Pherenike - Chapter 87

Being known to the world as another man’s wife, climbing onto that man’s bed under scornful fingers, bearing and giving birth to another man’s child while pinned beneath him—all of it was for him. Even if he hadn’t wished for any of it.

Sacrificing her entire life for him, yet feeling guilty?

But Deucalion knew her. Pherenike had always had a temperament that could not forgive even Deucalion’s smallest deceit. His wife was always the most generous to him and yet the most selfish for him.

To deceive her so openly and yet utter such soft words.

Pherenike must be unhappy. Beside a man who is not him. In front of a child she never wanted… Yet, sometimes, it seemed she was not unhappy. Maybe that’s what cast a shadow of guilt in her shining eyes.

As if she should be unhappy for him but felt sorry that she was not.

It was absurd to him that he seemed to wish for her unhappiness. And it was miserable that she seemed to see him in the same light. She was the woman he wanted to make happy for a lifetime. The most precious thing in the world.

Deucalion swallowed her lips with a cold expression. Of course, he always wished for her happiness while also not wishing for it at all. He did not believe in the goddess’s words. He spat on oracles that mocked their fate.

He had always hated the goddess. Since God first took her from his life when he was nine.

Pherenike had to be happy. And that happiness had to come from him, not Actor Nikandros.

Climbing onto his half-brother’s bed by force, enduring all those humiliations was because she loved him. Pherenike’s love brought him a feeling of death but also kept him alive. Because as long as her love existed, he had to exist. That love alone sustained his miserable breath.

But what if that love disappeared one day, gone somewhere?

If Pherenike was happy with his half-brother, then there was no longer any worth in Deucalion surviving even for a moment.

Suddenly, Deucalion recalled the small child nestled in the embrace of his half-brother. The child resembled his dreams, a little Pherenike containing all that he had loved.

The child smiled at her father, not at Deucalion, but at his half-brother. Because she was not his child. Actor, too, looked at the small child and smiled as if he was looking at the whole world. Deucalion saw his brother smile like that for the first time in his life.

Pherenike’s visits to Ogygia became less frequent after the child was born. Unaware that she had been gravely weakened around the time of Leuce’s birth, Deucalion found all waiting to become hollow. With every date carved into the tree growing further apart.

Each time another man’s habits marked her body.

If one day you no longer want me, where should I go? Deucalion murmured into her ear like a child, inhaling the dimming breath.

“……Do you want me, Nike?”

“Always.”

And so, he now had to face a complete end. Before one day she opened her eyes to realize she no longer wanted him.

Deucalion asked gently brushing her wet hair as if to cover her eyes.

“Are you not cold?”

“If you make me warm, it will be fine.”

Pherenike burrowed into his embrace with a face unaware of the misfortune and smiled.

Time on the island was like an insect trapped in amber, always seeming to stand still at some perfect moment, forever.

An eternal moment is a perfect thing. The insect encased in the jewel no longer has to fear loss, nor does it have to fear all the things living beings are afraid of. No mischievous child will pluck its wings, no rolling stone will crush its legs, and it won’t be squashed by the fleeting foot of a predator.

Thus, it would remain perfect forever, as the insect’s time had already stopped long ago.

The resin that engulfed the insect became a gem, consuming time and hardened, their island forgot seasons. However, since the insect encased in the jewel is already dead, it’s not necessarily a good omen.

Beautiful, yet long dead. The strange seasons of Ogygia were the same.

There was no such thing as time that didn’t flow. Over both the living and the dead, time inevitably passed. What once was fresh would spoil, and what was spoiled would rot further. It was natural.

Only the foolish eyes of humans believe the insect in amber remains eternally beautiful. Feeling a moment as eternal is also a trick of the gods.

A jewel can always be broken, and the time of its holder always flows. As her deceased master once said, the more perfect something appears, the more one should search for flaws. Pherenike was not unaware of this.

Yet, their paradise was beautiful because it knew no seasons. Everywhere they looked, they saw each other’s moments.

The ocean currents surrounding the island changed with the seasons, and the gathering and dispersing of clouds over the sea varied, but strangely, the flow of seasons was not keenly felt on Ogygia.

There were no unbearably hot days, nor bitterly cold ones. They always met wearing similar clothes, breathing air not different from the last.