‘I must obey my master.’ She is not looking at me as she says this.
‘Did they deserve it?’
Her mouth twists. ‘Some of them did.’
I nod. For the first time I wonder, truly wonder, what it is to be a monster. And to know that the hand that leashes you is greater and more monstrous still.
I say, ‘If a sword is not wielded by a fine swordsman, if it is wielded by an inept and clumsy one, well – then it may well cut the hand that holds it.’
Her eyes blaze. She takes my hand from where it idles in her hair and places my fingertips in her mouth, sucking each one gently until I am all over liquid.
I teach Cetosenet, she teaches me how to dive for mussels. She and Achiroe would eat them raw but I, of course, cannot, and take a pot from the kitchens to steam them with herbs over hot stones. I like the kitchens, still. They are more hearth than the hearth room. The servants alone do not treat me as a pariah, many of them have seen me grow from girlhood, smuggled treats into my basket and allowed Achiroe to whisk me away. I have always been sweet and strangely strong in their eyes.You will make a fine priestess, they whisper.
It is discussed as an inevitability now and I am glad for it. Phineus remains unwed but once he is announced as my father’s heir that will not last long. My attendants tell me he comes looking for me sometimes, now that my room is not so zealously guarded. I ask my grandmother about this and she shrugs, not quite meeting my eyes. ‘He wishes to be friends. Is that so strange?’
I suppose it is not. It is not Phineus’ fault that I have never had friends and do not know how to do it.
‘He did not want to be friends before. I felt – we – he avoided me.’
‘He was adjusting, mylittle queen. His future changed too.’ I consider this. He was my intended, and so then my protector, and now he is not. Now he is simply my uncle. Perhaps he has adjusted better than I; I would not know where to begin a friendship with Phineus now. He is no longer in my confidence. I imagine him sitting here with us, sharing some gossip of the palace, listening to Achiroe’s songs and stories, dancing with us or asking of Ceto’s life in the Coral Kingdom. I wonder if we could tell him what we did, what we continue to do, and how he would respond. Dear, honest Phineus. I dismiss the thought.
The moons cycle on, stretching before us. I am a woman by all accounts but those that our people value.
‘Your master will tire of waiting for me.’
‘Soon you will be sent away to serve some goddess; I wonder which it will be?’
‘Perhaps my father waits upon your master’s word, to let it be known that I am ill and not fit to wed.’
I am frozen in this transition, but I wring each drop from each day because each day brings more of Ceto. I did not know there could be so much to a person. I did not know there was so much to me. I remember that jagged stirring when she had said she would not be able to choose how she is remembered. It had gutted me but I did not know why. Now, though, I almost weep to think of it. When they speak of her it will not be of the welcoming leagues of her eyes. It will not mean sharp tongued or fiercely, brutally loyal or brave. It will not mean ‘lover of figs’ or ‘quick-footed dancer’. I had not yet named that splintering grief as love because I had not known it as such. We in our world are obsessed with future memory. We live for the centuries that will come andare ghosts in our own bodies, more alive in the urns and tapestries that paint us. When Ceto is painted it will be as the Cetus, or she will be confused with her aunt – it will not be as she is. Yes, I almost weep to think of it.Almost.I mourn it, and yet—
There are many things that I am that will not be remembered. And I am glad for the secrecy, the privacy from history’s eyes.Meda, Meda, Meda.Cunning. Deceptive, duplicitous.Liar.She whispers these words to me when I am arced and panting.
‘I once told you that I would have you on your knees. Was I not right, worm?’ I look down at where she kneels beside our bed. Her tongue traces a path that sets me fisting our blankets, snarling, ‘Harder.’
‘If only they knew the truth of this mouth,’ she laughs. I am so open and so wet, I squirm, demanding as she beckons my release and her tongue finds mine.
‘I love this tongue,’ she murmurs. ‘I love the way it lies to everyone but me.’ I moan back and she sighs, ‘Your body is honest, though.’
She strokes harder, uses her thumb to flick firm and deliberate, just the way I like, as if trying to remove a stone from fruit. I am made of bliss, it is the joiner that hinges bone to muscle and sinew, and when I cry out, I do not bother to stifle it. They do not tell stories about what women can be to one another. I could howl her name at the moon and all the world would say,how loud the wolves are tonight.
I pull her towards me, tumbling from the high but insatiable, tangling and pinning her, wrists held tight above her head. Silver streams in through the window so that she is bathed in it. Her eyes and hair glow the blue of a thousandmidnights and she is fluid beneath me. I move on top of her. I am instinctive in my seeking. Here I can watch her face as she pools into our blankets. Here I can press every space of her against every space of me and we cannot be closer. I roll my hips. Her cry demands more and I will give it to her, as I will give her anything. I roll them again, press closer, tighter. Her lips are at my neck, biting gently on the tender spot before the slope of my shoulder. We open together and I share her heat, our mutual slickness, we climb together until we are dizzy, gasping. She cries out, cries again, wordless and hoarse, becomes concave now and she clutches me trembling. The movement brushes her nipples against mine. They are little pebbles and I shudder as they skim, like stones in a riverbed, causing sensation in ripples.
We rock together and her name spills from my lips, a desperate whine, almost pained. We lie together in the aftershock of our eruption. I trace the delineation of her face. Her sharp angles and small, pointed features. I know it better than my own but I recommit it to memory anyway.
‘You are beautiful.’
She smiles at me. It is the light one reserved for me alone.
‘How will I part from you,’ I ask, ‘when I am sent away and you are ordered home?’
‘You are my home.’
I do this sometimes. In the clarity that descends after euphoria, the perfect view of the sparkling river sets panic nipping at the corners of my mind.It will not last forever, it will be taken from me.‘And when I die. When I die, I shall have to leave you.’
‘Meda.’ Her voice is calm. She is used to this. ‘I amlong-lived, not invulnerable. I will be with you always. I will want you always.’
I should tell her that I am mortal and she is not and she should live for us both. But I am selfish and spoiled and feel only contempt for the future.
