novelraw Chapter 72 : Eyes on the Caretaker
Chapter 72 : Eyes on the Caretaker
Rooga’s POV
By now, the tree’s crown cast its shadow over our home, branches whispering with blue-green light. Wisps drifted lazily through the air, painting the borderland in colors it hadn’t known for centuries.
Mama finally noticed.
She stood at the doorway, arms crossed, eyes sharp as blades as she took in the scene—Papa’s sword flowing with new movements, his aura flickering with green mana, Lyra guiding me through steps of shadow movement, and Maori—now as tall as me—lounging at the tree’s roots like she owned the world.
Her gaze softened only slightly when it fell on me. Then hardened again. “…So this is what you’ve been hiding, Rooga.”
I swallowed. My heart pounded, but I forced myself to look back at her.
Before I could speak, a voice carried across the yard.
“Selene?”
I turned. Iris was there, her staff in hand, cloak dusted with travel. She froze at the sight of the towering tree. Her eyes widened, disbelief written plain across her face.
“…Impossible,” she whispered. Her gaze darted to Mama. “You did this?”
Mama’s face was unreadable. She neither denied nor confirmed.
Iris shook her head, muttering to herself. “No… no, you with me training too often. You don’t stay long enough to sustain something like this.”
Her eyes slid to Papa. He shifted uneasily under her stare, his new elf mana flickering faintly like a candle. Iris frowned, sensing the weakness. “…Not you either.”
Her gaze finally landed on me.
I stiffened.
For a long heartbeat, silence. Then her lips parted slightly. “…It’s you, isn’t it?”
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Maori giggled behind me, her voice sing-song. “Bingo~.”
I clenched my fists, staring at the grass. Mama’s shadow loomed closer, her hand gently landing on my shoulder.
“…Enough, Iris,” Mama said, her voice low, calm, but heavy. “Whatever you think you’ve seen, keep it to yourself.”
Iris’s golden eyes lingered on me, curious, awed, and maybe even afraid.
And for the first time, I realized—keeping secrets from my mother was hard. But keeping them from the world was going to be impossible.
Iris’s POV
A child.
It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be.
My hands trembled at my sides as I stared at him—at that boy, Selene Valemont’s son. The tree behind him shimmered in blue-green radiance, alive in a way no mortal land had been in centuries. Wisps swirled like guardians, and I could feel it—the mana of the Goddess of Tree.
My people had prayed for this. My ancestors had died for this. And now… salvation wore the face of a child with soft cheeks and unsteady steps.
My chest tightened. Why him? Why not us? Why not the elves who bled until our lineage withered to whispers in hidden forests?
But there it was, undeniable. His aura shimmered wrong—no, not wrong, but doubled. Blue human mana… and green elven mana, intertwined in his tiny frame. A dual core. I had only read myths, stories my mother whispered when she thought I was asleep. A heart capable of bridging races, of carrying legacies meant to be extinct.
It should have been impossible.
And yet I saw it.
I bit down on my lip, hard enough to taste blood. If the elven clans learn this… they will come. Not to protect him. Not to nurture him. To chain him. To use him.
A part of me, the elf in me, screamed with joy—our goddess lives again, the land breathes again! But the human in me, the part that had endured human fear and scorn, whispered darker truths: a child like him would never be left in peace.
Selene’s voice cut through my thoughts, calm but iron-clad.
“Whatever you think you’ve seen, keep it to yourself.”
Her eyes… they weren’t pleading. They were warning. A mother ready to burn the world if anyone dared touch her child.
I lowered my gaze, bowing slightly. “…Of course.”
But inside, my heart wrestled.
I could betray them and bring this news to my people. I could be the one to restore the elves, to lead them back into the light.
Yet… when I looked at the boy—at Rooga, who smiled shyly at me earlier as though showing off his little garden—I saw not a messiah, not a weapon, but just a child who wanted to grow things, who wanted to help his father’s farm, who laughed when the goddess demanded more blooms.
How cruel would it be to hand him over to the same chains that once bound his mother?
“…Goddess help me,” I whispered into my cloak as I left the Valemont home. “Why does hope have to come from the hands of a child?”