My children, Medea says, and is able to raise her hand through air too heavy, meets them as they collide against her, bodies too soft, hearts beating, heat and sweat and scent and crying, frightened.

Spears from every side, air lanced by shaft and point. She hugs her sons close, would pull them inside her ribs, but she is too soft and they are too soft. They will be skewered and held aloft, her babies. My children, she says. Every spear arm pulled back, ready now to thrust, the circle closing, world of men.

Medea’s hand on Aeson’s cheek. She lifts his chin, pulls him against her breast, hugs him tight as she slices her knife across his throat.

Hot blood on her hands, Aeson jerking against her side. She presses her forehead to his, looks into the last of his eyes, her baby. Panic and pain. Don’t be afraid, she says. Feels his body slack, blood slowing, no longer pouring out, no longer fighting, calming, and she must let him fall away from her. From breast onto stone, body unstrung, lying on his side so peacefully in deep red blood, a color so rich in this light, without shadow.

She holds Promachus now, who is crying and struggling, but she lifts his face to hers, kisses him as the blade cuts through, holds him tight to let him know he is not alone, is loved, puts her cheek against his for last warmth. His hands scratching at her, punching her, but she clings to him, keeps him safe.

My children, she says. My babies. She keeps Promachus pressed close, reaches down for Aeson, holds both, her face in their hair, breathing them. She would stay like this forever now. There is nothing left, nowhere else to go. Nute, she says. Bring night, endless night. Let there never be day again. Swallow this world.

But the guards come closer. Not enough for them, not enough what she has lost. Animals! she screams. She pulls back Aeson’s head, fills her mouth with blood from his throat, spits it at the guards. Let them be covered in her children’s blood.

They step back, and she drinks again, lurches forward and sprays the air to turn it dark. Bright air black.

They fall away, these coward men, retreat with their spears. Medea, broken king, dragging her sons over the earth, one in each fist, mouth painted with their blood. Form of fear, earth god unnamed. Jason won’t dare follow. None will follow. Beyond human law, at war with the sun.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Acknowledgments