Her wife. I supposed I was, even if no oath bound us. The tie was stronger than that. In the meadow, the dragons played as Kastana grazed. When the stew was done cooking, I ladled it into bowls and we both ate.
“How go matters with your sister?” Atalanta asked when her bowl was empty. She tensed as she spoke, the question both painful and essential, like washing out a wound.
A shadow seemed to darken the bright meadow, though it might have been only a cloud drifting across the sun. My shoulders sagged.
“Nothing has changed,” I said, thinking of the divinations I performed every morning. My heart ached to think of Chalciope suffering far away, bereft of her sons and imprisoned far underground. But what could I do? Never would I abandon Atalanta in her last illness. Nor could I bring myself to go back to the place I’d worked so hard to escape and face all that I’d left behind. Each morning I prayed that my sister had found some way to outwit Perses or escape her imprisonment, and each morning I was sorely disappointed.
The dreams had started coming again, dreams of green rolling hills rising up over a stormy sea.
A gentle hand lay on mine. I looked up into the eyes of Atalanta, questioning and sad, and shook off my melancholy.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, bringing her hand to my lips and kissing it. “After everything it took to bring me back to you, I will allow nothing to part us.”
Except for death, I added silently, but I think Atalanta understood. Her face brightened like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.
“Come,” I continued, letting go of her hand and brushing off my skirts. “There’s cleaning to do and pelts to tan, and the potion I’ve set to brew since the new moon should be ready.”
Atalanta took my outreached hand and struggled to her feet. This was a place of life, and we would send death scurrying. I would focus on this precious time with her, and give no thought at all to the future.
We fell into an easy rhythm, Atalanta and I. In the evenings we retired to bed with the setting of the sun, eager to make love and lie in the darkness together, touching and talking. Every morning, we woke in time to watch the sunrise together.
It was not as magnificent as it had been on theArgo, with the ship’s untrammeled view of the sea and sky. The protective ring of the forest obscured much, and yet even this incomplete beauty was more than enough.
How odd it was, and how pleasant, to fall back into old habits. To feel the changes wrought by the past twenty years and yet to remain ourselves.
As peach and gold painted the sky, I spoke. “You know,” I said, wrapped under the same blanket as her. “I think there may be a way to cure you after all. To defy the karkinos.”
Atalanta’s head snapped up, and she looked at me from the corner of her eye. She did not speak, but every atom of her body was alert, straining at this last chance of hope.
“Your story about Alcestis made me think of it,” I said haltingly. “The one you told back in Corinth. I might be able to trade a life for a life, one human soul for another.”
Since there were no other human lives to trade in this meadow, Atalanta understood my meaning at once. She exploded out from under the blanket, looming over me, insensible to the cold.
“No! You must never do such a thing.” She shook her head frantically to emphasize her point. I had never seen Atalanta so agitated.
“It would be simple,” I said, stretching out my hands in an effort to soothe her. Of course she would protest, but I had to try, at least, to preserve this life that was so precious to me. “I’ll take your place when death comes for you, like Alcestis did—”
“What if I ask you to live, Medea?”
The question stopped me in my tracks. Atalanta was still standing above me, drawn up to her full height, and I could see how much weight she had lost over the course of her long illness, despite my best efforts. Her face was gaunt and pale.
“Besides,” she added. “It would not be a fair trade, since you hold two human lives within you. Medea, you are pregnant.”
My mouth fell open and my hand flew to my belly, but I knew she did not lie. A smile danced over Atalanta’s lips as she met my astonished look, and I found myself thinking,Youhave made me with child.But this was a miracle that only the gods could ordain, and I refused the gods.
I recalled the furtive, frantic night in bed with Jason a few months before, when I’d sought to hide from my true feelings about Atalanta in my husband’s arms. A lifetime ago, it seemed. Certainly long enough for the seed planted that night to grow.
Still, this new life was no less miraculous for its origins, and the child was precious to me despite his father.
“I know your body well and know how to read the changes that come from carrying a child. So live, Medea. Live without me, however long that might be,” Atalanta said, leaning her forehead against mine. “Live through the years that run after each other. Live because I love you.”
79
Atalanta
“Atalanta!” Medea called. “Where is Kastana? I cannot find her anywhere.”
My head lifted from the pillow. I had been resting, unexpectedly drained from our exchange earlier that morning, but now I roused myself as Medea came into the hut.
