Hecate chewed on her lip, realizing that Pelias had a point. Hera was lazy. It would’ve been easy enough for her to set enchantments like a trap and wait. If Hecate released her powers, it would only be a bigger alarm bell for the goddess.
Hecate swore up and down, enough to make Pelias blush, and turned back to look at the dock. The boat was already speeding away, no doubt carried once more by enchanted waves, getting farther away from the chaos.
“Wait!” she shrieked, nearly throwing herself off the plank as the sailors hauled it up the rest of the way. She turned and flung herself at Pelias, pounding against his chest. “We can’t leave him! That’s suicide! How could you—”
Pelias waited until Hecate caught her breath, gently holding onto her arms like a father and an upset child.
“Trust in Aeëtes, Goddess. Trust. He wouldn’t leave you too far out of his sight, would he?”
“How dare you all!” Hecate swore again, pushing herself off Pelias and moving back towards the railing. They were moving swiftly, and she could no longer see faces on the dock, only the moving crowds. The boat then came to a halt as quickly as it had started, and Hecate gripped the railing to keep herself from falling with the momentum.
She watched on, unable to pull her eyes from the docks when she saw him. A head taller than the rest of the men, moving through the crowd, Aeëtes suddenly appeared at the very edge of the pier. Without warning, he jumped into the sea.
Hecate let out a sharp cry as her hands came up to cover her mouth before she quickly was spurred into action. Hera might be on the lookout for Hecate’s magic, but she likely wasn’t paying attention to any of the other gods. Thin, nearly translucent spider webs of red magic danced across Hecate’s skin, pouring off her, down the side of the ship, and disappearing into the water. She pulled her power back as quickly as she could, praying the short message wasn’t enough to attract Hera’s attention.
Please, Poseidon. I need a favor,she began muttering under her breath, pleading with the God of the sea to buoy Aeëtes’s journey. It only took a moment before the sweet smell of citrus and sea air assaulted her senses, and she knew that Poseidon had heard her. Hecate watched on as a swift current appeared in the bay, undulating in a near-perfect line from the pier to the boat. It only took another second before two great horses, in the shape of waves, appeared on the very top of the water.
They made triumphant noises as their bodies were flecked with sea foam, and suddenly, a wild sound of laughter joined them. Hecate felt the anxiety in her chest release when she heard Aeëtes loudly laughing from the back of one of the horses as it hurtled him closer to the ship.
Thank you.She sent her prayers to the sea, knowing that they would be well-received.
“I’ll collect another time.”Poseidon’s voice rang out in her head, but it was not said in a warning, but a rather playful tone. Hecate tried to put a damper on the joy that she felt rising up in her as the horses came to a halt and sank back into the sea, depositing Aeëtes right at the side of their ship. Pelias and another sailor hustled to toss a rope down towards him and began hauling him up on deck.
“You owe me, Pelias!” he shouted playfully from the waves. “I told you I’d make it out alive!”
Hecate stuck her head over the side of the boat as Aeëtes was dangling in mid-air, somehow now shirtless and soaking wet. He still managed to keep the sword at his side.
“You made abeton yourlife!”Hecate hissed, staring at him like he was the stupidest man alive. Aeëtes only smiled, the grin lighting up his entire face and warming up the coldest parts of Hecate’s heart. Even if she only scoffed in response.
They finally pulled Aeëtes up on deck, who landed in a tangle of limbs with as much grace as a dead fish. Hecate walked right over to him with hellfire in her eyes, shaking her head furiously at his idiocy to wager on his life.
Aeëtes stood up quickly, raising his hands in mock defeat. “Okay, look, I know that may have seemed stupid, but…”
Hecate crossed the distance between them and cut him off, grabbing his face and pulling him to her in a desperate kiss.
He stood there for a split second before his arms went around Hecate on instinct, leaning into the embrace. Her chiton was immediately soaked through, but she couldn’t find herself to care as she wound one hand up into his hair. Everything about the embrace was frantic, as if she was convincing herself that he was alive, and Aeëtes was convincing himself that Hecate was real.
When she finally pulled away with a sharp intake of breath, Hecate slammed a hand into his chest and shoved him off her.
“Don’t youeverdo something that stupid again!” she hissed at him, the snakes around her arms echoing the sentiment, before she stormed off and disappeared to the galley.
Aeëtes stood there for a second, utterly dumbfounded and unable to move, but still with a gleaming smile on his face. He finally shook himself of his reverie and clapped his hands, shaking his hair out.
“Time to pay up, Pelias!”
21
Hecate slammed the door to her cabin shut with such force that it shook dust free from the floorboards above her. She froze, momentarily worried that she had broken something irreparable, but when there was no immediate, catastrophic consequence, she moved away from the door and nearly threw herself on the bed.
It’s not like you to be so…so…so impressionable!
After the events on Aeaea, Hecate was already worried that she was too far gone for Aeëtes. This infuriating stranger, who managed to fall into Hera’s path, get turned into a gold sheep, and cause her to claim a life debt.A life debt.Hecate, in her long, immortal years of existence, had never claimed a life debt; she had certainly never thought that when she did, it would be for a man. Yet, here she was, and now, it was much worse.
She tossed and turned so rapidly that she nearly fell off the bed, the small cabin moving on the waves as the ship hurtled towards Colchis. Hecate was paying better attention now and could feel soft touches of Poseidon’s power all around the boat. The boat that had nearly gotten ransacked by a mob of men under Hera’s control.
He leapt off ashipto make sure the crew and I could get away.Hecate could very nearly hear the difference between her head and her heart arguing.And? Men do foolish things. That doesn’t mean that you forget they’ll always leave you in the end. They’ll always choose freedom. Freedom, freedom, freedom!
What was freedom if you locked yourself away from feeling? If your heart was solid as stone and barricaded from affection, were you safe or in a prison of your own design? Were you the architect of your own suffering if you refused to feel or love? Let yourself be loved?
