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o… She pressed her lips against his. They did not yield to her.
His hand was hard, rough, upon her cheek.
No.
“No.” She could not breathe.
The curls she’d stroked only moments before were as solid as the slate floor beneath her. His grey eyes, closed in a kiss, would not open.
“No… No!” Her words were an angry cry, torn from her throat. “Ariston.”
She clung to him, cupping his face with trembling hands. She kissed him, wrapping herself around him as if she might warm him with her touch. Ragged sobs ripped from her chest, yet she pressed herself closer to him, as close as she was able.
He lingered there, all around her.
The floor beneath her still held his heat. The air was scented, flooding her nostrils and constricting her throat as she choked to draw him in. “Ariston…” she sobbed, pressing her lips to his ear. “I love you, my love. I love you.”
“Medusa?” Stheno called out as she ran into the temple.
“What has happened?” Euryale followed.
She pressed her cheek to his, nuzzling his ear as her tears flowed freely.
“Medusa?”
She would not look at them. She could not open her eyes. She could not look upon what she had done to him. “Leave me.”
Euryale hand touched her ankle, seeming to steal his warmth with her very touch. She shook her sister’s hand off, fitting against him so that the hard stone scraped against her skin.
“Leave me!” she cried. “Go!”
There was a moment’s silence.
“What can we do?” Stheno asked.
Euryale’s voice wavered, “Let us help you, sister, please.”
“Kill me. Kill me,” she pleaded, “so that he might be free.”
Silence hung in the cave, broken only by the sound of weeping. Whether it was her or her sisters, she cared not.
She had turned him. She had done this. And she could not bear it.
A serpent moved, slithering across her cheek – towards Ariston.
It would not touch him. She would not let it touch him.
They will never touch him.
She reached up, grabbing the serpent with all of her strength. Never had she felt such rage, never had she felt hate. Yet it consumed her, empowering her with the strength she needed to tear the snake free from her head.
The pain was blinding, robbing her of breath and sapping the fury that drove her.
The serpents were on her then, biting and twisting and twining about her. She did not fight them, but fell back on the marble floor. They writhed, slipping and tightening about her neck. She prayed they would finish this.
But they grew slower, sluggish in their movements – becoming as weak as she was.
