The sword fell from my hands. Solidarity must be chosen, and in that moment, I made my choice.
“Leave,” I snarled, “or I really will kill you. The throne is empty, and Corinth is yours now. The people are fearful and will rally around a strong queen. But every year, you will ensure that the temple of Hera holds rites to honor my slaughtered sons. Go, and live with what you have done.”
The rank hatred in Glauke’s face faded, though she eyed me distrustfully, her hair hanging in wild curls around her face. “I’ll honor the children,” she said, brushing off her skirts as she rose to her feet. The bloodied sword was on the ground between us; though she might have picked it up and run me through, for some reason she did not. “But I won’t thank you for sparing me. You must also live with what you’ve done.”
“I never expected your thanks.” I drew myself up, conducting myself in a manner befitting the daughter of the goddess of witchcraft and crossroads. “Now leave!”
Glauke ran into the growing dawn.
Water mingled with blood as I washed the bodies of my sons, swirling pink and dripping onto the ground by the temple well. A task no mother should ever have to perform, a horror from which the mind fled.
I wept as I worked, sometimes singing snatches of lullabies. How small the children were, and quieter than they had ever been in life. I tried to wash the blood from Mermerus’s dark hair, to seal up the gaping wound that had stolen his life.
By now, dawn was shimmering on the horizon and the priestesses of Hera were awake. They fluttered at the edges of my vision, murmuring to one another. A knot of priestesses tried to approach me, but I screamed at them and they scattered.
The sun peered over the horizon, filling the world with a gradually increasing light. A golden ray fell into the temple courtyard, and a figure stepped out of it.
Aeetes.
My father.
My eyes adjusted to the brilliance. No, this was not Aeetes, who was long dead by now, though the family resemblance was strong. This one’s skin shone as if gilded, and his beard looked spun from gold. His hair, tightly curled, formed a corona around his head.
The Golden Fleece,I thought feverishly.The true Golden Fleece, on the head of he who is the progenitor of my line.
For this was not Aeetes but Helios, my grandfather and the god of the sun.
“Hail, Medea,” Helios called out, his voice echoing with divinemajesty. “The gods see what you have suffered, and we offer this token of our condolences.”
Helios indicated something nearby: a chariot, every part made of shining gold from podium to draught pole to front rail. The thin-spoked wheels were designed like a sunburst. But all this paled before the creatures harnessed to it.
Dragons, the Colchian kind, sinuous and yellow as sunlight. They writhed against their yoke, waving crests like those of roosters, eager to make their way into the sky. The sight of them brought back a distant memory: my own dragon, made from a little green snake and set free on the same day I myself left Colchis.
As if reading my thoughts, Helios said, “The bones of Xanthippus lie among the crags of the Caucasus Mountains. But he lived a long life and fathered many offspring. These are two of them.”
“Why the chariot?” I asked, dumbfounded.
Why bring me a chariot when my sons lie dead at my feet?I did not say.Why not act earlier and intervene before they were killed? Why come to me in this, my darkest hour, and offer nothing more than a form of transportation?
Why appear to me and not to Aeetes, who always longed to meet you?
Helios shifted awkwardly. “Well, the gods despise oath breakers, so it stands to reason that we should uplift those who have suffered the breaking of those oaths made to them, especially one so distinguished by her deeds...”
Helios continued to speak, though I did not listen. I understood that his actions had nothing to do with sympathy for the betrayal I’d suffered or admiration for my act of mercy toward Glauke.
He was afraid.
It seemed absurd at first. After all, I was a mortal, and he, an eternal god. But I’d already proven myself to possess power rivaling divine magic, with ruthlessness to match.
Even the gods shrank back from the anger of Medea. Even the all-shining sun wanted to stay on my good side.
When I was a child, I worshipped the gods; as a young woman, I thought I would take my place among them someday at my mother’s side. Now, I despised them with my whole heart. For the gods there was no good or evil, only strong and weak. They did not care about what I had done, only that I had the strength to do it. I had earned their favor—temporarily, anyway—by placing myself among the strong.
But what good was the esteem of those who loved me only when I was powerful? Why should I become a being so out of touch that I’d offer a glorified wagon to a grieving mother?
His task accomplished, Helios was gone in a flash of light, leaving me alone with the bodies of my children and the sun chariot. One of the dragons looked at me and made a chirrup of inquiry. From the fringes of the temple, I heard the priestesses whispering.
Time to leave this place. Tenderly, I loaded my sons’ bodies into the chariot, only to be interrupted by a shout.
