* * *
The woman chuckled as though she’d expected my question.
She gently caressed the pendant before sitting down in front of me.
Her eyes, fixed on the pendant, turned somber for a brief moment before regaining their usual warmth.
“It was a gift from long ago. Do you see the year engraved here?”
“The year?”
I looked where she indicated and spotted a faintly etched number.
Time had worn it down, but it seemed to date back at least thirty years.
So it was a gift from that year?
Or maybe it was her birth year?
Though it seemed unlikely to be the latter.
Probably the year she received the gift… or maybe not.
While I silently puzzled over the inscription, the woman placed the pendant on her thigh and smiled again.
The way her eyes crinkled into crescent shapes with the motion felt oddly familiar.
Perhaps it was just my imagination.
“Yes, it was a gift from that time. Pretty, isn’t it?”
“You must have received it from someone special. It’s been well-maintained.”
“It was from my lover. Or, I suppose ‘ex-husband’ would be more accurate since we married right before we parted.”
“Ex-husband?”
“He wasn’t Lily’s biological father. Here, take a look.”
“…”
I accepted the pendant she handed me.
Inside the slightly open locket was a miniature portrait of an unfamiliar man.
He stood basking in sunlight, a faint smile suggesting he was looking at someone dear to him.
The warmth in the portrait spoke volumes about the artist’s feelings.
They must have loved him deeply.
You can’t create a portrait like this without genuine affection.
As I was silently concluding that the woman had likely painted it herself, I froze.
The man had silver hair, just like Lily had described.
His eyes, too, were nearly silver-white.
His features struck a chillingly familiar chord, though they bore no resemblance to Lily.
Instead, the face mirrored the one I saw every day in my own reflection.
Too familiar.
Unnervingly so.
“I first met him 35 years ago while traveling through the Terranto Republic.”
“The Terranto Republic? I don’t think I’ve heard of it.”
“It’s far west of here—a country without kings or nobles. Only the bourgeois held power there.”
“That’s fascinating. Are there elves there too, by any chance?”
“Elves?”
The mention of a republic brought to mind Daniel’s homeland, a place where elves and humans coexisted.
Curious if Terranto was similar, I asked, and the woman furrowed her brow as though searching her memory before shaking her head.
“No elves, but the natural scenery was breathtaking. It felt like spirits might live there.”
“Spirits?”
“Yes. I saw many spirit summoners during my travels. Maybe a spirit king resides there.”
“That would be incredible.”
“Mr. Isaac—I mean, Mr. Winter, have you ever traveled abroad?”
“Please, call me Isa.”
“All right, Isa.”
“And no, I’ve never left Hadelber Kingdom. I’ve lived here since birth.”
“Then you should go one day. Who knows, you might stumble upon something extraordinary.”
The woman added that last part playfully before continuing.
“Anyway, I’m originally from Hadelber, though now I live here. Back then, I was quite wealthy and loved traveling.”
“This place is charming, though.”
“It may be modest, but it’s cozy. I like it here.”
Her expression brightened at the compliment.
She bit into a biscuit Lily had left on the table, then murmured softly to herself, seemingly pleased with her handiwork.
“As a child, I loved exploring. I’d leave the capital to visit different parts of the kingdom, the sea, the mountains…”
“Wow.”
“And of course, I traveled abroad. That’s when I met him.”
“Sounds like destiny.”
“It was a fateful encounter. Though it started as a bad one. That day, I’d been pickpocketed and left penniless, while he had just been dumped by his eighth fiancée.”
“Eighth?”
“Yes. She found him dull. Said dates with him were boring.”
“What?”
“He wasn’t a smooth talker. Nor was he skilled at charming women. He was kind to a fault—almost naïvely so.”
“Like an easy mark?”
“Exactly. I remember thinking I’d never fall for someone like him. I was young and foolish.”
“I think it’s cute.”
“Thank you for saying so. We fell in love anyway and began traveling together. Around that time, he gave me this pendant with his portrait inside. He said I should look at it whenever I missed him.”
“And what happened? From the way you talk about him, it sounds like you cared deeply for each other.”
“He died.”
What a lovely, romantic gift—a pendant to remember him by.
The kind of love I’d always admired: one where each person was the other’s entire world.
But as soon as I asked the question, her face darkened.
The warm, glowing memories seemed to give way to a shadow of something grim.
“We both loved traveling. After we married and had a child who took after him, we kept journeying together. But not long after the baby was born, we reached a forest… or was it a mountain? It was full of trees. Later, I learned it was the edge of the Gayat Mountain Range.”
The edge of the Gayat Mountain Range.
A place I was all too familiar with.
No way.
At the sudden feeling of foreboding, I clenched my fists tightly.
Come to think of it, Lily had mentioned that the woman had lost sight in one eye because of a monster’s venom.
And ‘Mother’ was a high-ranking monster whose bodily fluids were toxic.
Everything suddenly clicked into place.
As I reached my conclusion, the woman let out a bitter laugh, marking the end of her long story.
“And after that, well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? I was poisoned by Mother’s venom and lost consciousness. While I was out cold, he died trying to protect the child. I didn’t see it myself, so I can’t say for sure, but the person who brought me here said he died like that.”
“The child…”
“The child died too.”
“…”
“It seems they died together in the end. The baby wasn’t even a year old yet… such a pity.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.
I felt a wave of guilt, as though I had stirred up her most painful memories.
Swallowing hard, I forced a smile and spoke again, remembering how her eyes had lit up only when she spoke of the child she had with the man in the portrait.
“What was the child’s name?”
“They didn’t have one.”
“Ah.”
“But…”
Her voice trailed off, and she gripped the fabric of her skirt tightly.
“If the child were still alive, I would have named the child ‘Sei.'”
* * *
