Pherenike - Chapter 73

On the other hand, sitting beside him with boredom was the Princess’s mother, who seemed to have little interest in her own child.

The milk she never offered to her child was dried up long ago. Of course, this was a common choice among women of noble lineage. They never nursed their children.

However, it was believed that allowing the child to nurse for the first time right after birth had a magical significance, so everyone did that.

The wives of the nobles, who enjoyed the times when Pherenike was too heavy and unable to escape, often told her about that significant moment. The moment they first nursed their child felt as if their world had been reborn.

It was as if the world before and after that moment was as different as if separated by a wall.

This scared Pherenike immensely. What if she became so attached to the child as if her soul had been stolen?

Yet, Pherenike noticed no change whatsoever. Her soul remained intact and unharmed. Maybe she missed that life-changing moment unknowingly.

She fainted shortly after giving birth to the child, and when she held her child a few days later, she only felt a strange sense of alienation.

As if she was holding the child of a complete stranger.

“…Ino. How do I know this child is mine?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“I didn’t see the child with my own eyes at that time.”

“Look at her eyes, nose, and mouth. Is there anything that you didn’t give her?”

“I don’t know.”

“I have been watching all along, and even His Majesty personally confirmed everything. No one switched the Princess.”

“But those eyes aren’t mine.”

“His Majesty kept saying how much the Princess resembles his wife.”

At that moment, Pherenike looked at the Princess for a long time. It took quite a while for her to finally acknowledge that this child was indeed hers.

The realization didn’t bring joy or sorrow but a sense of liberation from what had been weighing down on her.

The child had finally left her body.

The inner voice that she couldn’t understand, that had persistently scolded her, the soft will of the child she had not wanted, and all the detestable aspects of the child she had not desired had left her.

Ino wished that Pherenike would nurse the child at least once, but Pherenike merely declared monotonously that the child was indeed hers.

The indifferent mother handed the Princess over to someone else’s hands.

Perhaps the fear of the world changing, as those women described, still frightened her. She did not want to change at all. She was not willing to take even the slightest risk.

Yet, when the Princess was in the same room as the Queen, even in someone else’s arms, she would constantly gaze at her mother. After waiting for a while, if their eyes met, the Princess would scrunch her tiny nose and laughed.

“She laughed in a strange sound. It’s odd.”

Ino argued that children generally laughed like that, and the Princess’s laughter was particularly adorable among her peers. But no matter how much she was told, to Pherenike, it still sounded peculiar.

Nevertheless, Leuce gazed at her mother with those dumb droplets of saliva on her small lips and unconditional eyes that seemed to look at the entirety of her world.

Everyone around the child was a kind adult. It seemed like everyone loved the Princess more than her mother loved her. Yet, the Princess, as if discerning truth from lies, recognized Pherenike.

Even when Pherenike recoiled in disgust from the spit that would splash, the Princess would just clap her chubby hands and laugh.

It was clear she couldn’t imagine anyone being disgusted by her. The Princess was very much a Princess. She had an impressive confidence.

Ironically, in those moments, Pherenike didn’t find the child as hateful. But then, she didn’t dislike passing dogs or cats either.

To her, the Princess was no different from those dogs or cats.

She sometimes pondered the ‘maternal instinct’ that Axiothea always talked about.

Axiothea always said that for the women of Evdokia, maternal instinct was both a grand duty and a sweet punishment. The women said similar things to them. The moment one gives birth and holds the baby, one feels an instinct and a fate never felt before in life.

And one lives trapped in it for the rest of one’s life.

According to Axiothea, it was either happiness or misery.

She taught Pherenike that there was neither complete happiness nor complete misery. Everyone has good and bad moments; it’s just a matter of which moments one chooses to remember more that makes one a little happier or unhappier.

Thus, Axiothea’s maternal instinct was a prison she locked herself into, yet a fortress to protect her children.

Axiothea walked into a prison that held no one else. But said that by the time Daeucalion and she were about to leave her side, she would seem to have forgotten how to leave and remained alone inside.

“Love with a man is not the only vain thing. Parents and children are beautiful and vain gifts to each other.”

It was unclear if Axiothea thought of the deceased Pyrrha or Pherenike when she said that. In the end, both were daughters who made their mother vain.