Pherenike - Chapter 122

The mother’s eyes followed her daughter with a peculiar look. Even from a distance, she could see the girl clinging tightly to her father’s neck, as if instinctively sensing something—like a premonition was pushing her forward.

A shadow passed through Pherenike’s gaze as she watched her daughter.

But the king’s departure for the grand hunt at Davys—an event less a hunt and more a grand ceremonial tradition since the days of the former kings—was not something easily postponed.

Nor could she insist on leaving the child behind or take her along at the head of the procession, simply because her daughter begged for it.

“It’s time for me to go down, Lara.”

“Yes, Kybellaune.”

“Oh—let me see your hand for a moment.”

Before the maid could even extend her hand, Pherenike seized it and, expressionless, gently ran her fingers over the old burn scars. For a moment, it felt as if Althea’s power was seeping into the marred skin, and soon, the ancient traces of the burn vanished, erased completely.

Pherenike bore the familiar sting with only a faint furrow of her brow, then released the maid’s hand.

“You came to Lykke because you couldn’t marry with that scar, didn’t you?”

“…Yes?”

“There’s something urgent I need you to do in Calyce. But once the weather clears, don’t return to Lykke. Go home to your parents.”

The gift of a healed hand was a sudden impulse. Sending Lara away from Lykke was also an impulse. The girl had faithfully tended her mornings for years.

As the maid stood there, stunned, staring at her now-unblemished hand, Pherenike left for the lower floors.

The palace gates had been open for days now, with people coming and going. Even Pherenike couldn’t guess how many of those entering bore hidden knives.

In truth, Deucalion had chosen his moment long before Actor ever declared his departure for Davys. Only Pherenike had knowledge of the king’s plans—she hadn’t told Deucalion, perhaps out of yet another impulse.

Not that it would change much if Actor was away from Lykke, or if he stayed. With the master and guards gone, the palace was as chaotic as ever. It was a perfect moment for what was coming.

But this would not end until his brother was dead. The root had to be torn out at once, completely.

“Kybellaune.”

From a distance, the king spotted his queen, and the faintest smile broke through his otherwise stony expression. He stopped and waited for her to approach, then pulled her into a gentle embrace.

Pherenike knew, deep down, she should have stopped the hunt. She understood Leuce’s anxious grip on her father’s neck—a child’s instinct to keep him close.

Deucalion’s preparations were flawless; Actor should have been locked safely inside the walls.

And yet, perhaps this was for the best. Letting everything about this man scatter and come undone might not be so bad after all. She swallowed her excuses, hiding within them that first, forbidden hope: that he might simply flee and vanish.

She looked at Actor as if she was looking at the snare she herself had laid. She was a spy, living in Lykke only to keep up the facade of a false life, justifying it all with a single purpose: to kill this man.

She had shown him the things she had shown the man she once loved more than her own life. All of this was devastation. Her name written as another man’s wife, a child born to another’s house, and a life spent alongside his brother.

The thing Deucalion had wanted most, she took from him with her own hands. She forced him into a life he never wanted, ruled over him like a creditor with a forgotten debt of death. Breaking him, whispering it was all for him, numbing herself with those lies.

Everything would be justified the moment this man died before her eyes.

How absurd. In the end, it was not only a betrayal of Deucalion, but of herself.

If Actor Nikandros did not die, nothing in her life would be redeemed. She’d have died for nothing, lived again for nothing, chased to the cliff’s edge by a meaningless father, and senselessly betrayed the only person who had ever been a safe haven.

In the end, she would become nothing but a woman who had thrown away all that was precious.

Pherenike stifled a bitter laugh. She had bound Deucalion’s hands and feet in the name of loving him more than her own life, but the first Deucalion, too, had once given his life for her.

He’d endured torments that made death seem preferable, stubbornly defending his own honor. Only to lose it the moment the king mentioned her name. He’d endured torture for years to prove himself, only to see all that become a lie, trampling his own honor and becoming a sinner.

Not once, not ever, had she found joy in Deucalion’s love or sacrifice.

She had followed him into exile, grinding her teeth, thinking it would have been better to be dragged to the bed of King Epicydes and be used as he pleased, so long as she could simply close her eyes and bear a moment’s humiliation.

Every night, before they met again, she remembered Deucalion climbing up from the dungeons, and wondered if it would have been easier if she’d never gone after him at all.