Chapter 76
Medea
The next morning, Atalanta found me weeping over the splayed-open body of a finch.
“I did a divination,” I said, brushing away my tears. “Our conversation last night made me think of Chalciope, and I wanted
to know how she fared. The signs were . . . dire. It seems our uncle Perses has taken the kingdom and now holds it for himself.
He executed Chalciope’s sons and threw her in prison while he sits on the throne.”
The thought of it was a torment. Argus, Cytissorus, Phrontis, and Melas, those sweet boys, all dead. My heart ached for their
futures cut short. And far away, Chalciope suffered the same pain I did—the loss of her children.
Had I really imagined that Chalciope was so indifferent to my departure all those years ago, when I left Colchis to follow
Jason? She was my sister, the one who sang me lullabies and braided my hair before bed when I was small. My only true family.
“I’ll kill him, that Perses. I’ll kill him for what he’s done.
” My nails bit viciously into my palms, and my tears tasted like blood.
For so much of my childhood, Aeetes justified the worst of his excesses by saying that they were to prevent the rule of an even crueler man—his brother Perses.
I’d always nursed a healthy skepticism about this, but now Perses had proven his true nature.
“I won’t trick anyone else’s hands into bearing the stain, like with the daughters of Pelias.
I’ll do it myself. Mindful of miasma, of course. ”
“I’d expect nothing less,” Atalanta replied.
Despite my distress, a little smile twisted the corner of my mouth. “And here I was thinking that you would tell me to curb
my anger.”
“Don’t do that, you might lose the best thing in you.”
“What were you saying before, about me being a king killer?” I laughed, trying to make the words seem like only a jest. “Perhaps
that’s a role I’ll reprise soon.”
Atalanta was silent for a moment. “Will you go to her?” she asked finally.
I glanced at Atalanta. She held herself stiffly, as though bracing for a blow—or bad news. The sight sent a spear through
my heart. How dear she was to me, from her nearly white hair to her sandal-clad feet. I’d freely told Atalanta about the death
of my sons and the destruction I had wrought in Corinth. But I hadn’t told her of the other secret hidden in my heart, the
one I dared not speak aloud.
“Soon,” I said. “But not yet.”
Atalanta relaxed at this, the tension melting from her shoulders. “I’m glad you’re taking some time to rest here, instead
of going off right away to become the queen of all dragons.”
The epithet made me blink. “Queen of all dragons? Surely I’m only the queen of one or two at the very most.” I looked up at
the dragons dancing in the sky, chasing each other playfully across the blue.
“You are queen of the dragons without and within.”
It took me a moment to understand her double meaning.
Yes, I’d certainly proven myself mistress of the sinuous Colchian dragons.
But there were dragons like the ones that pulled my chariot, and there were also the dragons within ourselves.
The beasts within our own minds, threatening to sink in their teeth and consume us.
All our baser instincts, rising half formed from the morass of the unconscious like the creatures that trailed after Circe.
My aunt was not the only one who commanded monsters, it seemed.
I looked at Atalanta, who was smiling. Before I could ask why, she slapped her thighs and stood up. “Well,” she said, “we’ve
worked through all the food I have, and that little finch alone isn’t going to cut it for supper, so I hope you remember what
I taught you about throwing a spear. Let’s go hunting.”