Chapter 45
Medea
A scream tore from my throat as Talos swept Atalanta up into the air. Quickly, I snatched Atalanta’s obsidian-tipped spear
and leaped into the water, my skirts billowing out around me.
The ship had begun to steer closer to the shore, and I did not have so far to go. Talos flailed on the beach, black fluid
gushing from his wounded ankle, intent on eradicating the intruder. Every step brought him closer to Atalanta, lying somewhere
in the undergrowth. But with all his attention on her, he never saw me coming.
The obsidian-tipped spear was in my hand, and there was no time for fear. Coming as close as I dared, I drew back my arm and
threw.
I threw from the foot, as Atalanta taught me, and from the heart and soul. The spear soared through the air and tore Talos’s
bleeding black vein in two.
The bronze giant staggered and toppled over. But I was already running into the forest, screaming Atalanta’s name.
She was utterly still.
The light of the single lamp flickered over her features, rendering her sun-kissed skin waxen and pale. Her eyes were closed.
Except for the faint rise and fall of her chest, she did not move.
We were in a shabby, makeshift tent, Atalanta lying on a nest of blankets and myself kneeling over her.
Placing my hand on her diaphragm, I could feel the ugly edges of broken bone and the dark places where blood pooled and stagnated.
I had done a little healing at the temple of Hekate back in Colchis, but it had never been my strongest suit.
Healing magic was complicated, with so many interlocking systems woven together.
Nonetheless, I set about mending what was broken and clearing what had been blocked to the best of my ability.
I was very glad to have my store of medicinal herbs from the gardens of Phineus’s isle.
When the rough edges of the bone had been lined up and the blood flowed more freely, I sat up. Atalanta was still motionless,
but she did seem to breathe more easily.
“If you die,” I whispered to her unconscious form, half delirious with exhaustion, “I am going to kill you.”
Then I rose to my feet and pushed my way out of the tent. Night had fallen, and the moon soared through the sky. The Argonauts
had set up fires on the beach, illuminating their efforts to explore Talos’s fallen corpse. Idas and Peleus had climbed onto
the bronze torso and were trying to push each other off as a knot of others cheered them on from the ground below.
Jason appeared at my side. “Is she well?” he asked. “Atalanta?”
“As well as she can be,” I replied. He handed me a waterskin, and I took it gratefully. Long hours of work had left me thirsty.
Jason nodded, then his brows drew together. “You took a serious risk today, you know,” he said gravely. “After promising you
wouldn’t put yourself in any danger.”
“I didn’t promise anything,” I said with a flicker of annoyance. Bringing down that bronze automaton had been the task of a hero, but instead
of offering me a hero’s welcome, Jason was treating me like a misbehaving child.
“Even so, you said Atalanta would be taking all the danger on herself. I cannot trust you if you don’t do what you say.”
Now I was really irritated. Before, I’d been pleased when Jason acted protectively, but now I saw that being treated like a precious object still meant being an object.
I am not a little child, I thought, glaring at him. I stood against a corrupt father and transformed snakes into dragons before ever meeting you. I’m not so helpless as I appear.
Jason looked away first. “I only want you to be well,” he said. “I could never live with myself if anything happened to my
future wife.”
He bestowed a winning smile upon me, as if to soften his chiding. Beyond his shoulder, Idas successfully pushed Peleus off
the corpse of Talos, then pumped his fist in the air. This prompted raucous cheering from the crowd of onlookers.
Murmuring an excuse, I turned to leave, wondering all the while if Jason would always put me on a pedestal or if he’d ever
let me walk by his side.
Atalanta stirred when I entered the tent, lit by the light of the single flame. Gray eyes flickered open and focused on me.
“Did I get him?” she rasped through dry lips.
“Talos? Yes.” I knelt by her side, overwhelmed with relief.
“Tell them to keep that last part out of the songs, though,” she added, wincing. She drank obediently from the waterskin I
offered her, then fell back on the pallet with a sigh.
After a moment of hesitation, words began to spill from my lips. “What happened back there?! You could have died.”
Atalanta struggled to push herself up so that she was sitting among the blankets.
“Lie back down,” I chided. “I worked magic so that you will heal faster, but you still need rest.”
“Medea.” My name on her lips silenced my racing thoughts. “Come here.”
Puzzled, I did.
“Closer,” she insisted.
When I bent my head toward her, she twined a hand in my hair and pulled me in for a kiss.
Stars burst in my belly and fire danced under my skin. The kiss was sweet—soft lips on mine, the gentle questioning of a tongue
between them.
I pulled away. My hand floated up to cover my lips, which felt like they were burning. My heart hammered in my chest, but
not out of fear.
Atalanta sank back down on the blankets, flushed from effort but with the promise of more in her half-lidded eyes.
Silver eyes, I thought wildly, a match for my golden ones. How had I never seen it before? Silver for the moon, gold for the sun. Together, we made a perfect whole.
“Medea,” Atalanta said, “I love you.”
Suddenly the little tent seemed too hot, or perhaps too small. I was suffocating; none of this could be real. I was dreaming,
I must be.
“Come with me,” Atalanta said. She took my hands, lacing her fingers through mine. “Run away with me into the forest. Become
my wife. We will not follow the roads laid out for us, but instead make a way for ourselves where there was none. The next
time we make landfall, disappear with me.”
I stared at Atalanta. Though my life’s path had always been an unusual one, it ran straight and clear, shaped by my mother’s
gift and her expectations. I was a witch, but that was something of a family tradition; there was nothing subversive in my
magic back then. But now Atalanta offered another path, wilder and more free, beyond the rule of gods or men. The affection
in her eyes called forth an answering bloom from my chest.
Orpheus’s words rose up in my mind. There is the love that is thrust upon us and the love that we choose. Run after the latter, no matter what gods and men say, and never let it go. Or, at least, never let yourself look back.
Did I love Atalanta? If so, in what sort of way? Certainly I was fond of her. But a kiss was not a lifetime contract, and
it was no small decision to leave the rest of the world behind.
If I loved Atalanta, did I love her as herself, or as a symbol of what I wished to become?
“I’m supposed to marry Jason,” I said weakly, holding the words up like a shield.
“Jason,” Atalanta echoed, her expression darkening. “I love the hard edges in you, and the softness too, because I see your
compassion as well as your cunning. But what does he love? Nothing but himself, if he even manages that. I want every part
of you, good and bad. He only wants you small.”
My mouth opened, then closed. I wanted to defend Jason, my promised husband, but I remembered his chiding after the incident
with Talos, and my tongue was stilled. Perhaps Jason did like me small, so as not to overshadow his glory.
“You don’t need to answer now,” Atalanta said. “But next time we make landfall, I’ll be waiting. All you have to do is say
the word.”
I was breathing hard now, and my lips still tingled from the kiss. Inside my skull was a whirling mass of confusion and desire,
all of it centered on the woman in front of me.
“I will consider it,” I said, then rushed out of the tent into the sanctuary of night beyond.