Chapter 35 _ The Promise a Mother Left Behind
The night grew deeper.
The campfire had burned low,
leaving only glowing embers that pulsed quietly with heat.
Iris sat close to the fire,
her knees drawn to her chest, staring into the fading light.
“…Mario,” she said suddenly.
“There’s something I’ve never told you.”
I turned toward her.
“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to,” I replied.
She shook her head slowly.
“…I think I do.”
Her voice was calm,
yet every word carried weight.
“My mother was weak,” Iris began.
“She wasn’t a great mage.
She couldn’t protect herself, let alone me.”
“She worked endlessly, always apologizing.
To the world.
To me.”
I listened without interrupting.
“She used to say it all the time,” Iris continued.
‘I’m sorry I can’t give you more.
I’m sorry you were born to someone like me.’”
Her fingers clenched tightly.
“But I never thought that,” Iris whispered.
“Not even once.”
“She loved me.
That was enough.”
The fire crackled softly.
“When I was little, she would hold my hands,” Iris said.
“And tell me stories about magic—
not the kind that destroys things,
but magic that helps people live.”
“She said,
‘If you ever learn magic,
I want you to use it to protect others.
Not because you’re strong—
but because you’re kind.’”
I swallowed.
“She fell ill when I was twelve,” Iris went on.
“And by the time I realized how bad it was,
it was already too late.”
Iris lowered her head.
“…On her last day, she held my face and said something strange.”
Her voice trembled.
“‘No matter what happens to you,’ she told me,
‘no matter how the world treats you—
please don’t throw your life away.’”
“‘If you keep living,’ she said,
‘then my life will have meant something.’”
Silence enveloped us.
The words hung in the air,
heavy and undeniable.
“…So,” Iris said softly,
“when terrible things happened to me later—
things I don’t want to remember—
I wanted to disappear.”
“I really did.”
Her shoulders shook.
“But every time I thought about ending it,
I remembered my mother’s face.”
“She never asked me to be happy.
She never demanded I succeed.”
“She only asked me to live.”
I clenched my fists.
“…That’s why,” Iris said, raising her eyes to meet mine,
“I kept breathing.
Even when I felt like I had already died.”
“…Iris.”
“For a long time,” she continued,
“I thought that made me weak.
That surviving meant I was cowardly.”
“But after meeting you…
after meeting Frey…”
She took a shaky breath.
“I think I finally understand.”
“Living isn’t shameful.”
“It’s a promise.”
Her words struck something deep inside me.
Without thinking,
I spoke.
“…My mother used to say something similar.”
Iris looked at me in surprise.
“She’d say,
‘You don’t have to become anything special.
Just stay alive.’”
I laughed bitterly.
“I never listened.
I thought she was just lowering the bar because she didn’t expect much from me.”
“But now I get it.”
I stared at the dying fire.
“She wasn’t giving up on me.”
“She was trusting me—
to find my own meaning someday.”
Iris smiled faintly, tears shimmering in her eyes.
“…Your mother sounds kind.”
“…Yeah.”
We sat there in silence,
two people bound by mothers who were no longer with us—
yet still shaping every step we took.
Behind us,
the God Wolf lay still, as if asleep.
But her breathing was steady.
She had heard everything.
A mother who had lost her daughter to time,
listening to the promise another mother had left behind.
The night wind brushed past us gently.
And for the first time,
I felt certain of something.
Iris had not survived because she was strong.
She had survived because
someone believed her life was worth continuing—
no matter what.
And now—
she was no longer carrying that promise alone.
