, but the result was the same.
Nauplion bolted upright and leaped from his bed. He approached Daphnen’s bed and felt around beneath the blankets. The boy was gone.
“Boris! Where are you?”
He hurried to find a lamp and lit it. He swept the light across every corner of the modest house, but there was no sign the boy had returned. Naturally, the Winterer was nowhere to be seen either.
“This is… this is!”
It took Nauplion less than a minute to dress again, seize his sword, and burst out the door.
He glanced about frantically and rushed toward the places where the boy might have stopped. Then he walked quickly along the path before coming to an abrupt halt beneath a sky where only a single moon hung round and full.
If he wasn’t on the path, where else could he have gone? Of course—Morpheus’s house!
Nauplion arrived at his destination in moments.
He raised his hand to pound on the door, then thought better of it—there was no sense in disturbing the neighborhood. Still unsettled, he struck the window several times, roughly.
To his surprise, the window opened at once.
“Who… Nauplion? What brings you at this hour?…”
Morpheus didn’t finish his sentence. Nauplion’s powerful hand seized him by the collar as his head protruded from the window.
“Open the door. I’ve come looking for my boy.”
“You’ll have to let go first.”
Morpheus showed little alarm. Once Nauplion released him, he disappeared inside briefly, then returned to gesture for him to enter.
Nauplion swept his gaze across Morpheus’s cluttered study, where the lamp still burned, then asked.
“Where are Boris and Daphnen?”
Morpheus furrowed his brow and countered.
“That child should be at your house, shouldn’t he?”
“He’s not. Didn’t you send him somewhere else?”
“The boy said he was going home several hours ago. Are you certain he’s not at your place?”
Among the Priesthood, it was customary to use formal speech regardless of age, but these two had grown so familiar with each other that they dispensed with such formality.
Morpheus watched as Nauplion’s face gradually hardened, then stiffened further before turning fierce. He sensed instinctively that this situation transcended their past friendship.
“He’s disappeared. The boy has…”
His voice suddenly rose, echoing through the study like a shout.
“He’s vanished! He’s nowhere to be found! And he took something so dangerous with him!”
Morpheus grasped the gravity of the situation. He didn’t waste time asking foolish questions like “Are you certain?” Instead, he immediately threw open the door and circled the house once.
Confirming that no one was there, he went back inside and retrieved a short rod from one corner of his cluttered study. As he gripped it firmly, light began to emanate from the rod.
“Let’s go. We must hurry to the places I suspect.”
By dawn, the two priests who had set out searching for the missing boy returned to the front of the house with nothing to show for their efforts.
It was unthinkable. This was no village tucked away in some corner of the Continent. It was the sole settlement on an Island, isolated and surrounded by treacherous seas. Even if one wished to escape, there was nowhere else to go.
They had already checked the Dock and confirmed that no one had boarded any vessel. As they searched the nearby Mountainside, the staff of perception that Morpheus, a Priest of the Circle who oversaw medicine and technique, had imbued with magic, glowed continuously.
Yet even as rare medicinal herbs and mushrooms—things that ordinarily eluded detection no matter how thoroughly one searched—were sensed in abundance, a single homeless boy remained undiscovered.
“One thing is certain.”
Morpheus entered the laboratory and extinguished the lamp he had deliberately left burning. On an island where oil was precious, keeping a lamp alight through the night was wasteful, but he had done so intentionally to maintain the appearance of spending another sleepless night in research as was his custom.
Nauplion had followed him inside, yet still showed no inclination to sit, his gaze fixed upon a corner of the laboratory.
He was a Priest of the Sword, and therefore possessed nothing to employ in the search save his natural physical prowess. Even that infuriated him.
During the night’s search, he had gleaned the general story from Morpheus. The thought of his student vanishing with a dangerously half-awakened blade constricted his chest. An uncontrollable fury welled up at his own helplessness.
Morpheus glanced sideways to see if Nauplion was listening, then threw himself into a chair and spoke.
“We must conceal this fact.”
Nauplion turned his head. His eyes burned with an intensity surpassing any he had directed at an enemy in the past.
“What are you saying? Even now, are you concerned with concealing your own failure?”
Morpheus’s expression hardened into something grim and unyielding.
“Spare me the ignorance. This blockheaded priest would scarcely regret expulsion from the Island tomorrow. But Daphnen is not the same, is he?”
“….”
Morpheus continued, observing Nauplion’s silence.
“If word spreads that Daphnen has vanished, the entire Island mobilizes to search, then perhaps—just perhaps—the likelihood of finding him increases marginally. But in my judgment, the only person capable of providing substantive aid now is the Desi Priest. All the more so if the boy’s disappearance stems from Sword Magic.”
Morpheus wrung his hands anxiously.
“Once news of his disappearance circulates widely, whether he returns or not, everyone will learn why this occurred. You witnessed the mood in the Priest Council well enough. If it becomes known that the cause was his blade, do you truly believe he will be spared? Neither the priesthood, nor the Island’s people, nor the Regent will tolerate it. The conclusion is simple: one of two outcomes. Either the blade is destroyed, or both the blade and the boy are destroyed together.”
Suddenly Morpheus rose from his chair. Nauplion’s powerful hand seized him by the collar, the other gripping his shoulder.
Morpheus saw the expression that appeared on Nauplion’s face, yet made no move to resist, remaining still.
A violent impact.
Morpheus’s body was driven backward and hurled into the chair. The blow was severe enough to snap his jaw, yet he neither raged nor feigned pain, simply lowering his head and closing his mouth.
But moments later, he opened it again, spitting out a broken tooth along with blood-tinged saliva.
Nauplion looked down at him, his voice thick with suppressed emotion.
“When Daphnen returns… I shall repay this debt with my own tooth.”
Presently, the sun climbed high into the sky.

At the hour when the sun reached its zenith, a girl walked gracefully along a quiet village path.
Since Scoli’s lessons had not yet concluded, no children her age were visible along the way.
In the girl’s hand hung a wreath woven from pale violet wildflowers. The water steeped from the roots of this flower, called Ezelda, was commonly used by the Island’s people as a fever remedy. For this reason, the flower was popular as a gift when visiting the ill.
The girl stopped before a house’s door and peered at a sign affixed outside. It had not been there before.
Visitors are not accepted.

It was a simple inscription. I gazed regretfully at the characters carved into the wooden plank with a knife’s edge, then gently traced them with my fingertip.
A shadow fell across my back, and I turned to face it. Before me stood a man with a hunched posture.
I smiled brightly.
“What perfect timing!”
Nauplion forced a smile, though he didn’t seem particularly pleased. The girl caught on to this immediately.
“It’s been a while, Liriope.”
“Yes, Daphnen must be quite ill.”
“…That’s right.”
“Is there really no way I can visit him?”
Nauplion’s eyes fell upon the Azelda flowers in Liriope’s hands. He extended his palm.
“Give them to me. I’ll deliver them.”
Liriope pulled the wreath back behind her, her voice tinged with petulance.
“Can’t I give them to him myself? It took me an hour just to make this. If you count the time spent gathering flowers, it’s two hours.”
“So you skipped Scoli as well.”
“I did it to keep my sick friend company.”
“How touching.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
Liriope was trying to steer the conversation in an odd direction, but Nauplion offered her a bitter smile. He extended his hand once more.
“Give it to me. If you don’t hand it over now, I’m leaving.”
“Ugh….”
Sensing there was no room to argue with Nauplion’s tone, Liriope reluctantly surrendered the wreath. She added one more thing.
“Please tell him to get well soon. Tell him I’ve missed him terribly since he hasn’t come to Scoli for four days. You understand, right?”
Nauplion shrugged his shoulders. Liriope turned and disappeared down the alley from which she’d come.
Her parting words had been playful, though perhaps half-serious. In other times, he would have teased her with a quip or two, but Nauplion lacked the mental space for such levity now.
He opened the door and stepped inside, then closed it slowly behind him and leaned against the frame.
The wreath hung in my hands. Thin but sturdy flower stems were bound tightly together by the girl’s delicate fingers, and soft petals like bee wings lay draped across them.
It was the perfect size to rest upon the head of a girl Liriope’s age, which made it look rather absurd in his large hands.
“….”
Nauplion hung the wreath on the door handle he’d just opened. Then he approached the bed and collapsed onto it.
By now, Morpheus would be meeting with Priestess Despoina. Four days had passed, yet his boy had not returned, leaving no trace anywhere on the Island. The limits of what two priests could accomplish in secret had been reached.
Morpheus was not one to apologize easily, but this morning he had sought out Nauplion and said “all of this is my fault,” declaring he would go directly to Despoina and confess everything.
She was the only person who might understand this situation, and both of them knew she was their only hope for aid.
The Island’s people had been told that Daphnen was simply unwell and resting at home. Nauplion knew that Daphnen had not won the Island’s favor, so he believed that would suffice.
Yet on the evening of Daphnen’s first day away from Scoli, little Oizis arrived carrying pastries his mother had baked.
The next day, Genesis, Scoli’s tutor, came to inquire after him. It was then that Nauplion learned Genesis, who had grown weary of children who wouldn’t read, had taken a liking to Daphnen for reading through Scoli’s books one after another.
Genesis, mindful of Nauplion’s authority as Priest of the Sword, offered no objection, but his eyes clearly betrayed bewilderment at why Daphnen couldn’t be seen.
The matter did not end there. On the third day, Zero, whom he’d known only as a hermit of the Tower, stood hesitantly at the door.

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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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