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Her oldest memory was of her father Aeëtes. His eyes, bright as twin stars, his beard, a fall of liquid yellow. His robes, dyed priceless indigo and purple, every inch intricately embroidered with gold thread.
Aeëtes was the son of Helios and the immortal king of Colchis, and he was a sorcerer of splendid, fearsome renown. And . . .
He did not love his mortal daughter.
Oh, he tolerated Medea. Barely. Although she possessed neither his divinity nor his divine beauty, she had inherited his talent for Pharmakeia. Some herbs derived their power from the blood of the gods, others from the earth itself—Medea learned how to wield them all. She would be a worthy heir. She would make her father proud. If she couldn’t have his love, she would have his respect.
“You are a woman and a mortal and a child,” Aeëtes said dismissively.
A woman and a mortal and a child. Medea had nothing.
***
For a time, she decided that she would have Jason instead.
At last, she thought, here was someone—an exceedingly handsome someone—who actually needed her. She knew that Jason had not a prayer against her father without her. And more to the point, Jason knew it too. He had no choice but to depend on her.
She betrayed Aeëtes for Jason, pitting her sorcery against his and showing hers to be the mightier. Or perhaps she’d shown herself to be the wilier. It didn’t matter which. She also slew her brother to aid in their escape.
In Colchis, Jason had been weak. In Iolcos, however, his country and countrymen made him strong, and he did not need her strength anymore. He turned away from her and their children and prepared to marry another.
If she could not have Jason, nobody would. Medea slew his new bride and the bride’s father and the children she’d borne Jason.
Pathetic Jason was left with nothing. Medea knew what that felt like, and she laughed as she flew away on her golden chariot.
***
Circe had been right. But Circe had been wrong too, for Circe had wanted Medea to stay with her on her island. She’d wanted to bind Medea with the chains of her loneliness.
Back then, Medea had chosen Jason over Circe. Now, with the clarity of hindsight, she understood the wisdom Circe had attempted to offer her.
She was a witch indeed, with power unbounded. From now on, she need answer to none but herself. Circe had been right, and she had taught Medea that. But Circe had been exiled from the world, and she reigned over her lonely little island, playing with her cats and pigs, never aging, one year just like any other, the time passing unmarked in endless solitude.
Medea could not live like that. She refused to live like that. And crucially, she’d come to realize, she didn’t need to.
***
The golden chariot had been sent to her by Helios, and it was driven by dragons. Medea’s grandfather remembered his progeny, and like all gods, he admired power first and foremost. Witchcraft had made Medea powerful, and there were few mortals on earth with more power than Medea.
She returned to Colchis. In her absence, Aeëtes had been deposed by his brother Perses and imprisoned in a cell of his own palace. The children of Helios were a factious lot, as it happened—Medea had learned that from Circe as well. Inadvertently, perhaps, but even so.
As immortals were wont to do, Perses underestimated his mortal niece, and before long the deposer was himself the deposed. Medea stated her condition before she would release her father from his cell:
“I am a woman and a witch and a queen,” Medea said.
“You are a woman and a witch and a queen,” Aeëtes agreed.
By the force of her own indomitable will, Medea had achieved everything.
END