Chapter 3
Medea
A life worth immortalizing, that was what would bring my mother back to me. And every day for the next ten years, I strove to live such a life.
In the morning, when rosy-fingered dawn reached through my windows, I leaped out of bed and dressed hurriedly, then ran to
the temple of Hekate.
Qulha was—and still is—a land of temples, situated at the intersection between cultures. Some of these temples were dedicated
to the animal-headed gods who came with my ancestors out of Egypt; others to the fickle gods of the Greeks, their worship
brought on shallow-bellied trading boats. The most ancient shrines were dedicated to the primordial forces worshipped by the
steppe peoples, original inhabitants of this land: Tabiti the sun, all-seeing eye of fire, my family’s progenitor. And Tengri,
the eternal blue sky, vast and endless.
Those first people could not imagine any deity more majestic than the sky itself. But the firmament was only one part of Hekate’s
domain.
In the ten years since its founding, the temple of Hekate had only grown in size and prominence, and my burgeoning magic with
it. I ran through the necropolis and up the marble stairs, then into the sanctuary.
The others inclined their heads as I took the place of prominence befitting the high priestess. Melanippe, a half-Greek woman, stood at the altar with the morning sacrifice. When she saw my arrival, her knife flashed.
As the sacrifice breathed its last, I gazed up at the statue of Hekate. It had been crafted by the finest artisans—who, despite
my strenuous objections, had chosen to represent the goddess’s three faces as youthful. Surely Hekate was pleased by our sacrifices,
though the expression on her bronze face did not change.
I felt a familiar flicker of trepidation: If you have lived a life worth immortalizing, I will give you apotheosis, she’d told me.
Such a small word, if. How could I know what she thought worth immortalizing? Surely a temple established in her name was a worthy thing, and yet
I could never be sure. Hekate had not seen fit to visit me since that dream a decade ago, no matter how much I called out
for her. Your father’s blood draws a circle around you, Hekate had said, one she could not breach. A grim reminder that I was Aeetes’s child just as much as I was hers.
I steeled myself. My mother had given me many gifts, and I would not squander them.
“Draw close and attend my words,” I told the other priestesses, who formed an obedient ring. I reached into the pouch at my
side and pulled out a little jar, rubbing its contents over my hand.
Peering from beneath my lashes, I glanced at Melanippe to make sure she was still watching. I liked Melanippe, with her strong,
capable hands and her lush black hair twisted into a braid. I found myself wanting to impress her.
When my arm was coated in the contents of the jar, I walked to the altar, skirt swishing along the stone floor. The base of
the potion was the herb Prometheon, which grew in the mountains and had roots like freshly slaughtered flesh. It was sacred
to Hekate and good for magic.
Above me soared the great bronze statue, flanked by low torches on either side. These torches were holy and never allowed to go out, and the heat of them warmed my skin.
“Behold the power of Hekate,” I declared, and shoved my hand into the fire.
A commotion erupted among the priestesses. Some shrieked and rushed forward—including Melanippe, I was pleased to see, concern
written across her lovely face. But they stopped short when they saw that my hand was not burning.
“Magic,” I began, “can turn away fire and transform one thing into another. All through the power of Hekate.”
“Hail Hekate,” the priestesses intoned, eyes wide as full moons. I rejoiced in their esteem. How far I had come from being
that little girl working a slapdash spell in a midnight garden.
But before long, the priestesses broke away to go about their daily tasks: sweeping and drawing water and preparing for the
worshippers who would ensure the temple’s prosperity. I caught sight of Melanippe carrying a bucket for water, her braid swaying
between her strong shoulder blades. Watching them, a certain loneliness filled my soul. Despite being the temple’s royal patroness,
I could increasingly see that I was not privy to the camaraderie of the priestesses who dwelled there. I’d built a sisterhood
but found myself outside it.
Well, no matter. I lifted my chin and squared my shoulders. With the morning sacrifices finished, there was no reason for
me to stay. I headed back to the palace, only to find someone was waiting for me at the garden gate. My brother, Absyrtos,
leaning against a pillar.
Inwardly, I grimaced, though I knew better than to let my feelings show. Five years younger than me and rangy with adolescence,
Absyrtos was our father’s favorite and he knew it.
“Well, well,” Absyrtos sneered. “My wayward sister has come home again, it seems.”
My hands clenched into fists. For all that I could turn back fire and place the moon in the noonday sky, I never could manage
my brother.
“You’re always going off to that temple,” he continued. “How do I know you’re not meeting a lover there?”
A flare of anger. “I’m the royal patroness of the—”
“I know what you are,” Absyrtos snapped. “What I want”—he poked me in the chest for emphasis—“is not to have people talking
about how my future wife used to walk the streets.”
Future wife? Shock made me lightheaded. At first, I thought he must be talking about someone else. But I then remembered my histories,
and how the pharaohs of the southern kingdoms, our forebears, used to marry their sisters to preserve the integrity of the
royal line.
A distant ringing sounded in my ears. The world spun around me, unreal. It made sense that my father would arrange a marriage
for me, since I’d reached the venerable age of twenty-three without a match, but I’d never imagined something like this.
Absyrtos laughed at the naked shock on my face. “Father doesn’t want another faithless daughter whoring herself after foreign
kings. That’s why he rejected your other suitors and betrothed you to me.”
I stared at him in horror.
Absyrtos grinned cruelly. “As for that little cult you’re running, no matter. When you’re my wife, I’ll make you give all
that up.”
No.
Over the roofs of the palace came a distant sound like a faraway trumpet. A low, brassy song gradually increasing in volume. Though not unpleasant, the sound made the hair along my arms stand on end, because I knew what it meant: Somewhere in the palace, someone was dying.
My father would be in a good mood if the bulls were singing, insofar as he was ever in a good mood these days. I might be
able to talk with him, change his mind. I picked up my skirts and ran, my brother’s laughter echoing in my ears.
Among my father’s most prized possessions were a pair of bull statues forged from bronze, empty as drums, created using long-forgotten
techniques from Egypt. Through a trapdoor on the back, prisoners were thrown into the hollow bellies and a fire kindled underneath.
As the prisoners roasted to death, their screams were transformed through cunning artistry into low melodies that exuded from
the mouths of the bulls, a song like a war horn. It was a death that Aeetes reserved for his direst enemies—which seemed to
be everyone these days.
The guards surged forward at my approach, then took their hands from the pommels of their swords when they saw that it was
only the princess. Aeetes turned his golden eyes upon me. They were a sign of his descent from Helios-Ra-Tabiti, the same
as mine.
The Golden Fleece lay across his shoulders, its color pale and washed out compared with the brightness of his eyes. I recalled
the story of its origin: the Fleece had been harvested from one of the Sheep of the Sun, a divine ram sent by the cloud goddess
Nephele to protect her children Phrixus and Helle from their cruel stepmother, Ino. After explaining why he had come, the
ram spirited the children away across the sea to Qulha. Though Helle died during the journey, Phrixus sacrificed the ram in
gratitude and made the Golden Fleece from its pelt. Then Phrixus gave the Fleece to Aeetes in exchange for my sister Chalciope’s
hand in marriage.
I didn’t doubt that an animal could fly across the sky and speak with a human voice. What strained my credulity was the idea that parents could love their children so much.
Aeetes eyed me like a serpent about to strike, resting a possessive hand on his treasure. Courtiers often praised the beauty
of the Golden Fleece, but I thought its sheen evoked the oily glimmer of poison.
“Is it true that I am to be married to Absyrtos?” I demanded.
“Yes,” Aeetes said simply, then turned his gaze back to the singing bulls.
“Why?” I asked, my voice cracking in desperation. “I don’t want to marry him.”
Aeetes laughed, a horrible sound. “Girl, that matters little. If you want”—he drew the word out mockingly—“to do things such as eat, drink, or breathe air aboveground, you will do as I bid. I won’t
have another traitorous son-in-law scheming to take what’s mine, and you’re too useful to lose. No, I will wed you to my heir
and keep you here.”
The walls seemed to loom higher above me, and a noose closed around my neck. The guards shifted uncomfortably behind Aeetes,
not inclined to help lest they draw upon themselves the wrath of the king. My tongue was like a dead fish in my mouth; I could
not speak.
“What?” Aeetes continued with a sneer. “Do you think that because he’s your brother the gods will frown on the marriage? We
are nearly gods ourselves, we Heliades, and do what we like. If you think I am a monster, oh, child, you should meet my brother
Perses. Even now he lies in wait, searching for my weaknesses. He would take this kingdom for his own if I ever relaxed my
grip, and then you would be very sorry indeed. He would raze Qulha to the ground to enrich himself.”
Aeetes pulled the Fleece closer, as if for reassurance.
“You won’t become like your cousin Ariadne,” Aeetes continued.
He was no longer looking at me but at the bronze bulls, which had gone ominously silent.
“Ariadne betrayed her father and killed his Minotaur and ran off with the handsome young Theseus. He left Ariadne on a deserted island to die, you know. So it goes for faithless girls who disobey their fathers.”
I recalled a different ending to Ariadne’s story, one in which she became the wife of the god Dionysus and a goddess herself.
Some of our relatives on the isle of Lemnos even claimed descent from her. But even if I could speak, I would not dare say
such things to my father. To contradict Aeetes was to invite great danger.
My father’s eyes cut to me. “I may not possess a Minotaur, but I do have a girl who can call the moon into the noonday sky
and turn back fire. A marvel and a useful weapon. So I will keep you close.”
Now I saw the answer to a conundrum that had long perplexed me: Why Aeetes allowed me to run a temple to his divinized, despised
ex-wife. It was a declaration of my power, and by extension, his own. Why did he care if people worshipped Hekate’s name,
so long as they feared his?
Unable to hold myself back, I began to speak. “But, Father—”
“SILENCE!” Aeetes roared, and this time swung his fist at me, large as a bear’s paw. I ducked, the wind of its passage rustling my hair.
Before Aeetes could swing again, I was running. I did not stop until I was safely back in my chambers, where I slumped against
the wall and slid to the floor, hiding my face in my hands.
At the end of my days, I would become a goddess and unite with my mother—or so I hoped. But I had a whole human lifetime to
live before then, and in truth it hadn’t seemed so bad at first. I’d promised Hekate heirs, and she would surely bless me
for it. Moreover, I looked forward to the chance to create the family I never had.
Now all of that was thrown into doubt. I’d wanted love and family, but now I was faced with a distorted version of my wish: My husband would be my own hideous brother, and my children, the twisted offspring of incest. I’d sworn to never again be that girl weeping in the garden, but now it seemed I would never leave it.
Such was my distress that I might have hanged myself or swallowed poison, but a presence like a hand on my shoulder stopped
me. Don’t, a voice within me whispered. Don’t throw away your one mortal life.
Yes. I couldn’t cut my life short; I needed to think of something else.
My mind churned through possible solutions like a waterwheel. Absyrtos would force me to give up the temple of Hekate when
we married, but perhaps I could take refuge there for a short time. No, that would only make the priestesses targets of his
anger, a monstrous injustice. Or perhaps I could brew a love potion to force Absyrtos to fall for someone else and marry her
instead. But I dismissed the idea almost at once; a love spell would not solve anything, because love had no place in this
arrangement.
Escape was tempting, but no ship or caravan would willingly take the king’s daughter. A disguise was possible, but if I used
witchcraft to transform my appearance, I might lose both my true shape and my mind forever. Besides, where would I go? I’d
never left the borders of Qulha. I’d barely left the city.
A sound in the hallway interrupted my thoughts. It was the voice of Zaidar, chief of the palace guard. Odd—what in the world
would bring Zaidar to the women’s quarters so late at night?
Then I heard another voice, one that sent me running out of bed despite the cold of the flagstones. There in the hallway,
wearing a traveling cloak and hastily braided hair, stood my sister, Chalciope.