Pherenike - Chapter 105

Their reverence for her was already immense. They regarded Callianeira’s hand as if it were the queen’s own, and even when healed by the priestess, they would bow their heads in gratitude toward wherever the queen might be.

But nothing was better than when she came in person.

Pherenike tried to hide her twisted, pained expression, focusing intently on the healing. She had to let her guard down—more than ever before. She needed more of their faith. If she was to escape Lykke alive, if she was to eliminate even one person who might threaten her child…

“…Kybellaune, that’s enough.”

Just as she was about to collapse, unable to hold on any longer, Actor gently drew her hand away. The faintest touch was all it took, barely lifting her hand from the wound, yet in that instant, a searing pain shot through her fingers.

Pherenike jerked her hand from his, almost in irritation.

“Your Majesty! How could you—!”

One of the older centurions dared to rebuke his lord, while the others held their breath in shock. Abruptly halting a healing always came with some degree of shock to the practitioner; any soldier who had frequented the infirmary would know that well, and surely, so did their lord.

The queen herself had come to the infirmary solely for her husband’s sake—what would become of them if harm befell her?

Ordinary priests and priestesses posted to infirmaries often lacked the skill to heal serious wounds, but would pour out everything they had. In doing so, their bodies became most vulnerable.

The process of reabsorbing Althea varied by individual, but regardless of method or speed, it was something the practitioner had to do themselves. That was why attendants would sometimes restrain patients and warn them during the process.

Yet, it was not uncommon for those in pain to lash out, pushing away their healers violently—and if the Althea rebounded suddenly back to the unprepared practitioner, it could even cause them to faint, or worse.

This was the mishap Actor’s men now recalled. Pherenike was not the sort to carelessly sacrifice herself, but these soldiers had seen too many such scenes in their youth—priests blinded, priestesses rendered deaf, blood streaming from eyes and ears…

For the poor, the infirmary was always an unattainable luxury. The renowned servants of the gods who could staunch blood with a wave of the hand were never found in such places. They appeared only when the wealthy and powerful crossed the sanctuary’s threshold with lavish offerings.

And yet, even they could not compare to the queen. Despite tending to a severed limb, Pherenike stood strong and unfazed.

A sense of awe began to ripple through the soldiers. Before the queen had arrived, a sacred priestess had told them that not even among the nine great sanctuaries of Evdokia was there a healer who could reattach a severed limb—except for their Kybellaune.

“I made a mistake. In my haste, I was not careful.”

“…..”

Actor said in his usual flat tone.

Pherenike looked up at him through narrowed eyes, realizing that he had deliberately created this ‘mistake’ in front of his own men—cutting her off before she could collapse and taking the blame upon himself.

“…My lord, even if you’re concerned for Kybellaune, how could you forget yourself and put her at risk?”

The eldest centurion offered his counsel in a low, subdued voice. Pherenike, who recalled that this old man had once spat at her retinue, watched him now scold his young lord on her behalf, and allowed herself a faint, crooked smile before turning back to the wound.

Normally, she should have been struck by a tremendous shock. A limb severed from a living person was already as good as dead—like debris adrift on the river to the afterlife.

Even in her lifetime blessed with nearly boundless Althea, reattaching such a piece to the living was laborious.

But Pherenike was using her Althea as a finely spun thread, carefully reweaving the inner sinews of Agilon’s leg, while Callianeira’s power flowed around the limb, binding bone and flesh together like glue.

Dozens of onlookers could not guess what she was doing—she was using Callianeira’s strength to achieve something only she could do. Who could ever know the boundary between their powers?

So in the end, not much Althea would return to her. If Actor knew that, he would have been right to intervene—for it did more good than harm.

But how could he know?

“…Does it hurt much?”

“No.”

Pherenike could not shake the suspicion that Actor somehow understood the direction and degree of her power—that he even knew she could force Althea to act on a purely physical level.

He watched her flex her numb hand with a peculiar look, then frowned as he saw her move again toward the old soldier’s wound.

“Let your priestess finish the rest.”