“Well, notjustto ask you those things,” Melanion conceded, “though my curiosity led me to volunteer. I bring a message from your father, King Schoenus of Arcadia: He greets his long-lost daughter and invites her home.”
My father.
I’d always known that I had a father, as all living things did, but I’d never thought much about him. Why would I, when he’d abandoned me on a mountain as a baby?
But theArgo’s journey left me changed. I missed the human world and wanted a place in its heart. A father, a family, would give me that.
Melanion led me to the palace of Arcadia—if such a structure, much less imposing than the royal dwellings I had seen during the journey of theArgo, could be called a palace. My father, Schoenus, waited outside. He was middle-aged, and the moon of his scalp emerged from a ring of silver-white hair. I marveled at the way his voice sounded like an older, male version of mine and how his cheekbones echoed the shape of my own. Perhaps this was what it meant to have a family—to see your face reflected in the faces around you and to know that you were not alone.
Schoenus pulled me into an embrace, smelling of sweat and garlic. I hugged him back, sighing with the simple comfort of it.
My father released me, then turned to the gathering crowd. He pressed a possessive hand to my back as he announced that his famous daughter, Atalanta, had at last returned. It had taken Schoenus some time to draw the connection between the proud hero of the singers’ tales and the infant he’d abandoned on Mount Parthenion so long ago. But when he did, he’d sent for me right away.
Feeling awkward and exposed in front of so many staring eyes, I smiled nervously. In the crowd, the messenger Melanion tried to catch my attention, but I ignored them. My attention was fixed on something else.
“My mother?” I asked hopefully, once the crowd had dispersed.
My father’s face fell, and his eyes closed in profound pain. “She died giving birth to a stillborn child some years ago. I never did get around to marrying again.”
The words landed like a blow. My mother, dead. I would never get to know her, never speak with her. The knowledge weighed down my limbs like lead.
Still stinging with this disappointment, I allowed myself to be led into the palace. Schoenus showed me the spacious chambers that were to be mine and the servant girls with downcast eyes who would tend my every need. He showered me with gifts: costly dresses, jewelry, and perfumes, which I accepted with puzzled gratitude. The only gift I liked was a nasty-tempered bay mare called Kastana after her color and the chestnuts she liked to eat. I took the expensive perfumes my father gave me and rubbed them into her mane.
A week or so after my arrival, Schoenus announced there would be a feast. My maids gathered to prepare me, scrubbing my flesh despite my protestations that I could bathe myself, thank you very much. They dressed me in a too-long chiton that wentall the way to my ankles and made me stumble over its hem, then gathered up my hair in an elaborate style, briefly evoking the bittersweet memory of Medea. But where her ministrations had been soothing, these were intolerable; the maids pulled at my scalp and yanked my hair, conditioning it with oils and styling it with hot irons. I gritted my teeth against the discomfort, reasoning that this was simply how things were done in the human world and I’d best get used to it.
On my way to the feasting hall, a sudden sound caught my attention. I watched in utter astonishment as a human being tumbled from a hall window, landing in a sprawl of limbs and causing my maids to shriek.
The fallen figure looked up, and I recognized the face of the messenger Melanion. “Sorry,” they said with a lopsided grin, illuminated by sunlight streaming through the window. “This isn’t quite how I pictured it, but here goes: Marry me, Atalanta. I think I would be a good match for you. I am a fellow lover of the woods and a skilled runner, though terrible with a bow.”
I stared slack-jawed. If this was a proposal, it was an utterly preposterous one. The maids whispered to each other, and a few young men passing by chuckled. Melanion seemed untroubled by all of it, looking at me as though we were alone in all the world.
“What?” I said, certain I’d misheard.
“Marry me!” Melanion repeated brightly. “Though I may not seem like it, I am an enthusiastic hunter. Though perhaps more a fox than a bear like you.”
A bear like you.The words caught my attention and held it. Melanion had seen my heart’s true shape, a bear like the mother who raised me. The revelation prompted an instant spike of fear—I was not used to being seen so clearly for who and what I was.
Melanion was still speaking. “I don’t seek to control you, only care for you. I want nothing—”
“I will never take a husband,” I said harshly, thinking of Procris, dead at the hands of the man she married. Perhaps I would have accepted a husband like Meleager, but Meleager was gone.
A shadow swept over Melanion’s face. “You may not get a choice,” they said sadly. “Not all of us do. But if we join forces—”
“Get out of my way,” I snapped. Melanion gave a deep bow and flung themself back through the open window, landing on the ground outside with a grunt.
That evening, I sat beside my father on the royal dais overlooking the feast, trying to ignore the headache caused by the chatter of so many voices. I noticed that those in attendance were all men, not a woman among them except myself, and felt a stir of misgiving.
After the guests had gorged themselves, Schoenus stood. “Here is my daughter, Atalanta,” he announced to the crowd. “A huntress and Argonaut of some renown. She is strong and very beautiful, sure to bear healthy sons. I will choose her husband from among you tonight, so think of what you will offer as bridal gifts.”
With each word, my shock deepened. In a flash I was on my feet, standing next to my father, though this only served to draw the eyes of all the men in the room to me. They crawled like ants over my body, assessing and calculating my worth.
“We never discussed this,” I hissed at my father.
Schoenus grabbed my wrist and wrenched it—not too hard, just enough to show his strength. I felt the delicate bones slide against one another and bit my tongue on a cry of pain.
Schoenus’s eyes were frighteningly cold, all his good cheer vanished. “There was no need to discuss it with you,” he said. “You are my daughter, and you are going to follow my will.”
Now I saw what I had not noticed before in my desperation for belonging: The greed in Schoenus’s eyes, which I’d mistaken for affection. The acquisitive quirk of his lips, like a man assessinga prize horse. With no other children, he needed to marry off his only daughter to ensure the line of succession. He had been planning this all along.
