‘Why have you come here?’
In the moonlight, she saw his smile rise. He seemed younger than she. Euryale’s age perhaps, but it was hard to tell his age and experience without looking directly into his eyes. Out in front of him, he swung his sword in a dramatic sweeping motion. It was all for show. There was nothing he could strike at that distance. Her vantage point offered her fair protection from the encroaching warriors.
‘I have come for the head of Medusa, the Gorgon,’ he said.
‘The Gorgon?’ Medusa replied. This word was new to her. Gorgos, the terrible. A knot of anger and grief twisted inside her. What a leap, from a priestess to a gorgon. ‘I know not of who you speak. I am a priestess. Alone here. Leave now. You will not find what you seek on this island.’
As oily as one of her own snakes, the man’s tongue flickered from his mouth and licked his lips.
‘A priestess alone? Perhaps that is the very thing we have come here for.’ He turned back to his men, who jeered in support. ‘Perhaps our prize will be more than just the head of the gorgon.’
The air in Medusa’s throat grew thin as memories of Poseidon’s hands on her body seized her. The way he had forced himself into her, no man would ever do that again.
‘Leave now,’ Medusa said, her voice a piercing hiss in the air.
‘Why would I do that?’ he snorted. The arrogance of youth.
‘Because it is a better option than the fate that awaits you if you continue to advance.’
The smile only broadened on his face. The jeering of his men rattled around her. ‘Where is your hospitality, Priestess? My men and I are weary. Surely you can spare us a little of your time?’ A shriek echoed in the sky, causing the man’s grin to falter.
‘There are creatures on this island,’ Medusa warned. ‘Leave now, and you and your men will go unharmed.’
‘My men can look after themselves,’ he said, approaching the shadows one sure step at a time. The drumming in Medusa’s chest took on a new rhythm. Harder. Faster. Whatever the outcome, it would not be of her doing but caused by his own arrogance. As his footsteps moved ever closer to her shelter, she offered him one last chance.
‘Turn back now,’ she said.
‘Or what?’
This time, she was prepared. She stepped forwards out of the shadow that had shrouded her. The moment she raised her eyes, she knew what would happen. The snakes coiled and hissed as she watched the arrogant sneer become sealed for eternity. The shock in his eyes registered a fraction later, just as the stone crept upwards, his pupils turning grey, cast for all time in stone. Despite the storm, the sounds seemed to be sucked from the air, only the whirring of the men’s brains remained as they attempted to make sense of what their eyes had seen.
‘Back! Back!’ someone called, stumbling towards the shoreline, only to trip and fall. ‘Back to the ship!’ Yelling and shouting commenced as more and more men fought their way back to the vessel.
‘Do not return here!’
Medusa sighed into the night, expelling the air in a gust. A pang of guilt struck her gut as her eyes fell on the figure in front of her. Another death. But only one. The rest of the men were fleeing, racing to their ships and away from her curse. Amid the chaos, a heartbeat of pure silence spanned the island. It lasted no longer than a blink of an eye, less even, and yet in that second, something had shifted. True silence. The screaming, she realised. It had stopped.
‘Sisters!’
Twisting on the spot, Medusa clawed her nails into the rocks as she scrambled upwards. Blankets of rain turned the rocks into a waterfall. She grappled up, the only thought in her mind was of reaching her sisters. Euryale first, it would have to be. But Stheno. Her darling Stheno. Halfway up the rock face, a new sound brought her scrambling to a halt.
The beating of wings was stronger than any eagle she had heard above the island. Hard and fast, they fanned the rain, pushing it to the earth in unending torrents. Their call was like none she had heard before; lower in pitch than a bird but higher than a beast. It had a nasality to it as if the lungs of the creatures were filled with water. She cast her gaze upwards.
‘How?’ The words left her lips before she could stop them. Even without the crowns of serpents, she would have recognised them. ‘Sisters?’
They were beautiful. Free. All the pain of the years forgotten as they glided through the sky, backlit by the lightning, blue-white against their wings. Dipping and diving, as elegant as swallows, they called out to one another. Relief at their freedom washed over Medusa, like water from a fountain. They were not birds; they were so much more. Lightning flashed then lingered, turning the whole night to day. Medusa gasped. The amber hues of their eyes had been replaced with swirls of green and red, their childish complexions now ravaged by pits and warts.
As she watched them, their aerial acrobatics slowed. Rather than diving and swooping, they took instead to circling. Heavy wingbeats echoed as they marked out a single path in the sky, around and around; eagles seeking out the weakest lamb to pluck from the flock before they all began to scatter. The Priestess understood what was to happen the instant before it did.
‘No!’ Medusa leapt from her perch, down onto the sand, racing towards the boat. Even at her speed, she was no match for her sisters now. Each dive saw one, then another man cast into stone. The sisters’ laughter, grating and hoarse, crackled through the air. ‘They are leaving! They are leaving!’
