Twenty-Three
T WENTY - T HREE
ESTRELLA
The Gorgon woman stared back at me, her lungs heaving as she studied my face. My hands tightened around the hilt of my sword, my fingers running over the scales of the snakes engraved into the metal.
The woman standing before me was a breathtaking beauty. Her eyes were the bright, vivid green of the serpents dancing within her hair, specks of brown forming the pattern of scales within her irises. Her hair was wavy and a deep brown so dark it almost possessed a blueish undertone. She had brown skin, her lips a deep rose color. Her facial structure was sharp, with high cheekbones and a defined brow.
She was a great and terrible beauty in a timeless way, the kind of breathtaking that men waged wars for.
She wore armor of the deepest green, her shoulders bare where it curved to wrap around her throat at the center before plunging into a sweetheart neckline. Each of her arms was wrapped in a snake, their teeth embedded into her flesh. The skin around the snakes’ fangs was gray, as if their bites threatened to turn her to stone at any given moment.
An intricate band of metal curved over her forehead, the gold sparkling in the firelight. It continued around her head like a band, complementing the gold tones in the scales of the snakes that stared back at me. Their eyes glimmered with the same golden color, heads tipping to the side as they studied me in curiosity.
They’d saved our lives. There was no denying that.
I swallowed, forcing down my trepidation at what they might expect in return. In this place, no one did anything out of the kindness of their hearts.
“Thank you,” I said, the sound coming out far too quiet. The Gorgon woman tipped her head to the side in a manner that was so reminiscent of the snakes in her hair that I almost chuckled, standing on my own as the others couldn’t risk meeting her stare.
There were no Gorgons left in Nothrek, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t seen the remains of the statues they’d left behind during our war with the Fae all those centuries ago. People turned to stone where they stood, with no ability to defend themselves.
I looked to the Morrigan where they had turned their backs on the Gorgon women, my own relief peaking. It wasn’t without a hint of surprise, but given my father’s bloodline, maybe such magics weren’t a threat to me.
Was that why I hadn’t turned to stone?
“You’ve no need to thank me, Little Sserpent,” she said, taking a single step toward me. I braced myself, placing my feet shoulder width apart on instinct. My swords rose at my sides automatically, my elbows bending to prepare for an attack. “Your father might have sworn not to interfere in the trials, but I made no such promise.”
“What do you want in return for your aid?” I asked, pursing my lips as I studied her. Whoever she was, whatever she thought to gain from sparing our lives, Fenrir seemed to know she wouldn’t harm me.
Even if he thought he would turn to stone, the beast would interfere to save me if he saw a threat.
“ Beast ,” Fenrir scoffed in my head. “ Do not insult me, Neamhai. I am no more beast than you. ”
“Fenrir,” the Gorgon woman said, but the affection in her voice caught me off guard. My wolf kept his eyes to the ground, rising now that his injuries had healed thanks to the phoenix. He approached the Gorgon women, standing at their feet and allowing them to run their hands over his fur.
“You know my familiar,” I said, my swords lowering at my sides.
“ Family ,” Fenrir said, his words full of warmth as he rubbed his head against the scaled pants of the woman who wouldn’t turn her gaze away from me. She petted him absentmindedly, allowing him to lick her hand sweetly as Ylfa and Lupa approached the other Gorgons behind her and rolled to their backs, letting the snakes tickle their bellies.
Family , I thought, echoing his word. I knew he heard the disbelief in the thought, knew he understood it for what it was.
I didn’t have much in the way of family. A mother who was hidden away in the Winter Court and my not-brother I’d left to suffer in Tartarus under the thin promise to meet him at the Cradle of Creation. Could he be trusted to uphold his word? After all his lies?
“Fenrir and I have been family for a very long time,” the woman said, quirking her brow at the swords still held tightly within my grasp.
“I fail to see the resemblance,” I said, the snark in my tone taking even me by surprise. It was stupid, foolish to think that someone else could lay claim to the wolf that felt so like a part of me already.
What would it be like when we’d had decades, centuries , to exist within one another’s head?
The Gorgon woman smiled, revealing straight, perfectly white teeth. Only the fangs peeking out from the corners of her mouth were enough to remind me that she was far from human. Her smile reached her eyes, genuine glee consuming her features in a way that made any retort I might have continued with vanish. She took a step toward me, her hand outstretched cautiously as if it might placate me.
“Fenrir was bonded to my hussband, once upon a time,” she said, making everything in me go still. Fenrir was silent. The sound of the rushing fire and the slithering of the serpents in her hair was all that reached me through the haze in my mind.
It meant nothing. Caldris’s father was married to a woman that was not his mother.
The woman smiled softly, showing the gleam of those fangs as her eyes softened.
“Who are you?” I asked, feeling incredibly alone. The Morrigan made no move to interfere as she took another step toward me, and the Cwn Annwn remained with the other Gorgons as they were reunited.
“You already know the answer to that question, Little Ssserpent,” she said, her voice soft as she stopped so close to me that I could reach out to touch her. I raised my sword, holding the point to her throat in warning. She grinned, the low hiss of her snakes echoing as they shifted to stare down at me. “Just as you know why you have not turned to stone.”
“Fenrir believed I might,” I said, glancing down at the wolf at my side. I didn’t want to consider the implications in her words, didn’t want to face the reality staring me in the face.
Her connection to Fenrir. Her affinity for snakes.
No.
“You can never be certain with mixed bloodlinesss such as yours, but you are jusst as much mine as you are hisss. Perhaps more, looking at you now,” she said.
The Gorgon wrapped her hand around the blade, the clink of stone touching the sword. She shoved it away, her skin unblemished as I thrust my other toward her in defiance. It touched the skin of her arm, bouncing off as pain radiated through my hand and up my wrist as if I’d struck it against a boulder.
“Ssay it,” she said, blocking each of my blows as I attempted to strike her and put distance between us. “Sssay my name, Essstrella.”
I winced, tossing my sword into the dirt at her feet. She didn’t so much as flinch away from it as I reached up with my other hand, attempting to grab a snake from her hair. It bit me, sinking its teeth into the fleshy part between my thumb and forefinger.
Jerking back, I stared down at the two puncture holes and the blood that welled from them.
Turning my gaze up to the woman staring down at me, her face a mask of patience, I realized how impossible my task would be.
I realized why so many others had failed.
“ Medusa ,” I said, the word coming out half a hiss. I’d never felt more serpentine than in the moments after the venom of her snake slithered through my veins. It burned a path through me, turning everything within me cold and hard.
Turning my insides to what felt like stone.
“If you want ssomething from me, all you need to do is assk ,” she said, reaching out to cup my cheek in her hand. Her touch was somehow soft in spite of the way my blades had bounced off her body, her thumb brushing over my cheekbone as I fought through the burn within me. “Claim your birthright, Esstrella.”
I shoved aside the pain, blinking through it as I tried to focus on her speckled green eyes. “I need a snake from your crown. Will you give me that willingly?” I asked, understanding what Mab hadn’t.
No one would ever be able to take from this woman by force. Never again would she allow something to be stolen from her, not after how she’d been wronged when she was cursed to this form in the first place.
The legend of Medusa had been passed through countless books, countless stories that the village of Mistfell had thought to burn. I’d seen mention of them, only learning the full truth of the horror she’d endured during my time in the caves with the Resistance.
Medusa reached up with her free hand, allowing one of the snakes from her hair to coil itself around her hand and wrist. She lowered it to mine, threading her fingers through my own as the snake passed from her forearm to mine.
She wound her way up over my wrist, slithering over the armor covering my forearm and sliding into the tiny slit in the scales at my elbow. She squirmed her way underneath it, slithering along bare skin and tickling the inside of my elbow as Medusa held me still with her iron grip. The snake was small, thinner than my wrist and the deepest purple as she turned her body and situated herself. Her tail wrapped around my shoulder, settling against my breast as it curled around my arm twice. The head rested just below my elbow, those eerie golden eyes staring up at me through the slit in my armor. She unhinged her jaw, spreading her mouth around my forearm and burying her fangs into my skin once again.
Fire burned through me, but she made no move to separate. Settling in for the long haul, she stared up at me as she pumped her venom into my flesh.
The skin around her teeth cracked, graying as it turned to stone just like the Gorgon woman in front of me.
It didn’t spread, leaving me to wonder what the fire in my veins would do.
Medusa ran her finger over the snake’s head, watching as the creature’s eyes closed happily. She turned her stare back to mine, those freckled green eyes boring into mine as she spoke. “I would give you anything, my daughter.”