My self-loathing relented. Perhaps my act of mercy toward Glauke had not been weakness after all. I had seen our essential similarity, and in letting Glauke live I’d opened the door for myself to do the same. Maybe, despite all my errors, there was something worthwhile in me after all.
“You are a king killer, Medea,” Atalanta said as she turned back to her task, the knife flashing in the sun as the blade grated against the whetstone. “But let your anger be like the tip of a spear, razor-sharp, not a wildfire destroying everything it touches. If you must kill, Medea, do it so that others might live.”
I puzzled over her meaning until Chalciope’s face rose to my mind. “Like my sister,” I said, “when she led the coup against Aeetes.”
If not us, then who?she’d said to me.
Chalciope’s decisive action had saved many lives, and she did not even enjoy the supernatural advantage of magic that I did.Perhaps, I considered, the end goal of witchcraft was not only to make the world into the sort of place I would like to live, but one that other people would like to live in as well.
A daunting task. After all, power corrupts, and witchcraft was power. But someone must dare to stand against a corrupt king.
Another thought occurred to me, terrifying in its implications. “What if I become like him?” I asked, hugging my knees. “Like Aeetes, or Creon.” A heartless tyrant, justifying the worst atrocities if they pleased me.
“Well,” Atalanta said dryly. “Best make sure that you don’t.”
Night fell, and the forest came alive with the sound of crickets. I sat under the canopy of stars with a single lamp set in front of me, nothing more than a wick burning in oil. Despite the blanket wrapped around my shoulders, I shivered at the chill of the night. The darkness was vast, but the little flame flickered on defiantly.
The crunch of feet approached. Atalanta was there, squatting down next to me and stifling a yawn at the lateness of the hour. “What are you doing?”
“Holding vigil,” I replied, my attention focused on the tiny flickering flame. “For the soul of Creusa.”
I tucked my chin, trepidatious that Atalanta might tease me for wasting a lamp on the soul of a dead woman who was past caring about such things. Instead, she gave an approving grunt and settled down next to me, apparently ready to keep me company through the rest of the vigil. This was as comforting as the second blanket she slung over my shoulders, warming me against the night chill.
“Glauke will hold rites for my sons, so it’s only proper that I should hold a ritual in honor of her daughter,” I added. Besides, I needed to atone for what I had done. The vigil wasn’t enough, butit was a beginning. Not the extirpation of miasma, but something more elemental: a shifting within myself, a reordering of the soul.
Looking up at the star-filled sky, I thought about Creusa. This girl I had never really known, this girl I’d killed from a safe distance. Had she loved to walk by the seashore, like me? Or maybe she’d had a gift for braiding hair, like Chalciope. Perhaps she’d possessed a stubbornness to rival Atalanta’s. Now she was only ash in the heart of Corinth.
Live with what you’ve done,Glauke said as she left. What I had done could not be forgiven, but I needed to find some way to move forward nonetheless. I was concerned about Atalanta’s worsening health and needed my wits about me.
Above, a million stars twinkled in the night sky. I couldn’t undo what I had done, but I could learn from it. I could use my enormous power—not to destroy my rivals, but to build a world worth living in.
You are the fire, Medea, and you will destroy everything youtouch,Circe told me once. True, but a fire could also bring warmth and illumination. I stared at the flame of the little lamp.
Atalanta said nothing, only took out the pipe she often smoked, cleaning it with a stick before packing it with Scythian hempflower. The strong smoke made me sneeze, and I waved it away. Much as I disliked the smell, I would not tell her to put it away, since she deemed it a sovereign remedy for the pain in her bones.
The smoke of the pipe coiled up near the stars, and the little lamp burned on. Atalanta and I moved closer, leaning against each other for warmth as the night stretched on to morning.
76
Medea
The next morning, Atalanta found me weeping over the splayed-open body of a finch.
“I did a divination,” I said, brushing away my tears. “Our conversation last night made me think of Chalciope, and I wanted to know how she fared. The signs were... dire. It seems our uncle Perses has taken the kingdom and now holds it for himself. He executed Chalciope’s sons and threw her in prison while he sits on the throne.”
The thought of it was a torment. Argus, Cytissorus, Phrontis, and Melas, those sweet boys, all dead. My heart ached for their futures cut short. And far away, Chalciope suffered the same pain I did—the loss of her children.
Had I really imagined that Chalciope was so indifferent to my departure all those years ago, when I left Colchis to follow Jason? She was my sister, the one who sang me lullabies and braided my hair before bed when I was small. My only true family.
“I’ll kill him, that Perses. I’ll kill him for what he’s done.” My nails bit viciously into my palms, and my tears tasted like blood. For so much of my childhood, Aeetes justified the worst of his excesses by saying that they were to prevent the rule of an even crueler man—his brother Perses. I’d always nursed a healthy skepticism about this, but now Perses had proven his true nature. “I won’t trick anyone else’s hands into bearing the stain, like withthe daughters of Pelias. I’ll do it myself. Mindful of miasma, of course.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” Atalanta replied.
Despite my distress, a little smile twisted the corner of my mouth. “And here I was thinking that you would tell me to curb my anger.”
“Don’t do that, you might lose the best thing in you.”
“What were you saying before, about me being a king killer?” I laughed, trying to make the words seem like only a jest. “Perhaps that’s a role I’ll reprise soon.”
