Pherenike - Chapter 81

You called that useless fellow, huh?

Deucalion, without a word, patted the dog’s head once and saw the lioness slowly approaching the bed. Atalanta took a seat next to Seirios, resting her chin on his bed. He gently stroked the lioness’s snout with the back of his hand.

The lioness bumped her forehead against his hand in a petulant manner. It was a complaint, yet still full of affection.

Deucalion looked down at them and smiled faintly, a smile that could almost be considered a curse to Dexikos.

“Don’t worry. I made sure no one saw.”

“Understood, now leave. Leave the menial tasks to the servants.”

“….The servants?”

Dexikos chuckled. The prince’s servants were now forbidden from even nearing the prince’s chamber unless it was their designated time.

He might have been the master of the entire Paetusa castle, but he lived in the most desolate part. Anyone who disturbed that solitude, for any reason, was unforgiven.

Who would dare loiter in the courtyard that even the monarch’s mother couldn’t enter at will?

Only a few noble beasts had the honor of crossing the night’s boundary that Deucalion had drawn between the world and himself. Even then, it was not for his own sake but to allow the beasts freedom instead of isolating them like himself.

There was no one ‘here’ to ‘take care of things’ on their own, and sending away those who were present meant he had no intention of fixing anything, including the wounds he had carved into his own flesh.

“Regardless, since this priest here has gone to the trouble of waiting for you, you should receive healing.”

The priest, referred to as ‘this priest here,’ flinched again. He was just a low-ranking priest in charge of a small sanctuary, certainly not someone to be highly addressed in front of the monarch.

Truly, he knew nothing. He had been dragged to the castle in his sleep and threatened to ‘keep his mouth shut’. The young priest acted as if he had been cursed to never open his mouth again.

Of course, no one here cared to pay him any mind. The timid eyes of the priest darted between Deucalion and Dexikos.

“There are no injuries.”

“Who do you think washed your body and laid you down?”

“Must have been you, of course. This is nothing.”

“If it’s ‘nothing,’ Lord Paetusa, you should have at least done one thing before stabbing your leg with your own sword and stepping into that hot water.”

“…”

“Or were you intending to drown with your head submerged in water while intoxicated?”

“That’s absurd. It was just drunkenness.”

Deucalion replied nonchalantly.

“Shall I report this incident to Lady Axiothea?”

“You’d be dead immediately.”

“Really, you should have done at least one thing.”

Drunken to the point he felt like drowning, he deliberately entered the water without lifting his head once. The hot water invaded the long gash on his thigh, scraping out all the blood from his body.

It was as if he had drowned in his own blood. Had his body’s owner died as intended…

“…Been studying how to kill that tough body of yours?”

Dexikos remarked bitterly.

“Enough with the dog act, Deucalion. Your mother is in the same castle. Do you think she’d be content after all this waiting, just to see your corpse?”

“I didn’t die, did I?”

“Yeah, ‘this time’.”

“If I don’t want to die, I won’t.”

Deucalion scoffed lightly as he got up. Dexikos replied expressionlessly,

“Alcohol is no excuse before the gods. You can’t hide behind it when sober.”

“Do I look like I’m making excuses?”

“If you truly wished to die as you desired but ended up living, you’re breaking ‘the promise’.”

“…”

“You promised with your love, to live, however wretched that existence might be.”

Mention of Pherenike turned Deucalion’s indifferent expression into a fiercely protective one. Guarding like a dog, indeed. Dexikos mocked with a mirrored sneer.

“You don’t want to die, but you wish to feel the pain of near death. Because, in truth, you desire death.”

This all started after ‘the child’ was born, as far as Dexikos knew. Since the goddess herself had given Pherenike a child with another man. As if it were meant to be fate.

Perhaps the fate of Pherenike Vassilios was never meant to be his from the start.

Deucalion truly broke around that time. He seemed fine during the day, but at night, he could not control himself. Even in daylight, he wasn’t well.

Under Apollo’s sun, he roamed the entire ravine of Paetusa, wearing the blood of monsters, and under Nyx’s* feet, he inevitably saw his own blood.

Through several similar incidents and their aftermath, Dexikos came to understand the gruesome truth about this love. Pherenike had never betrayed her love.

The fruit of a betrayal that never was. Pherenike’s princess. He briefly recalled Pherenike standing tall on a high balcony. Supposedly resembling her mother a lot, her appearance could be easily guessed.

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*Nyx: Goddess of the night