Pherenike - Chapter 61

From a certain point, she stopped running from the monster entirely. Even the brief time and moments bought with distance became a nuisance.

In her dreams, the young girl wielded a short sword, counting the moments until she could stab the monster, enduring the fear as its teeth came dangerously close. She waited until the monster opened its wide mouth to engulf her head before plunging her dagger into its throat.

The monster’s hot, dark blood poured over her head as she drove her arm up its jaw. That was the last of it. At the end of her youth, Pherenike drove away all the monsters that haunted her dreams.

The era of monsters sent endlessly into her dreams by someone at the house of Hypnos* had come to an end.

The reason she could twist Althea into a fake Orthea was thanks to those monsters.

In her dreams, she wielded not the healer’s Althea but the warrior’s Orthea. Her dreams changed but were similar and eventually ending.

From being the hunted to the hunter, she was freed.

She was always shaken by such a longing in her dreams of Actor. To see an end again, believing she would win like that young girl.

When the man covered in Deucalion’s blood approached, she too gripped the knife in her embrace. Kill him. To kill him and make him disappear forever. Each heartbeat whispered that command. And as he came within a step…

“Pherenike.”

The blade at her heart dropped.

Wandering arms moved on their own. She embraced Actor’s neck, causing him to collapse onto her. He, as if waiting, buried his lips in her neck. Pherenike struggled to escape from her own body in the dream, but the dream version of herself pulled him closer instead.

His lips slid down to her chest, biting the skin, drenching it with his saliva. The chiton covering her chest was pulled down carelessly. His nose crushed against her bosom, biting the peaked end chilled by the air.

Pherenike. He breathed her name again.

“Do you want me?”

Her fingers ran through his black hair.

“Even for just a moment.”

Not Deucalion, but me.

Pherenike suddenly woke from that terrible dream.

A shadow slowly cast over her as she gasped for air. Ah. His face appeared again.

It had only been ten days. Actor had returned to her chambers. Just like a watchful sentinel who, after time had passed, found his way back to his post.

Actor observed her with a monotonous gaze, a trace of concern veiling his composed expression. There was no trace of their last night together, no mention of Deucalion’s name that he poured to her. No entangled emotions. No longing, nor mockery.

Pherenike silently turned and lay with her back to him. Yet, the sentinel stayed by her side until dawn before leaving.

The child now began to force the mother into sleep throughout the day, as if insisting it was the only way for it to survive.

Thus, Pherenike spent her days curled up on her side, overwhelmed by the heavy belly, wandering through a realm of dreams where nothing was visible.

She had no idea how the days passed, barely noticing the cycle of dawn and dusk. Her only grasp on time was asking the occasional visitor for the date during the late night or just before dawn broke.

Of course, that visitor and the person who answered her question was always Actor; hardly good news for her.

Pherenike could barely swallow the watery food served at dawn, and Actor attended to her in an ungracious manner.

Him feeding her felt like a dreadful ordeal, at least that’s how she looked. Every time.

He said, “If you kept your eyes open a bit longer, you’d realize you endure far worse on a regular basis.”

What he usually did to her when he was not feeding her was beyond her imagination. Considering feeding a helpless pregnant woman as the baseline for dreadful experiences….. Amidst her drowsiness, Pherenike frowned.

“Just eat and finish it.”

“….You’ve already made me think.”

“You’re going to sleep again soon anyway.”

“Stop treating me like a toddler.”

“Kybellaune. You sleep far longer than a newborn.”

The distance that had once grown between them was closed again in the endless sleep.

Pherenike, disliking this, turned her head away without a word. The undeterred Actor extended the spoon towards her turned head.

“You say not to treat you like a child, yet you act exactly like one.”

His comment pricked at her fragile pride.

Eventually, Pherenike reluctantly consumed everything he spoon-fed her, puzzled by how Actor’s child had managed to reduce her to this state.

She fell back to sleep truly like a child

*Hypnos: In Greek mythology, the god of sleep. Said to be born from the union of the goddess of night, Nyx, and the god of darkness, Erebus. Twin brother of Thanatos, the god of death, and father of the gods of dreams.