“No. The spell needs the soil of your birth and the blood of your mother to work.”
“Then we really shouldn’t go to Colchis.”
“Why not? You’re the son of Helios, but you were born in Colchis, were you not?” Hecate assumed that Helios had slept with a mortal woman of the royal family, resulting in an immortal prince. Aeëtes shook his head, shifting uncomfortably as the discussion of his parentage, and his vulnerability and insecurities around it, seemed magnified by his nakedness. He was suddenly ashamed that he wasn’t clothed.
“Helios left me in Colchis to be raised by the king and queen. You won’t find the blood of my mother there.” Aeëtes looked down at his feet and thanked the other gods that Hecate didn’t push the topic of his mother. The silence stretched between them for a few more moments, and when he looked up, Aeëtes could see that she was deep in thought. Finally, she shook her head and sighed.
“We’ll have to try. We’ll have better luck summoning an audience with Helios if the king and queen help.”
“That’s a long way to go on a guess.” Aeëtes’s forehead wrinkled as he mulled over their options.
“It’s the only chance that we have.”
“Why?” Aeëtes felt himself getting a little angrier, and it unsettled him, but he did not want to return to Colchis if he could avoid it. Hecate bristled, equally unamused now that her expertise was being questioned.
“Because I wrote Hera’s curse,” Hecate growled, the heads on her shoulders flickering to life once more. “Every curse, spell, and incantation in existence came through me. Even when Hera uses her own power to cast curses, it is my essence that she calls upon to do it.”
Aeëtes’s eyes got wide. “So you let her curse me?” Hecate jumped to her feet, and her heads all screeched.
“I don’tletanyone do anything. I said that she calls upon my essence. It is my spirit. I am a part of every single piece of magic and witchcraft in this world, Aeëtes, but it does not answer to me. It is mine, but it is bigger than even one goddess can contain.” Her words were laced with her power, and Aeëtes felt it crawling across his skin as he only stared up at her in awe.
Hecate recoiled, slightly shocked as he looked on. Every time that she had stepped into her power and the faces of the maiden and the crone appeared, men fled. Most women wept, even if in gratitude. She had never, ever seen a man look at her in her power and seem… awestruck. He nodded, his telltale grin covering up his expression once more, encouraging her.
“To Colchis, then.”
9
“To Colchis.” Hecate nodded once, trying to understand the man in front of her. He was brash, not easily frightened, and hadn’t shied away from her when power overtook her. He was staring at the flames again, looking shockingly calm for someone who had been cursed by Hera and now had to journey to Colchis to reverse it. Even her own presence should’ve been somewhat unnerving.
He is an immortalanda crown prince.Hecate’s bitter thoughts stepped in, loud and dissenting.Those are some of the worst men that you’ve met, and he’s managed to hold both titles.
Hecate stood, adjusting her hair as she stared at the path out of the clearing. “We should head out then. Your curse will probably take over again before long, and you’ll be a distraction as a golden ram. Did you understand me when you were turned?” She looked over at Aeëtes, who nodded.
“I did. I may have been in the body of a ram, but I still had my thoughts.”
“Good. That makes things somewhat easier.” Hecate started walking towards the woods, pausing when she didn’t hear Aeëtes stand and follow her. She tossed a raised brow over her shoulder.
“Did you want to come with me or stay here and wait for Hera?”
Aeëtes scoffed, standing slowly as his hands went to his waist. “I’m fairly certain that walking into town naked will be a distraction, too, Hecate.”
She paused, a bit of color coming into her cheeks as she tried—and failed—to ignore Aeëtes’s nudity. He had a point, though, and walking into town with Aeëtes as a golden ramora naked man would cause unwanted attention. Hecate felt herself swallow thickly, and something heated up in her body that she had repressed for years. The thought of people, other women, seeing and staring at Aeëtes as he proudly walked through the streets, confident as ever… Hecate buried even the idea of jealously and leveled her gaze at him. She reached up, grabbing a shawl that had been tucked in the folds of her himation, and tossed it at him.
“There you go. You can cover up with that.”
Aeëtes grabbed it and looked at her with a dumbstruck expression.
“You mean you’ve been wearing this the whole time?”
Hecate shrugged. “Well, now you’re looking a little cold.” She turned on her heel and walked off into the woods, biting her lip to keep from smiling as she heard Aeëtes’s guffaw in dispute.
He quickly caught up to her, and they made the trek back into Heraklion, Aeëtes growing more and more uncomfortable as the atmosphere lightened around them. They didn’t know when his curse would revert once more, which created the feeling of waiting on an ambush. The sun hadn’t cleared the horizon as they stepped into the busy streets, already abuzz with people but not nearly as crowded as they would be in an hour.
“This way,” Hecate murmured quietly as she leaned closer to Aeëtes. It was the closest that he had been to the goddess. The scent of rosemary and cinnamon in her hair had him reeling, and he had to keep himself from tripping over his own feet. There was something about her that was threatening to drown his senses alive; he was completely captivated by everything about Hecate, and it only got worse the more time he spent with the goddess. She was immortal in a way that he would never be, with a purpose, with magic…with people who respected her for what shedid,not only what she was.
Aeëtes nodded his head, not trusting his own voice, and followed Hecate as she slid through the back streets. He knew Heraklion almost as well as he knew Colchis. No, he knew it better than Colchis, but he had to admit that he had no idea where Hecate was taking them. It wasn’t until the first notes of dawn, right before sunrise, that they arrived at an open doorway. Aeëtes paused, waiting to see if he should knock before stepping in, but Hecate breezed through without hesitation.
The wind shifted, and that scent of cinnamon caught Aeëtes’s attention, and it dawned on him. They were at Hecate’s temple, which was why she treated it like she lived there and why he had never seen it. Men didn’t pray to Hecate.
