Pherenike - Chapter 132

“Have you forgotten that the king’s lands lie beneath the goddess’s sky?”

She replied to Talon as if speaking for the centurion.

“Teophanes!”

“You blasphemous son of Talon. It was the goddess who granted the land to the primordial wolf to rule…”

“Fine, if you won’t do it, I will. I’ll take care of that woman myself.”

“My only master is Kybellar.”

Pushing past the soldier blocking his way, the old chamberlain surged forward. Pherenike raised her sword high.

“And by the great Heliodora’s example, I am, in fact, the master of Actor Nikandros.”

As the blade fell, the old man’s eyes filled with a distant, unfathomable terror—he had never truly believed she would harm him.

Before the sword could reach his throat, Talon’s eyes faded and he collapsed. Pherenike looked past the fallen chamberlain to the centurion behind him.

The centurion had knocked the chamberlain unconscious with a swift blow to the back of the neck, and now bowed respectfully.

“Have mercy on this stubborn old man—let him escape death, at least.”

“You’re quick-handed.”

“The favors you’ve shown me are never forgotten. At the very least, neither I nor my men will ever bring harm to you, Kybellaune. If you wish to remain in the sanctuary, please do as you please. I’ll make sure no one disturbs you here.”

Pherenike tossed the sword lightly beside the fallen chamberlain, gazing at him.

“That’s enough. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.”

Her expression shifted instantly, and the soldiers—just moments ago tense and wary—now regarded her with almost docile faces, letting her pass through them. Even the men she’d wounded watched in confusion as she strode out of the sanctuary first.

“Oh, right.”

“Yes?”

“Make sure you clean up that hideous mess, so Kybellar won’t be angered.”

“Yes.”

Pherenike’s thoughts drifted to the child hidden below the stone floor. For now, she was safe and quiet, though she worried the girl might be frightened.

Still, the soldiers had already stormed the sanctuary once and she had caused such a commotion that they were unlikely to suspect the sanctuary as the princess’s hiding place.

That was enough. She had bought time, all for the sake of diverting suspicion from this place.

“I’m all right.”

She murmured, perhaps to no one in particular. The centurion blinked in surprise.

Pherenike left the sanctuary, hoping her child had heard her last words.

While the king’s loyal retainers debated what to do about the suspicious queen, the centurion who had ‘brought’ the queen simply stood by, quietly allowing things to play out as she had instructed. His honest face, however, barely concealed his deep discomfort.

Of course, he wasn’t the only one ill at ease—everyone whispering about the queen’s whereabouts was equally unsettled.

After all, before she was their queen, she was revered throughout all the sanctuaries of Evdokia as the goddess’s own daughter. Half of them had worshiped her for that reason until just yesterday, and the rest still couldn’t bring themselves to deny it.

Even now—now that the spears of Paetusa had reached the palace gates.

Meanwhile, Pherenike had been made to change into the elaborate finery befitting her status. The outfit seemed so conspicuous it might as well have been a bullseye for anyone looking for her if she tried to run. She sat without emotion in the king’s chair.

“By the way, Teophanes, where’s Talon?”

“He stayed behind in the sanctuary to pray for His Majesty’s safe return.”

The reply was so natural and unruffled that it was almost hard to believe he had ever told a lie in his life. For a moment, everyone glanced at each other in confusion, but the centurion’s straightforward face left no room for suspicion.

“So even the mighty Talon seeks the goddess in the face of calamity.”

By now, that old man was likely bound and left somewhere in the Geda grove—Pherenike had already given orders for him to be released later in the evening.

Just mentioning the goddess’s name was enough to fill the eyes of those suspicious men with caution. They were not fools like Talon had been, threatening her in the sanctuary itself. At the very least, they hadn’t forgotten to respect the gods, nor the reverence due to their names.

Pherenike was confined to the king’s chambers, as if her mere presence in the queen’s chambers was enough to guarantee she would hatch some fearsome plot.

From beyond the palace walls, the distant clang of weapons and the pounding of horses’ hooves on the royal road could be heard. Inside the palace, now cut off from the outside by the Paetusa army, the chaos was even greater.

Everyone was on edge. The ladies-in-waiting who hadn’t managed to escape were openly disgruntled.

During a rare moment of quiet, Pherenike overheard their complaints through the voice of a passing daemon: if only they’d been at home outside the palace, Lord Paetusa might have spared them, and by now they’d have nothing to worry about.

They worried about their status as servants with the royal family. Though Actor’s loyalists had quickly locked down the palace, rumors still seeped in beneath the gates.

Pherenike tried to gauge the distance and texture of a dozen different sounds. No matter how she strained to listen, the voices of the daemons were lost amid the human noise.

The guards patrolled the corridors, the clatter of their armor and weapons echoing loudly. The king’s closest advisors had vanished, and though the doors to her chambers stood open as if she were not a prisoner at all, massive spearmen stood like pillars on either side of the entrance.

“……”