Chapter 83
Medea
Fifty years later, I look up from my deathbed at the sliver of a moon that drifts through the dark blue. Only the smallest
crescent, like an eye beginning to open. The newborn moon marks the beginning of the month, and there will be feasts in the
city below. In Corinth they called it the noumenia, but people everywhere celebrate the moment when the shining moon returns
from darkness. I rarely had time to appreciate such celebrations throughout the long years of my rule, but now, at life’s
edge, there is nothing to interrupt my enjoyment.
During the day, a parade of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren passed by my bedside to pay their respects, not to mention
my grand-nieces and -nephews, offspring of Chalciope’s sons. Some of them kissed my hand or murmured last words, and I laid
my blessing on each in turn. I attended their births, most of them, and mourn that I will not see what they do with their
lives. But it is time for me to rest.
Chalciope sits by my bedside, even older and more withered than I. She shoos away Lailaps when he puts his paws up on the
bed, still in his prime despite all these years. Utterly unaware, as always, of his own divine nature.
My son Medus kneels by the other side of my bed, laying a cool cloth over my forehead.
My dear boy. How impossibly wondrous he seemed when he was born, my Medus, like a rainbow after a storm.
So full of life and energy, fascinated by everything.
It made me glad that Aeetes was dead and Perses after him, so that this child could run about free from fear.
Though he had a baby name that everyone used when he was small, upon his tenth birthday, I told my son that the time had come
to choose his own name and direction in life. Whatever he decided, he would have my support. It was a custom neither Greek
nor Qulhan, and Chalciope certainly teased me for it. But I wanted to do things differently.
I would not use my youngest son as my own father had used me—as a tool and a weapon. He would not be like Aeetes, clinging
to a dirty pelt as evidence of a parent’s love. Jason’s mother had used him for power, and Atalanta’s father exploited her
for status, and all came to grief because of it. No, I would not make the same mistake. This child, at least, would grow up
secure in the evidence of his mother’s love.
“Medus,” he said, blinking his golden eyes. “That’s the name I want. Like you, Mama.”
Wiping the tears from my eyes, I vowed in that moment to become the sort of person who was worthy of such an honor.
Where will you go . . . after? Atalanta asked me once.
If I could, I would gesture at the white stone walls of Aea and the temple of Hekate. And beyond that the borders of Qulha,
secure against invasion, encircling a country grown wealthy with trade. No one goes hungry here, and the kingdom is so safe
that a young woman bedecked with jewels can walk from one end to the other without fear.
They call themselves the Medes now, after myself and my son. A token of esteem.
It helped to be a witch, to see the connections between all living things.
Certainly my witchcraft was an asset once I ascended the throne of Qulha and set about putting the kingdom to rights with Chalciope’s help.
Now, though, I scarcely use my magic anymore.
Not out of shame, but because I find that life bends itself to my wishes without conscious effort.
As I lie on my deathbed and listen to the music flowing in through the window, amazement at all of it washes over me. At the
human heart, which perseveres despite all the grief in the world. At the moon, which goes from dark to light and back again.
Full or crescent, she is always herself, and so am I. I know the stories they tell about me: witch, traitor, priestess, murderer,
queen, goddess. All of these selves blur together, but I am greater than the sum of their parts.
It isn’t your business what others think of you, Atalanta would probably say. I can still picture her crouched over the fire, nudging it with a stick. Her memory has been
my constant companion over the years, riding on my shoulder wherever I go. Every year on the anniversary of her death, I go
walking on the beach where I first caught sight of her. Let my legacy be a monument to her greatness, even if the world never
knows.
Sitting by my bedside, Medus promises to sacrifice to the gods for my health.
Though it takes great effort, I laugh and stroke his cheek. “You can command armies, my son the king, but you cannot order
death around.”
My breathing is weak, but I am not afraid. The moment I have waited for is now at hand. In the lengthening space between one
heartbeat and the next, my mother Hekate comes to me.
She looks exactly as she did so many years ago, wearing the guise of an old woman. It amuses me to think how much we have
come to resemble each other, both of us with wrinkled skin and white hair.
“Drink!” Hekate says, thrusting forward a cup of rainbows caught in liquid. “Drink and become a goddess. The decision among the gods to grant you apotheosis was unanimous; it seems that you have made quite the impression.”
The old promise, longed for since childhood. Once I’d wished for nothing else, but now things were different.
“No,” I say, pushing away the cup. “I no longer want to become a goddess, only myself.”
Hekate looks at me, stunned, like a bereft child despite her mantle of great age. I feel a stirring of pity. She is Hekate
Soteira, Hekate the Savior, who helps those beyond all other help—except herself, it seems. How tragic are the gods, who break
their hearts over mortals all the time. Surely their wisdom should protect them, yet they cannot seem to help themselves.
Hekate recovers herself quickly, dashing the tears from her eyes. “I was a fool to leave you all alone,” she says. “I gave
you the freedom I’d always wanted, thinking it would be the most loving thing to do. Why should I complain when you use that
freedom to choose a course different from the one I might have chosen for you? You cannot keep someone from the battles she
is meant to fight, and I will not stand between you and this final journey.”
Hekate’s palm cups my cheek, and she kisses my forehead in blessing. “I am proud of what you have made of yourself and your
life. Go in peace, my daughter, only child of my heart.”
Her words are balm on a very old wound. Aeetes’s blood drew a circle around me, but it never stopped my mother from loving
me, even if from afar.
“I love you,” I tell her. “And thank you for all you have given me. Farewell.”
The angular walls of the room dissolve, giving way to an avenue of cypresses leading to a distant bridge.
Beyond is a forest of winter trees, and farther still a grand palace rising from the mist. I swing upright, surprised to find my limbs without the familiar aches and pains of old age.
I look back to see my unmoving body lying in the bed, and Medus bent over it shaking with tears. Next to him, Chalciope begins to weep.
The sight of them breaks my heart, but I cannot turn back. Their place is here, in the land of the living. A force is pushing
me along the road of cypresses, driving me down the path and into the woods where no birds sing, past the giant guardian Cerberus,
and to the banks of the river wreathed with shades. I look around at the ghostly faces, wondering if I will recognize any
of them. If my brother is here, perhaps, or Creusa. I cast about for a glimpse of my sons, little Pheres and Mermerus, or
even their older brother Thessalus, his memory a splinter in my heart. But I do not see them. Nor do I encounter Achilles,
my supposedly divinely ordained husband, though if he tries to take me as a wife, I will slap him. It is not Achilles I have
come here seeking, but her.
Even if it takes me an age of the earth, I will find her. Atalanta. We will sit together, she and I, and talk of what has
been and what might still be. Perhaps in death we can have what we never could in life, and continue what began upon Mount
Geraneia.
After all, love is never wasted.
I pay my fare to the black-cloaked Ferryman and step aboard, though I begin to fret as the boat skims through the waters.
It has been so long. Perhaps Atalanta has forgotten her promise not to drink the waters of Lethe, or forgotten herself. Perhaps
she is with Procris or Melanion, with no space in her heart left for me at all.
As the boat draws close to the distant shore, I leap up, rocking the little craft. I can scarcely believe what I am seeing.
If I still had a heart, it would be beating wildly.
Because there on the shore, I see her. A tall figure, her thick mane of hair unmistakable, her back like a tower.
She has been waiting for me, and I am finally here.