Pherenike - Chapter 93

His spear flickered, acknowledging its master with a shimmer of light, but he didn’t feel it at all.

His wife, who had slept beside him beneath the shade, was gone. Like when he was a child—waking to find her vanished to the sanctuary in the night—he raced along the coast.

The sound of the waves swallowed his scattered thoughts. Pherenike. Pherenike…

“Pherenike!”

Her name squeezed past the knot in his chest. It had been so long since he’d called her name like that, it almost didn’t feel real no matter how many times he shouted. The afternoon he’d held his wife now felt like a dream.

Deucalion flung his spear carelessly at the mouth of the cave. The spear hurled curses at its master, but he didn’t even hear them. His body wasn’t exhausted, yet his breath grew short.

A creeping anxiety gnawed at him—a fear that the most precious moments were slipping through his fingers like sand…

“…Deucalion?”

It was the entrance to the maze, the very edge he should not cross. Pherenike had already heard her name and hurried to meet him there.

For a long moment, Deucalion just stared at his wife, dazed, before finally pulling her into his arms.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry.”

“…”

“It’s my fault… I’m sorry.”

Pherenike sighed softly.

“I told you I was leaving at dawn tomorrow.”

He held her like a statue, as if nothing could reach him. At last, she raised a hand and gave the back of his head a firm smack.

“Let go now.”

“…Hit me again.”

“And hurt my own hand for whose benefit?”

Once, when she’d said she’d rather kill him than cry, she really did attack him until her anger was spent—rather than truly kill him or make herself miserable.

If he was sick, she waited until he got better and then took her revenge. It was a primitive logic: If I cried, then you should cry too.

When she couldn’t plan her retaliation—when her anger boiled over and she didn’t know what to do—the girl would simply throw whatever she had at hand.

First, she’d take off her bronze circlet. Then her heavy necklace, then bracelets, with rings saved for last.

Back when Deucalion was a mischievous boy, he’d been struck by every piece of jewelry she wore at least once.

By the time she had nothing left to throw except her sandals, it meant the fight was winding down. Deucalion would grab the girl’s ankle as she took off her sandal, topple her, and climb on top, demanding forgiveness so she couldn’t run away.

He would become furious if someone else made her cry—but if he was the reason, he found it almost endearing.

Once, as a boy, he even wanted to save every single one of her tears forever, because back then, the anger and tears of children always came from such trivial things. The girl glaring at him with tears in her eyes didn’t even know what misfortune was.

But now, it was as if someone else had made her cry. Pherenike didn’t even try to hurt him. Her jewelry was all in its place.

They weren’t children anymore. Everything had changed. Now, he cried before she did. He knew those moments when you just couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“I just wanted to change my necklace. It wasn’t to run away from you.”

Pherenike spoke quietly in his arms. Only then did he see the small box she’d placed at her feet.

It was a little treasure chest she’d once hidden in Ogygia. He laughed softly and let her go as she crouched in front of the box like a child.

Her hands moved gently, as if handling precious artifacts. Everything inside was familiar: things that still shone, things a bit rusted, things of gold and things not, all proof of the years.

The bronze fig-leaf diadem he gave her as a child, the golden laurel crown he’d won from a chariot race, a malachite amulet, a garnet necklace, a cheap iron anklet with a flawed peridot…

They’d paid a ridiculous price for those anklets, sneaking out of Lykke together as children. After searching the Palmina market, they’d found only those two identical anklets. Pherenike had called him an idiot, but he bought them anyway—he just wanted them to share something, no matter how worthless.

His own anklet was now far too small, but hers still fit if she wore it on her wrist. Pherenike slipped the anklet over her wrist and the garnet necklace around her neck. He gently swept her hair aside and fastened the clasp for her.

Six, nine, thirteen… Their past was trapped inside those cheap trinkets. Pherenike, bold as ever, wore the childish diadem and looked up at him.

“You look beautiful, Nike.”

She was still as lovely as the girl she once was.

“I know.”

She closed the box with care, stood up, kicked him sharply in the shin, and walked out of the cave.