by Kate Nova
Medusa, instead of responding with another quip, softened. Her eyes widened and her mouth turned down, almost in a frown. “Why?” she whispered. “Why are you doing this to me?”
Those last two words were the ones that echoed in my mind. They were the ones that were full of emotion, full of longing. I could see it on her face. She had probably thought she’d find some solidarity. Monster to monster. She was hoping she’d finally found somewhere she could be herself.
Wasn’t that what we were all hoping for?
I was stuck in this ridiculous human body, all compact muscle and useless limbs, utterly ludicrous in the water. Griffin had to trade in his lion’s form and eagle eyes for a human body, too and Callan had sacrificed several inches of height and girth in order to pass as human—a feat I wasn’t sure he was pulling off, as he was a good head taller than even the tallest man.
But still. Medusa was the only one of us who got to keep her form.
So yes, we all hoped to be able to be ourselves with pure acceptance, but that wasn’t a hope that would be met here at this silly school. It wouldn’t be met here on Earth at all.
Maybe once we got to Mount Olympus, maybe then we’d be able to unleash our inner beasts and be ourselves once again.
But until then, we were stuck in this human realm and Orcus had instructed us to get rid of Medusa if she showed up at any cost. “She cannot be allowed to come back to Mount Olympus, do you understand? If she does, she’ll ruin it all,” Orcus, our master, our champion, had commanded it and so it had to be done.
But what could I tell her?
I don’t know. I’m sorry, but for reasons I can’t explain, we were told to get rid of you. Don’t take it personally.
I swallowed and stood up, towering over the Gorgon, making sure to eclipse her in my shadow. I wanted to remind her that although she may be able to turn me into stone, I was bigger than she was. And if she made one wrong move, I’d devour her like she was nothing more than an eel.
“You don’t belong here, beast,” I told her. My face was close enough I could reach down and kiss her if I wanted—and part of me did. Even with her cold eyes, heat flushed through me, highlighting my desire.
“And if you want to make it hard on yourself, stick around for another day. We already destroyed your little journal. Do you really want to see what else we’ll do to destroy you? You really want to see if you can withstand the fire?”
Just to put the icing on the cake, I reached out and traced my finger along her shoulder. The skin was surprisingly smooth, considering she was covered in scales, and it sent a blast of flames through me.
She moved away from me and her smile was full of venom. “Give it your best shot,” she replied, sighing through her words. “I’ve walked through fire and lived to see the other side.”
Melodic and soft, girlish yet not, her voice bore the weight of someone who’d witnessed tragedy and experienced her share of agony. My fingers wanted to fidget, to move, to expel all the nervous energy pumping through my veins, but I forced them to remain still. Suddenly, she whipped past me, the air of her departure making my papers rattle and I nearly slapped myself to keep my body from reacting to her scent.
It wasn’t the scent of a monster, but the intoxicating scent of a woman and it made the beast within me insatiable with desire.
She may be able to look the part, I reminded myself, but that’s only so she could lure me close enough to her side. She’d blast me into stone if she could—so I had to destroy her first.
Even if it wasn’t mandated by Orcus himself, Medusa would never allow me to make it back to Mount Olympus. She was a killer. A stone-cold killer.
And if we weren’t careful, we’d be her prey.
Chapter 10
Medusa
The end of my first week as a human student came without fanfare, though I believed I should’ve had a feast and a parade to celebrate.
I won’t say that being a human was difficult—I’d dealt with far more challenging situations in my life.
But after being isolated in my sea cave for so long, the social interactions alone were exhausting. And I couldn’t tell if things would be easier if I had a different sort of reputation—before the big lunchroom explosion, I’d been at least attempting to come across as mostly harmless.
But the big disaster in the cafeteria had turned out to be exactly what everyone was waiting for. The rumors flew. The whispers didn’t even attempt to be whispers anymore—everyone at this school thought I was a butcher and a scoundrel. They added to the already swirling rumors like they were in a witch’s cauldron. And now that my huge explosion in the cafeteria had confirmed their worst beliefs about me, I decided to go ahead and drink their potion.
Why not continue to be what everyone thought I was?
Why not lean into the monster within?
So, for the next few days, I slinked from class to class with my head down and my hood pulled rather recklessly over my hair, which hissed at anyone who stared too long. When someone offered a friendly, hopeful smile, I glared.
And even though Laura held out her sunglasses to me during gym class for the days, I ignored her each time and slipped on my own goggles instead.
Katie was still nowhere to be seen—but even if she had shown up again to discuss wyverns or school activities or to give me more tips about how best to avoid the trio of beasts who loved to bully me, well … as nice as Katie had been, I’d have shown her the real me too.
The monster.
Medusa, the Gorgon. Ruthless killer.
It was Friday and the feeling in the air was electric. Everyone was buzzing about their weekend plans, or else vowing to crawl into bed that evening and not emerge until Monday morning, ten minutes before class.
No one asked me about my weekend plans—maybe someone would’ve dared to if I hadn’t put up such prickly armor.
But my weekend was my own and I planned to do two things:
First, I wanted to go for a swim. There weren’t any swim meets until Monday morning, which meant Friday evening, the campus pool would be empty, still, and dark—the perfect thing to soothe my scales.
Second, I was going to think of some new ways to protect myself against the assholes: Griffin, Liam and Callan.
I’d been so close to having something on Liam. When I caught him in the library with the smart kid, I was almost certain he bought the answers for an upcoming test. I was pretty sure that was enough to get him disciplined with the administration.
But he’d been right. I wasn’t on good terms with the headmaster. I couldn’t exactly charge in there and demand another student be punished when I’d caused such a ruckus only a few short weeks ago. Besides, I wasn’t exactly the kind to run off and tattletale, even if I wanted nothing more than to get him expelled.
Still, I’d seen the fear in Liam’s eyes when I’d cornered him in the library. I wanted to see that again. I wanted all three of those men to be terrified of what I might do to them. I needed them to believe every rumor they’d ever heard.
Maybe then I could finally find some peace as I made my way through the school year and back to Mount Olympus.
I wished I could get revenge on those bastards for taking my mother’s book of poetry. It was the last thing I had of her—the only thing I’d kept of my former life, all those years of confinement in my sea cave and now it was gone.
I didn’t think I could properly convey to any of them how much it meant to me and how devastated I was to see it gone—but it was gone now. And I’d never get it back.
So, I wanted to unleash hell on them. I longed to make them pay.
When the hallways were quiet, I slipped across the school to the pool. The doors through the locker room were shut and bolted, but I went through the back fence, up and over, and then I had the pool to myself.
Without Liam to make great waves with his sea monster form, the pool was placid, flat and perfectly blue. The crystalline water looked so tempting, I couldn’t wait to di
ve in.
After a furtive glance around to make sure I was totally alone, I slid my clothing off and then I dove in.
The water was cool and soothing on my skin. For so many days, I’d been covering up my scales with thick makeup and my skin was sore from it.
But the water washed all of it away.
My hair took a deep collective breath and exhaled, relaxing in the flow, and I too leaned back, stroking and kicking to propel myself backwards. I gazed up at the emerging stars.
The stars.
They were my clearest memory of my final night—my final night as a human.
I wasn’t conceived and born as a monster. Liam was always a sea monster, swimming in his mother’s womb. Griffin would’ve emerged from an egg in his tiny griffin form—his lion’s tail unfurling, an infant growl in the back of his throat. And Callan, even as a babe, would’ve dwarfed most grown mortal men with his giant’s figure.
But I was born a human.
Medusa: a girl of the sea, an islander and a priestess in the temple of Athena.
It had been my job to care for the altars and clean off the remnants of oil and ash. I did this in the early hours of the morning, when it was still dark enough to see the stars. Each day, I watched them disappear. I couldn’t remember ever seeing the opposite, seeing them emerge in the evenings—my evenings were spent on my knees in prayer.
Except for the evening when Poseidon and his cronies appeared.
Although, I supposed, I was on my knees for much of that evening as well, begging them to douse their torches in the sea, to put out the fire and stop the destruction of the temple.
But as usual, my prayers had gone unanswered.
Above me, something moved in the sky. A pair of white wings, a bird flying high above me. I tilted back further into the water, letting my face sink below.
Nothing had been the same since that horrid night outside the temple when Poseidon had burned it down. That night, as the pillars of the holy house where I worked as a priestess were ablaze with flames, I’d sunk into darkness … and things had only gotten worse.
By morning, the temple was gone. A pile of ashes near the sea was all that was left as Poseidon and his cronies gloated at their horrible handiwork.
When I’d protested, sobbing, standing in front of the temple to keep them from bringing it down, Poseidon had backhanded me out of his way and I’d rolled through the fire and into the sand.
Left for dead.
Found not by any humans who would’ve helped me and cleaned me up, but by the Goddess Athena.
Athena.
It was her temple where I was a priestess.
It was her temple that had been burned down.
And because she thought I’d willingly let Poseidon and his little cronies set it on fire, she’d cursed me then and there, before my burns had even stopped aching, before my own tears had dried.
That was the moment I went from human to … to whatever I was now. Monster, yes.
Walking curse, yes.
But my heart was still human. Athena hadn’t changed that.
And before I’d been cursed, I was promised divinity. Working as a priestess in Athena’s temples, I’d earned a place on Mount Olympus.
That had been taken from me when Athena’s curse landed. Until my mysterious benefactor had rescued me. My benefactor was providing a way for me to get back up to the land of the gods. And no matter how furious I was at the unfairness of my fate, I would not lose sight of my goal.
The last view I remember through my human eyes was the stars and when I opened my eyes underwater now, peering up at the sky, I saw the stars again … and I also saw the white bird, descending lower and lower.
Not just any bird, I realized as I jolted up out of the water.
An owl.
My skin tingled, head to toe and not with the kind of aching desire I felt whenever I saw Griffin, Liam, or Callan crossing my path. No, this feeling was the sheer and instinctual terror of being confronted by a predator. A real predator—not some furry or scaly beast.
Someone who’d been more dangerous to me than anything.
The owl landed on the cement beside the pool and I tread water, watching as it transformed into a tall, dark-skinned woman with willowy limbs and a crown of golden leaves set atop the waves of her black hair. She wore a simple, white toga, and though her face was more beautiful than any mortal woman’s, the sight of it made rage tangle in my mortal heart.
“Medusa,” she said, smiling—but that smile was a cruel lie. She was not a kind, gentle goddess, worthy of the type of worship our temples gave all those centuries ago. She was envious and spiteful and because of her, I looked like this.
Because of her, I was a monster.
“Athena,” my hair hissed and I set my jaw, paddling to the distant side of the pool where I clung to the edge, my eyes locked on my enemy.
“Yes,” I confirmed to my head of snakes. “It’s her.”
“How have you been?” Athena strolled casually to the other side of the pool, but kept a respectful distance, hovering near the lounge chairs. It was so odd to see her like this, an ancient goddess among such modern inventions. “You look well.”
I laughed so loudly at that, it echoed off the building. “Do I? Do I look well?” I threw my head back, splashing the water; it sloshed up and out of the pool, rushing near her feet. “Yes, I suppose I am still alive and I’m not sickly or in the jaws of a hydra or under the wheel of a chariot racer as you once wished for me, if I remember correctly.”
Athena’s eyes gleamed in the darkness—the same eyes she kept when she was flying as an owl. Eyes that hadn’t changed in thousands of years.
Eyes I’d never stopped hating.
“So what is it?” I went on. “Let me guess—you’re here to give me yet another one of your delightful curses. The ugliest face in humanity wasn’t enough? The ability to turn people into stone wasn’t enough? Killing my own mother by accident wasn’t enough?” I could hear myself talking, and part of me was screaming at myself to shut up to avoid her further wrath, but I couldn’t stop. It was like everything I’d been dying to say to Athena for thousands of years was rolling out of me—a waterfall, a torrent—and I was helpless against it. “I’ll tell you what was enough. It was enough to watch Poseidon and his men burn down the temple where I worked and worshipped for most of my years. It was enough to be left for dead as the fire raged and it was absolutely enough to have you blame me, your own priestess—”
“It was enough,” Athena cut in. “It was more than I’d bargained for. It was worse than I’d expected. And for that, I’m sorry.”
Her comment stunned me into silence. I searched her face for sarcasm or insincerity of any kind—and I found none.
“You know I don’t like to admit when I am wrong,” Athena said, standing up to her full height, which was not incredibly tall for a goddess, but for a mortal woman it would’ve seemed daunting. “And yet, I’m compelled to tell you the following, much as you were compelled to let loose your little speech at me. I was wrong and I’m sorry. I know the temple fire was not your fault.”
Both of us were quiet for some time. The water in the pool lapped against the edges, and a gentle breeze blew through the campus, running through my hair, which was coiled and poised for attack.
My hair, more loyal than anything else I knew.
“So, you’re sorry,” I finally blurted. “So what? Have you suddenly gained the ability to turn back time?” Sorry wasn’t enough to cover what this goddess had cost me. Sorry was certainly not enough to pave the road ahead of me—I’d have to claw my way back up to Mount Olympus. Unfortunately, unless Athena herself was willing to put me on her owl’s back and fly me up that mountain, her sorry was just another useless word, blowing through like a breeze.
“If I could, I would,” Athena said. She chewed on her bottom lip as she thought. “Medusa, I—I had no idea what had transpired. I had no idea that Poseidon had been holding the torches. I defi
nitely had no idea he was capable of such … such cruelty.”
Poseidon. The name had, of course, rung through my head like an out-of-tune bell for all those years in my rocky prison, but to hear someone else say it? My instinct to leap at Athena and claw out her throat so she could never say that name again? It was unrelenting.
“Yes, well. Now, you know. I guess that’s an improvement.” That was all I could manage. I didn’t need to say much else. It had been hard enough to see Athena’s great white marble temple brought down by the god of the seas, a temple which had been like a second home to me. But to have Athena, the goddess of my personal patronage, a deity to whom I was more loyal than my own mother, believe that I was capable of such destruction? It had been insulting. Heartbreaking.
A curse as painful as the one she’d given me—my goddess, Athena, had believed I destroyed her temple and I’d had to live with that for thousands of years.
Sometimes I could still feel the flames licking at my skin—my wrists and fingers—as I threw water into the fire, a futile task. At times, I could still feel my own throat, raw from screaming and I could hear Poseidon and his men chuckling at their bonfire.
I never had found out why they’d done it.
Maybe they’d had a reason, maybe they hadn’t—maybe the knowledge that they’d destroyed something beautiful was all they were after.
Suddenly, the weight of that horrible night weighed on my shoulders, almost pressing me into the water. I felt weak, tired. For the first time since leaving my sea cave, I almost missed it. At least in the cave, there was no one else but me. In the cave, I only had to battle my own dark thoughts and I’d learned how to navigate the bleak labyrinth of my own mind very well over the years. To be in a human swimming pool, discussing the second worst night of my life with the very goddess who’d cursed me in the first place … it suddenly felt too much.