Pherenike - Chapter 83

In contrast, Deucalion was destined never to wield Pherenike by the great weapon bestowed by the goddess Orthea, even until his dying day.

Sometimes, the power to harm nothing could harm everything. Endless altruism resembled endless selfishness, just as Pherenike could use her power to keep Deucalion unharmed to hurt him…

In truth, only she had the power to hurt him. Yet,

[“…..Pherenike doesn’t wish for you to be in pain.”]

Pherenike doesn’t wish for you to die. Never. Atalanta leaned her chin on the hand stretched out on the bed and murmured quietly again.

Deucalion was particularly stubborn about accepting Althea from the priests, yet he periodically received some healing, solely to erase the scars on his body.

However, he never received healing to lessen his pain. In reality, he had never received healing for his own sake.

He only received it to prevent Pherenike from seeing all these wounds.

Atalanta once heard from him about a peculiar cave in the sanctuary and a path leading to an island in the west.

Deucalion occasionally vanished from Paetusa without even his subordinates noticing. Since the prince residence has been closed off, a few arrangements ensure no one detected his absence.

The prince’s close circle deceived each other unknowingly. As rumors circulated, nobody suspected his absence. The beasts, knowing the truth, acted quite naturally as if their master was present in his chamber.

At one time, it was amusing. Had Deucalion met Nike by then? What was their island like? Did Nike mention her? The lioness and the wolf lay side by side in the empty room, sharing delightful fantasies. When they believed he came back after visiting Pherenike on each journey.

Although he viewed the priests with utter disdain, as the time for him to meet Pherenike approached, he would summon a priest himself and reveal all past wounds.

When that time came, Deucalion’s eyes sparkled faintly with warmth.

Like light briefly illuminating ruins, some fleeting hope and expectation were superimposed. He looked kindly upon all the duties of the priest he usually detested.

Regardless of the lord’s generosity, healings for the past were never perfect. The priests Deucalion invariably summoned around that time were consistently mediocre in their use of Althea.

While calling upon the high priest from the sanctuary for healing would erase all traces cleanly in one go, he always insisted on those barely maintaining their position in Paetusa’s small healing centers. This was because letting the central sanctuary know would essentially mean letting Pherenike know.

Thus, after erasing and re-erasing scars through several rounds of dismal and insignificant healing, the marks would finally become faint, and Deucalion would leave Paetusa.

The remaining scars were hardly noticeable unless specifically looked for. Time itself concealed the very old ones. Yet, his thigh remained densely marked with invisible scars, all to hide as much pain as possible from Pherenike’ eyes.

After such painstaking preparations for the journey, he would return in just ten days or a fortnight.

He always returned to Paetusa after an appropriate time had passed. When Seirios and Atalanta asked if he was glad to see Pherenike, he always said it was “a perfectly happy time.” That brief smile he gave in response was all the warmth that remained.

His eyes returned to being devoid of any warmth, becoming dry and hard. He hurt himself again.

It was much later that Atalanta and Seirios realized they hardly saw each other even on that island.

Nevertheless, he had prepared by erasing the marks on his body each time, as if he would surely see her this time.

Deucalion was thought to have broken completely with the birth of Pherenike’ child, according to Dexikos. But Atalanta knew that wasn’t the starting point.

‘What would Pherenike’s child be like?’

He was always falling apart. Always breaking down.

‘I hope she resembles your master, Atalanta. So I can love Nike’s child without hating a single part of her.’

[“…”]

‘Every day, I pray something like that to the goddess. Not to make the child resemble that bastard.’

When the prince secretly watched his ’niece’ from afar and returned, he briefly smiled in joy. The child truly resembled Pherenike.

Atalanta thought she might have responded with something like, “Your prayers must have worked,” at that time. She had said something terribly inadequate, but her memory was vague. The only clear thing was Deucalion’s words.

‘But Atalanta, strangely, the moment I saw the three of them from a distance, everything seemed perfect. Everything about Nike seemed perfect…’

That day, for the first time in front of his wife’s lioness, Deucalion cried. He cried and laughed.

‘I felt like an impurity in their lives.’