Pherenike - Chapter 80

In truth, whether it was her reflection in a drinking bowl, in puddles on a clear day, or in a murky pond, it had always been her. The lioness knew what she looked like long before that day. But why was that moment so special?

Above the water’s surface were all of Paetusa’s sky, the clouds, the many nymph trees surrounding the lake, and there they were. That day, Atalanta newly recognized her existence in the midst of all that.

This place was her new plains, and they were her new pack. Seirios and his brothers. Deucalion. Pherenike.

Her Nike. It was a night she longed for Nike.

She wanted to ask to be taken there again, instead of seeing Nike. But learning the letters of humans would be quicker than Deucalion understanding her. She would write in the sand of the barracks with her front paw. ‘Lake.’

Unlike his wife, Deucalion read her eyes, not the language of lions. He had the keen senses of a predator. So, while he seemed to understand her most of the time, he couldn’t grasp specific places or complex thoughts in the lioness’s mind.

The lioness’s situation was similar. Atalanta heard Deucalion’s words solely as human language, having listened for a long time to Pherenike and Deucalion speaking to others during her youth and gradually understanding some of it.

Eventually, Atalanta reached the bath entrance, crossing a small courtyard bathed in moonlight.

It was then the lioness instinctively sensed an odd alienation.

A dank air infiltrated the predator’s lungs, a very faint smell of blood tinged with moisture.

Atalanta pushed the massive door with her front paw, and when it didn’t budge, she frantically scratched at the locked entrance. Surely Deucalion was inside, but no response came from behind the sealed door.

Hearing the noise, Seirios rushed like the wind. He wedged his claws into a slight gap between the doors and managed to widen it.

As soon as the gap increased, the wolfhound twisted his head, opened his mouth, and bit the left door. Seeing this, the lioness pushed against the right door with her body, inserting her paw through the gap to break the latch.

Finally, the doors to the grand bath opened, and a warm humidity carrying the scent of wine and metal clung to their hides. A dense smell of blood, only faintly detectable in the courtyard, wafted over intensely.

Deucalion was submerged in bloody water.

[“We need to call Dexikos.”]

Ignoring Seirios’s words, Atalanta leaped into the giant bath, causing the warm bloody water to overflow like a tidal wave. The lioness immediately plunged her head into the water.

As she tried to lift him by burrowing under his shoulders and back, Seirios followed into the tub, biting the hem of his clothes in the water.

The soaked himation became a massive net underwater. Fighting against the obstructive garment, they finally managed to bring Deucalion’s head above water first.

[“Is he alive?”]

[“He’s alive.”]

They knew Deucalion was destined not to die easily. He is the son of Pelagon. A blood beloved by the goddess. The only thing that could kill a son of Pelagon was the son of Pelagon…

Yet, he too was a son of Pelagon. In theory, he could kill himself.

[“Considering he’s done something deserving death yet hasn’t died, it seems he didn’t ‘intend’ it completely.”]

The lioness alluded to suicide, knowing the wolfhound might not grasp everything she said. In any case, today, once again, the prince’s blood protected him from his ‘incomplete’ intention.

Carefully biting his arms and shoulders without causing pain, they managed to pull him out of the tub. Seirios looked gloomily at his master for a while before leaving to find Dexikos.

Atalanta, as if guarding him, crouched on the floor where bloody water shallowly pooled. Fresh wounds were evident on the thighs revealed by the pushed-up garment.

Even when drunk, he only left scars where Pherenike couldn’t see them.

“Are you regaining consciousness?”

Deucalion on the bed opened his eyes. The day had already dawned, yet two beasts still guarded him as if it were night. To him, that was the perfect world.

After losing Pherenike, Deucalion grew to dislike hearing human speech in his room, even if it came from lifelong friends he had known since childhood. Dexikos was well aware of his master’s barren sentiments.

The prince’s keen eyes glanced at Dexikos and then at the young priest beyond him. The priest, catching the prince’s gaze accidentally, hesitated, his timid eyebrows drooping.

However, Dexikos, accustomed to it, received that sharp gaze with a calm demeanor.

“I told you not to get involved in this sort of thing.”

“I wasn’t exactly keen on doing it either.”

Dexikos gestured towards Seirios, beyond the prince.

The prince’s gaze momentarily shifted to his loyal hound beneath the bed. Seirios, sitting there, lightly tapped his arm with his nose, signaling not to scold Dexikos.