Lian watched the forest breeze brush against her face, stirring her hair… Even though Iyue’s expression appeared calm at this moment, Lian faintly sensed how intense and profound the pain hidden beneath that calm must be.
It was probably a pain that a human of his age could not comprehend. A human lifespan was merely a pitiful hundred years… yet he had fallen in love with an elf who lived for over a thousand years, and even fathered a child with her—
How long had she been waiting alone in those woods before he found her?
The clear, mournful melody of the leaf flute that had sounded when he first met her, and which he had listened to on quiet nights during their journey, had probably already been played thousands, tens of thousands of times… perhaps even more.
Lian lowered his head and remained silent for a long while before finally speaking.
“…I see. No wonder you, a descendant of the Nereve family and the top archer recommended by Senia, would live under an assumed name, alone in the woods near a remote border village far from the capital.”
“And your name is also very different from your younger sister’s… it doesn’t even seem much like the naming style of people from Aitixila. The people from the Company also seemed unable to recognize the name carved on your father’s tombstone. And the script you used when signing for those two children…”
“That is the writing my father taught me. My name was also given by him.” A distant sense of reminiscence and nostalgia surfaced in Iyue’s emerald eyes. Just thinking of that time brought a smile to her face.
“My mother’s name is Iruna. Transliterated using the script from my father’s homeland, it became my name.”
As she spoke, she traced a character in the air… Its strokes were the same as when she signed for those two children. It was a strange script Lian also didn’t recognize.
“So you and that Nephtalia… are half-sisters, sharing the same mother?”
“Yes. Our mother is the same person. But Nefi’s father is different. That man was a husband arranged for mother by the family… arranged for her after my father’s death.”
When she reached this point, the smile vanished from Iyue’s face.
“Mother loved father very much. They met at a festival… one of the few festivals and events in the Sea of Trees at that time that allowed participation from other races. Father was a traveling musician. He and mother fell in love at first sight, so he braved everyone’s disapproval to play a flute piece for her and invited mother to dance.”
“In the few years father stayed in Fenglin City, their love became uncontrollable… but the family did not approve of their feelings and relationship. To be able to marry father, mother threatened to take her own life… and fled the family with the newborn me and father, settling in that village.”
“At that time, the village accepted us, but they deeply detested the marriage between an elf and someone of another race. They did not want to see father in the village, so we could only build our house in the woods outside the village.”
“We spent a brief period of peaceful days… but the family has never been one to compromise on threats or matters that tarnish the bloodline and violate tradition—especially when the person doing it is the biological daughter of the current head. They soon found mother and forcibly took her away… leaving me and father behind.”
“And afterwards, the family did not trouble us further. Even if impure, I still carried the Nereve family bloodline. But they told father to never set foot in Fenglin City again… or they would cut off his head.”
“And they also forbade me from taking my mother’s and the family’s surname.”
“Iyue…”
This was the first time Lian saw hatred appear in her eyes… the first time he heard such barely restrained anger in her tone.
That Iyue, who was always so composed and calm, actually seemed so emotional when recounting that past—
“As I said before, father was just a traveling musician. He was an utterly ordinary commoner. But he also understood that the family’s influence was everywhere in the Sea of Trees… and that their word was law. So the only thing he could do was believe the words mother shouted to him before she was taken away:”
“I remember… I remember. Mother said to him: ‘Please wait for me. I will definitely return to your side.'”
“So father and I began to wait. But he couldn’t just wait. He couldn’t show his face in Fenglin City… so he sent me to Fenglin City in his stead, time and again, to inquire about mother’s news.”
“But the family did not recognize me as one of them. I could enter Fenglin City, but I was not permitted to enter the family’s Great Tree—I heard mother was confined inside.”
“So I tried to sneak in there… time and again. I was just a kid who knew nothing back then. After being caught many times, I was hauled before the family head… the woman I should have called grandmother.”
“She told me… I would never see mother unless I became a true Nereve. But then she said a half-breed like me could never become a Nereve.”
“After that, I was driven out by them. And from beginning to end, that woman never once looked me directly in the eye.”
“I felt discouraged… I felt pain, but I did not feel despair. I still harbored a naive fantasy back then: if I could accomplish what other collateral relatives bearing this surname had done, then perhaps I too could gain the family’s recognition, become one of them, and see mother?”
“The qualification for collateral relatives to use the surname… hunting magical beasts?”
Lian remembered what Iyue had told him before about Alexis.
“That’s just one way. The family tradition is that those without pure blood must prove their worthiness of the surname. Honor, ability, achievements… if sufficient, any could serve as proof.”
“So I made a vow: I would definitely prove my worth, find mother for father… and also become a member of the family, so that one day that woman would kneel before me and beg for my forgiveness for what she did to me and my family.”
“And so I began to act. I spent a long time learning and rigorously practicing archery and spells. I also joined the Ranger Corps like that patrol captain did in the past, participating in hunting dangerous magical beasts… And I finally began to stand out, was noticed by the princess of that time, who is now Her Majesty the Queen, and became her personal guard.”
“But even after reaching this point, the family still did not recognize me. Even when Her Majesty the Queen personally went to the family to plead and protest on my behalf… they remained unmoved.”
“I thought, perhaps I hadn’t done enough? Perhaps I wasn’t strong enough? So I continued to hone my skills, continued to fight… until those around me could no longer compare, until I became what Her Majesty the Queen called the most outstanding archer in the Elf Sea of Trees in five hundred years.”
“Standing at the peak, I was proud and elated, basking in the glory… But I suddenly realized with a shock that I still hadn’t seen mother once, and the family… the family remained as cold as ever.”
“By the time I came to my senses… fifty years had passed.”
Lian felt a shudder run through his entire body.
“So I rushed home and saw father. He was human… so he had become very, very old. His fingers could no longer pluck the strings of his instrument with the same vigor as before, and his withered chest no longer held enough breath to make the wind instruments he played sing out loudly.”
“But he still had the strength to pluck a leaf from a tree. He placed the leaf against his cracked, parched lips… and played a tune to welcome my return.”
Iyue took out the leaf her mother had dropped from within her clothes. After a day and night of hurried travel, the leaf remained a deep, vibrant green, showing no sign of change.
“His music was still as moving as ever. But I could hear… the emotion contained within that music was utterly heart-wrenching. I saw countless music scores piled up in the house… and all those scores were written by him for me, and for mother.”
“What had I done? I left father… left him all alone like this… spent such an immense amount of time… What had I done?”
Iyue’s pupils trembled, just as they had trembled when she saw her aged father back then. She had asked herself that question then… and now, hundreds of years later, she asked it again—
She still hated the answers and reasons she had arrived at back then, which made her feel utterly wretched.
“I did not leave father again. I abandoned everything I had in Fenglin City… loyalty, honor, wealth. I stayed by his side, waiting for mother with him in that house. But until the day he closed his eyes and left forever… he never got to wait for mother’s return.”
“So I buried him and stayed in that little hut, waiting for mother’s return. And then over two hundred years passed…”
“Mother finally appeared. Her hair had turned snow-white. And she was leading a girl I had never seen before… appearing abruptly in that woodland, surrounded by a host of family knights and guards.”
“That child was Nefi… Nephtalia. She is the daughter born to mother and her new husband.”