Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 95

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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 95.
Blood That Won’t Fade (8)
Despoina studied the document quietly, then lifted her eyes to the ceiling as she spoke.
“This is Ilios’s handwriting.”
“Yes, it’s a research journal written by Ilios Priest, Isolet’s father. It was research on the geography of The Island, but….”
“Then why do you have it, Morpheus Priest?”
“I found it in the Library’s warehouse, which Zero manages. There were quite a lot of records left behind by Ilios Priest there. Do you know why they’re stored there?”
“When Ilios Priest passed away, The Regent ordered that the important records among his work be transferred to the Library for research.”
Despoina answered calmly while scrutinizing Morpheus’s face carefully.
“No one ever conducted that research. They were simply locked away and left to gather dust in a corner. Besides, who on The Island could possibly continue Ilios Priest’s research? It would have been better to leave them with Isolet—that girl would have read and understood everything. Yet they took it all away because she’s young….”
“What are you trying to say?”
Morpheus shut the book with a sharp snap. His eyes gleamed with that characteristic brightness as he spoke.
“Would you permit me to take all of Ilios Priest’s research journals from the Library to my residence so I can study them?”
“It’s not a difficult matter, but for what reason?”
Morpheus smiled thinly.
“Rest assured I won’t commit anything as dreadful as last time. I simply wish to read them. I have a feeling there’s something I’m looking for hidden within them.”
Despoina considered for a moment, then nodded.
“Do as you wish. I’ll send word to Zero. But will you never tell me why you suddenly wish to study this?”
“I cannot speak of it until I have results. If I may explain my motivation simply….”
Morpheus opened his mouth, then pointed with his finger to a spot inside it.
“I owe a debt to whoever knocked out this tooth.”

“Daphnen.”
I suddenly came to my senses. The rocky outcrop glittering in summer sunlight, the girl’s golden hair and white linen dress, the cool green of the grassland.
This was where his peace had dwelled. Speaking here brought joy, and the tightness binding his heart would dissolve into a refreshing coolness.
I had returned to sit in that place once more. Yet something had changed. In his hand was no Winterer, and in his heart remained only an absence.
I tried deliberately to recapture that old feeling, but it would not come. Daphnen gazed around with a dull, lifeless expression. Then his eyes turned toward Isolet.
“It’s different.”
Isolet rose to her feet. She walked slowly in a circle around the grassland. Bright light descended from all directions. Yet in Daphnen’s eyes as he watched it, there was no vitality.
Isolet returned to the rocky outcrop and sat down. Then she spoke to the young boy.
“What did you see?”
She had always despised those who pried into others’ affairs with tedious curiosity.
Yet she found herself wanting to know what change had occurred in Daphnen’s heart. Perhaps hiding such a desire was itself a form of self-deception—something worthy of her own contempt.
Unexpectedly, Daphnen answered readily.
“Old memories have been revived. Things from long ago that I thought would never reach this place.”
I almost said, “Now that I’ve seen them again, the world seems painted over in dark colors,” but swallowed the words instead.
“Old memories? Of what?”
Many things came to mind, but I answered briefly.
“My Elder Brother.”
Daphnen gazed up at the sky. The color of the sky on this day was somewhat deeper than the hue of Yefnen’s eyes.
“Is your brother on the Continent?”
“Yes. I left him there.”
“Why did you part?”
A bitter smile rose to the corners of Daphnen’s mouth.
“My brother left me behind. I won’t be able to see him again.”
Isolet understood immediately what he meant. It was a familiar story to those who had lost someone.
After hesitating for a moment, Isolet stood and hurled the small stone she had been turning over in her hand down the cliff.
Then, turning back to Daphnen, she spoke in a light voice.
“Shall we confess about the dead?”
Daphnen’s brow wavered.
“That sounds like a kind of game.”
“For the living, everything is a game. Will you speak first, or shall I?”
Daphnen recalled the story Nauplion had told him in the meadow before.
He nodded slowly.
“Please, speak first.”
Isolet held out the backs of both her hands. Looking at them, I noticed something that had gone unobserved until now. Four of her fingernails were not smooth curves but possessed one or more angles.
In other words, when viewed in cross-section, they formed triangular or quadrangular shapes. Her right thumb and ring finger, and her left middle and ring fingers were like this.
“They came from my father. Like so many other things, these nails too. He passed away when I was twelve years old.”
It was a strange coincidence. Daphnen spoke.
“My father also passed away when I was twelve. My Elder Brother as well.”
Isolet stood and peered down at Daphnen’s face. The prominent nails on her pale fingers caught the sunlight.
Soon after, she laughed softly.
“For a long time, I thought Father had abandoned me. He knew how lonely I would be without him, yet he left me behind alone. If he truly loved me, he should have taken me with him.”
This time, Daphnen offered a peculiar smile.
“You weren’t persuaded by your father, then. I was persuaded by my Elder Brother, and yet I still had to live on after letting him go alone.”
“Father didn’t even try to persuade me. I suppose he thought I was already a grown adult—mature enough to understand everything.”
“You’re clever, though. Unlike me.”
Isolet pressed her lips together, then forced something resembling a smile.
“So you say it too. I hate hearing that. When people say such things, they subtly distance themselves from me.”
“That wasn’t my intention. But the point is, your father misunderstood you. And in the end, you suffered for it.”
As he spoke, Daphnen’s face brightened for the first time that day.
“My Elder Brother always saw me as a little child who knew nothing. That’s why he explained everything in detail.”
“Was your Elder Brother an adult, then?”
“No. He was mature, but not quite an adult. Unfortunately… But even if he had been, there were things he did that most adults couldn’t easily accomplish.”
Daphnen paused in thought, then added in a quiet voice.
“Perhaps, some tens of days before he left me, he truly became an adult by then. In a sense, he became an adult for my sake.”
As he spoke these words, Daphnen felt something within him subtly ease. Perhaps it was proof that his memories of Yefnen were gradually transforming from wounds into cherished recollections.
Before long, the two of them had forgotten their agreement to take turns speaking, instead asking and answering as they pleased. After hearing a few words about Yefnen, Isolet asked.
“How old was your Elder Brother?”
In her eyes as she asked, there was a warmth he hadn’t seen before. Daphnen thought for a moment.
“If he were alive, he would be twenty-two now.”
If he were alive, he would truly be an adult by now.
But Yefnen—that tender young man with clear, bright eyes—existed now only in Daphnen’s memory. His body would not awaken, as if it had truly fallen asleep to the lullaby his younger brother had sung.
Isolet spoke softly.
“There was a time I wished I had siblings. An older brother or sister, specifically. But you can’t suddenly gain an older sibling, even if you could have a younger one. It was when Father was still alive—one day I suddenly felt lonely and pestered him to give me a younger sibling. I still remember the absurd expression Father made then. Hehe.”
The word “Father” carried an unexpected tenderness, and the affection she still held for her deceased father was vivid. Daphnen asked.
“Why was he taken aback? Is there a reason you couldn’t have a younger sibling?”
“It was after Mother passed away. Or rather, Mother died not long after giving birth to me, so it was impossible from the start. I don’t even know what Mother’s face looked like.”
Daphnen nodded.
“I only know my Mother’s face from her portrait.”
I gazed down at the horizon stretching below the slope. Beyond it, there was surely a sea, though it wasn’t visible from here. How far away was it? How far did it extend?
At the end of that vast expanse lay the Continent, and beyond that, the distant path leading to my homeland where my Elder Brother lay buried.
“Would you like to go to the sea?”
Daphnen started in surprise, turning to look at Isolet. It felt as though she had read his mind.
Isolet spoke while gazing into the distance, just as Daphnen had been.
“There’s a sea I visit sometimes.”
The meaning of that strange phrase—”a sea I visit sometimes”—was soon revealed. By the time they arrived, dusk had already fallen.
Moon Island, curved like a crescent moon, became increasingly rugged and mountainous toward the northeast, so the coastlines where ships could dock were concentrated in the southwest. Thus, whenever one spoke of “going to the sea,” it always meant that direction.
But Isolet’s “sea she visited sometimes” was on the Northern Coastline. In truth, it wasn’t a coastline at all—it was a coastal cliff.
Daphnen followed Isolet as she climbed the mountain with practiced ease, nearly exhausted by the effort. It took longer than expected.
Only when he heard “We’re almost there” did his strength suddenly give way, and fatigue crashed over him all at once.
From that vantage point, the sea still wasn’t clearly visible. Daphnen retraced the path they had taken—there had been gorges split like knife blades, and they had walked along cliff edges while gazing down at a river hundreds of feet below.
Though the path was treacherous throughout, it was not without a way. It was a trail worn firm over decades, traveled steadily by at least a few people each day.
Who on earth had wandered through these harsh mountains so regularly?
“This way.”
Following Isolet, I climbed onto an elliptical rocky outcrop that jutted toward the coastline. Just below, massive trees sprouting from the soil obscured the view toward the sea.
Isolet pointed to a protruding stone ledge on the left and told me to sit. Seeing that she was scarcely exhausted, Daphnen found himself genuinely marveling at her, even developing a sense of respect—overlooking the fact that he himself had almost never climbed mountains before.
Isolet stood beside Daphnen, catching her breath, and gazed her eyes northward into the distance. After a moment, a brief chant flowed forth.

Where my eyes reach,
Beyond that, the blue headland,
Waves drawing long furrows,
May I walk with wings spread new.

Whoooosh….
Wind rushed through the branches. Leaves trembled.
Daphnen watched the sight before him without even drawing breath. The trees moved their arms and parted. As if they had heard her song, nodded, and made their choice.
The sea opened.
A path no human could traverse—the way of winged birds alone. Yet her gaze, unobstructed, raced to the horizon’s end and rose again to look upon the sky.
The Northern Coastline was a deep indigo. It was a color that seemed to hold a heart frozen blue in the depths below the water. I imagined a single jewel of deep blue burning like frozen flame—a treasure of the winter lands that would freeze even the human who possessed it.
“A cold sea indeed.”
Even as Daphnen murmured thus, he marveled again and again at the beauty of the Northern Coastline.
The rocks of this cliff were strangely pale, creating a vivid contrast with the indigo of the sea. Wherever the eye fell, it was a straight line of sea where no island’s head appeared, yet it was also a parabolic sea that surged endlessly in undulating waves.
“You are yourself as always.”
“Something to warm you will descend soon.”
It was not the direction where sunset should appear, yet soon a crimson mist draped down like a curtain between heaven and earth. The sea subsided into red, like the tearful eyes of one in anguish. Now the burning jewel descended into those deep waters….
“It will warm her.”

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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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