Atalanta was silent for a moment. “Will you go to her?” she asked finally.
I glanced at Atalanta. She held herself stiffly, as though bracing for a blow—or bad news. The sight sent a spear through my heart. How dear she was to me, from her nearly white hair to her sandal-clad feet. I’d freely told Atalanta about the death of my sons and the destruction I had wrought in Corinth. But I hadn’t told her of the other secret hidden in my heart, the one I dared not speak aloud.
“Soon,” I said. “But not yet.”
Atalanta relaxed at this, the tension melting from her shoulders. “I’m glad you’re taking some time to rest here, instead of going off right away to become the queen of all dragons.”
The epithet made me blink. “Queen of all dragons? Surely I’m only the queen of one or two at the very most.” I looked up at the dragons dancing in the sky, chasing each other playfully across the blue.
“You are queen of the dragons without and within.”
It took me a moment to understand her double meaning. Yes, I’d certainly proven myself mistress of the sinuous Colchian dragons. But there were dragons like the ones that pulled my chariot, and there were also the dragons within ourselves. The beasts withinour own minds, threatening to sink in their teeth and consume us. All our baser instincts, rising half formed from the morass of the unconscious like the creatures that trailed after Circe. My aunt was not the only one who commanded monsters, it seemed.
I looked at Atalanta, who was smiling. Before I could ask why, she slapped her thighs and stood up. “Well,” she said, “we’ve worked through all the food I have, and that little finch alone isn’t going to cut it for supper, so I hope you remember what I taught you about throwing a spear. Let’s go hunting.”
77
Atalanta
The doe stepped delicately into a sunbeam falling through the forest canopy, oblivious to my presence. I hefted my spear and searched the bushes until I found Medea’s face, pale but determined. She gave a sharp nod, the signal that she would move and startle the deer into flight, driving it into the undergrowth where I was waiting.
My heart sang with the joy of the hunt and the pleasure that came from the company of a trusted companion. I leaped up and regretted my choice at once. My head swam, and the darkness at the edges of my vision threatened to overwhelm me.No, not again.My mouth felt stuffed with cotton, and my ears rang. Sometimes this weakness, an artifact of my long illness, came upon me unexpectedly, but this was a particularly bad time.
Oh hell,I thought as I pitched forward, the forest dissolving into a blur all around me. The deer crashed through the forest, and the last sound I heard was Medea screaming.
When I woke, I was looking at the ceiling of the hut. The rectangle of the door glowed around the pelt hung to cover the entrance. Someone stirred beside me.
“You’re awake.” Medea was there, leaning down, black curls falling around her face. A single lamp had been lit, perhaps thesame one she’d held vigil with last night. The light gilded her features with gold, filling in the lines left by the long years.
Her relief gave way to anger, her face creasing into a scowl. “You didn’t tell me. You didn’t tell me how sick you were. It’s all through you, I don’t know if I could banish it even with all the magic at my command. How can you stand the pain? It’s a wonder you can walk.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Karkinos, named after the crab, for the way the tendrils swirled outward like claws to embed themselves in the farthest reaches of the body. The worst of all maladies, a misgrowth arising from one’s own flesh; this one originated in my left breast. Well, it was only a matter of time before Medea noticed it, a risk I’d long known. In the same way she’d once seen the death of Procris in the fire, it seemed Medea could peer into the inner workings of the body.
“How could I have missed it for so long?” Medea muttered, clearly agitated. “So that’s why you were seized with weakness that day on the path with the water jar. And why you smoke that horrible pipe to treat the pain. How long have you known?”
There was no point in dissembling. “I found it a year before the girl Psyche passed her trial,” I said. “Each new moon, the lump was larger. I spoke to the girl’s mother, who knew much about medicine, and learned how bad the outcome was. After that, I put the whole thing out of my mind until it was time to leave Mycenae.”
It was Psyche, in a way, who had brought me to this moment. I recalled her face as I’d seen it a few weeks prior, dirty and marred by scratches but still resolute. When Psyche was much younger, I told her to marry a man like Meleager. The reason I hadn’t recommended Melanion was simple: Melanion was not a man.
I regretted this advice now, ashamed that I’d urged Psyche to accept the confines of her world rather than pushing againstthem. I might have spoken to her about the love to be found at the margins of society, in the forests or the temples or upon the open sea. About my own secret loves, unrecognized by the world but glowing like guiding stars.
There are other paths,I should have told Psyche.Follow afterthem, if they call to you.
But I already knew Psyche didn’t need me to say any of this. She would follow her heart’s desire no matter what the cost. Hopefully this husband of hers was worthy of it.
After she left, I saddled Kastana and went to Corinth. If Psyche sought her lost love, then so would I.
“Let me help you,” Medea said, drawing me back to the present moment. Her face was filled with horrified understanding, and her hands fumbled to grab my arm. “I see now, that’s why you came to visit me. Because you knew I could help. Well, healing magic has never been my greatest strength, and karkinos is oblivious to most treatments, but I have a few ideas. Perhaps we can—”
“That’s not why I came to see you.” I could see Medea falling back into the trap of fawning usefulness, and I would not allow it.
Golden eyes flashed up at me, puzzled. I swallowed hard. It was almost painful to drag these feelings into the light of the sun, but it wasn’t as though I had any dignity left to maintain, having collapsed like a bag of turnips shortly before.
Before I could say anything, Medea spoke.
“There’s something I need to say to you.” Her voice was shaky, and she looked down at her hands, twisting them in her lap. “Do you remember Orpheus? How he rescued his beloved Eurydice from the Underworld but, in the end, looked back and ruined everything? I have been like Orpheus all these years, looking back at what I lost, but I can’t seem to move on. I loved my children, but my life contained no joy... because you were not in it.”
The meaning of her words sank in slowly, changing the shape ofthe world. I noticed the uncanny parallels between this moment and that time all those years ago on the Cretan shore: myself supine with Medea above, the scene lit by a single flickering lamp.
