Bought by the Colossus: Monsters' Bride Market

Medea

The air in the tavern of Colchis smelled of spilled ale, unwashed wool, and the cloying rot of the surrounding marshes. To the satyrs and nymphs drinking by the hearth, it carried the scent of a rowdy afternoon in a border-town dive. To me, it smelled of my cage.

Keeping my head down, I let the heavy hood of my cloak fall forward. The rough iron cuffs bit into my wrists, chafing my skin. Jason had locked the chain short and twisted it at an awkward angle, sending a dull, constant ache up my forearms. My lead-lined silk gloves felt harsher than ever. But as long as they kept other people safe from me, it was better this way.

“Medea,” Jason murmured as we walked in. “Say nothing. If I hear you speak, you know what it’ll cost you.”

I didn’t dare to say a word, not even in agreement. I only nodded.

After all, the last time I’d spoken in a tavern, he’d pulled off my gloves. The old beggar he’d picked as my target had done nothing wrong. It hadn’t mattered. Not to Jason, nor to my cursed hands.

The Argonauts flanked me, relaxed, as if completely unaware of the creature they guarded. Jason led them like a conquering king, radiating a golden, effortless warmth. As we reached the bar, he threw a heavy arm around the shoulders of the innkeeper.

“By the gods, Silenus! You look like you’ve been eating better than the local lords.” His rich baritone cut through the low hum of the room. He flashed a grin—white teeth, bright eyes, the practiced charm of a man who could sell a drowning man a cup of water.

The man, a bulbous satyr with a single, milky eye, let out a low, rasping chuckle. His belly pressed heavily against his stained leather apron. “And you, Jason, you look better than ever. What brings a hero of your stature to the edge of the marshes?”

“Just business, this time. An escort.”

The innkeeper’s remaining eye fixed on me for the first time. “For the lady… Heading to one of the bride markets, is she?”

One of the bride markets. If only. Bride markets were for women who had the luxury of touch, the hope of something better, the smallest chance at freedom. I’d been sold before I was born. But no one here knew that.

“She is.” Jason’s smile widened slightly, performing concern, performing normalcy. “We’re keeping her safe while she travels. Can’t be helped, in this day and age.”

“True, true.” The innkeeper nodded as if Jason had said something very wise. “She’s a lucky girl, then. I hope she finds a gentle match. The markets can be…” He trailed off, searching for the word.

“Unpredictable,” Jason finished. “Yes. But not to worry. She knows how to make the right choice for herself.”

As they spoke, the innkeeper led us to a long, scarred wooden table in the corner. I sat where I was told. I always sat where I was told. The Argonauts—Peleus, Telamon, and the others—piled in around us. Their bronze armor clattered, smelling of old sweat and oiled leather. Beneath it all, I sensed the unique, pungent scent of the necromancy Jason used to keep them unnaturally strong.

Silenus retreated toward the back of the inn, and in his place, a servant girl approached. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen, and her cheeks were already flushed pink. Her eyes stayed wide, locked entirely on Jason. He leaned back, his chair creaking under his weight, his smile broad and inviting. She saw only the legend. She was entirely blind to the monster hiding underneath the facade.

“For you, my lord.” She placed a platter of roasted lamb and a flagon of dark, heavy wine in front of him. She turned to me, offering a smaller plate of bread and cheese.

Jason caught her wrist. His fingers brushed her skin, and she gasped, her face turning a deeper shade of crimson. “Oh, no. The little bird is far too nervous to eat today. She’s overwhelmed by the journey, aren’t you, Medea?”

He patted my shoulder. The physical weight of his hand sent a cold, sickening pull deep into my marrow. It was the magical binding in my blood humming in recognition of its master. My twisted wrists throbbed against the iron. I said nothing, just like I’d been instructed.

Jason released the girl, his voice a low, melodic purr that made her sway toward him. “In any case, a girl as lovely as you shouldn’t be working in a place like this. You have the eyes of a queen.”

The Argonauts erupted in ribald laughter, their eyes gleaming with dark amusement.

“Careful, girl,” Peleus barked. “Our captain has a silver tongue, but his mind is on the prize. Don’t go thinking you’ll be a hero’s wife.”

Jason chuckled with them, the sound warm and infectious. It was the laugh of a man who loved the world and everyone in it. It was the most convincing lie I had ever known.

The servant girl fled the table, her face still aflame. Jason took a long, slow drink of wine, his eyes scanning the room. The charm evaporated, leaving behind a cold, utterly lethal reality. “We have work to do. Remember, we move fast. No mistakes.”

The table went silent. Telamon leaned in a little closer. “Captain, the Argo is a strong ship. But can we really—?”

“I do not recall asking for your counsel, Telamon,” Jason murmured. “And I certainly do not recall giving you permission to question the journey.”

Telamon blanched, his face losing all color. “I only meant the danger—”

“If I hear you question the plan again,” Jason interrupted, his gaze boring into the man, “I will peel off Medea’s gloves and let her hold your hand. I’ll let her rot you from the inside out while you are still breathing.”

The Argonauts fell silent. They were men who had faced monsters without flinching, but they all looked away. They knew the threat was real. They knew what I was. I was the plague he’d created with his own two hands, the darkness he held in reserve for when his smile failed.

I closed my eyes, the weight of my own wretched destiny pressing down on me. I wished he’d let me end my own existence. It would be so much easier. For everyone.

Across the room, a mixed group hunched over their table. Two satyrs with chipped horns, a dryad whose skin had the bark-like texture of old oak, a naiad with kelp woven through her hair. Their cups were already half-empty. Their conversation carried.

“…the Blighted Lands are expanding again,” a dryad murmured, her voice a rustle of dry parchment. “Nothing can grow there. The earth turns to gray dust.”

“It’s not just rot,” a satyr replied, his voice a low rumble. “There is a center to it. A core deep inside the fog. My brother swears the mist is a wall, hiding a kingdom where the dead walk.”

“A city of the dead?” The dryad shivered. “Madness. Nothing survives that air.”

“Maybe not us,” the satyr countered. “But things that feed on death? Things that thrive on rot? The stories say they belong there. The Blighted Ones.”

The words struck a chord in me, a faint, flickering spark in the absolute dark of my mind. A city of the dead. The Blighted Ones. I looked at my heavy, lead-lined gloves, feeling the bite of the iron cuffs beneath them. If there was a place out there built on death—a place where my curse was the very air they breathed—then perhaps my touch wouldn’t destroy them.

Perhaps there was a place for me beyond this cage.

Jason stood, his chair scraping loudly against the floorboards. The tension in his shoulders vanished, replaced instantly by his casual, easy grace. The servant girl was still standing near the back of the inn, her eyes fixed on him.

Jason caught her gaze. A slow, thoughtful smile spread across his face.

“Peleus, Telamon,” he ordered softly. “Watch our precious cargo. I have some… business to attend to.” He nodded toward the servant girl, his eyes dark with sudden hunger.

The Argonauts grinned, their faces lighting up with cruel understanding.

Jason walked away, leading the flushed, eager girl toward the dark corridor of the inn’s back rooms. He was a man of singular focus, but even he allowed himself a moment of indulgence.

He left me at the table with his men. They drank heavily, tracking the barmaid’s hips as she disappeared with their captain. They saw me as a thing. A piece of luggage that couldn’t move without its master’s permission.

They failed to see the woman watching, waiting, and planning.

Right now, my magic was smothered in enchanted lead and silk, my body shackled and bruised. But as the Argonauts called for another flagon of ale, the spark in my mind ignited into a desperate flame.

Jason had left me with distracted guards. He had given me an opening.

I was going to run.

***

The Blighted Lands did not welcome the living, and they certainly did not welcome me.

For two days, the sky hung heavy, a stagnant violet choked with ash. Jagged, silver-blue death crystals jutted from the cracked earth. The ground beneath my boots formed a web of dry, gray silt. Skeletal trees clawed at the air with bone-white branches. Their long, distorted shadows seemed to reach for my ankles, hungry for warmth.

“You don’t belong here,” every single speck of dust seemed to scream.

My left wrist throbbed with blinding agony. At the tavern, I’d seen it as a small price to pay for freedom. I’d broken it on purpose, to free my hands. It hurt now, but the simple sacrifice had allowed me to rust away my hated shackles.

I hadn’t given much thought to what would happen after. Now, my wrist hung swollen and purple, a heavy weight I cradled against my chest. Worse still, the power that had freed me was destroying what little I had left.

I’d discarded my gloves myself, but my terrible gift was beginning to rot through my remaining clothes. Three hours ago, I’d been left barefoot. I hadn’t eaten in more than a day. I was afraid that if I tried, the food would rot in my hands.

Come on, Medea. You can’t give up now.

I stumbled into a hollow and stopped to catch my breath. Here, the gray dust gave way to a carpet of pale flowers. Asphodels. They were the flowers of the dead, fed by the ambient energy of the fallen. Jason spoke of them often. “Beautiful and indifferent,” he called them. “Like you.”

I didn’t think I was indifferent, but maybe he liked to see me that way. Like nothing more than a doll. A puppet.

“She went that way,” Peleus called out from somewhere in the distance. “She’s weakening.”

“This place can’t touch Medea.” Jason’s answer came from farther back. Unhurried. “Don’t lose her to the mist.”

Not: be careful. Not: don’t hurt her. Lose her to the mist—as though I were a bag that had slipped from someone’s grip.

I’d been here too long. Even the few seconds I’d rested had cost me. They were getting closer. Too close, so close I could feel Jason’s breath on my neck.

Still shaking, I waded into the asphodel field. The effect was instantaneous. My shadow fell over the petals, and they shivered. The petals curled into dry ash before they hit the ground. I left a trail of dead, black stalks through the glowing field.

It was cruel. They should have been immune to anything I could do to them, but they died anyway. Each one I brushed went dark between one step and the next, the glow extinguishing, the petals blackening and curling inward. By the time I had covered thirty paces, the path behind me was a corridor of dead things. I could feel the damage accumulating the way I always felt it. Not in my hands, but somewhere behind my sternum. A running tally I had never asked to keep. Another marker on the long list of living things I’d erased.

The first time it had happened, I’d been very small. Jason had dragged me into the belly of the Argo, into the low chamber that smelled of bilge water and old wood. A man had been kneeling on the floor when we arrived. His hands were clasped, and he looked up at Jason, shaking.

“Please.” His voice cracked on the word. “I didn’t mean any harm. I was only… I was just hungry.”

Jason considered him for a long moment. “If every hungry man were permitted to take what he needed,” he said, “there would be nothing left for anyone.” He reached back without looking, found my arms, and pulled me forward. His gloves were butter-soft. Brown leather, fitted precisely to each finger. He pressed my bare hands to the man’s face.

“This is what you were born for.” His grip was steady. Patient. “This is why you exist.”

A single touch, and the thief’s skin started withering away, disappearing into flakes of ash. The screaming started, and kept going until the man lost his tongue.

But I had screamed too. Some days, it felt like I’d never stopped. Even when Jason told me to be silent.

I couldn’t scream now. Couldn’t afford to. If I did, he’d find me faster. Then again, maybe that was unavoidable anyway. I could hear him gaining on me, the dying flowers marking my path like a trail of snuffed torches.

“Medea, my dear. Come now. Don’t you think we’ve played this game long enough already? What do you think you can accomplish by running from me?”

I ran harder.

The shore came up suddenly through the mist. Lake Acheron lay before me, a vast mirror of black glass. It stretched out into a horizon of eternal, shadowed twilight. It was the absolute boundary between the world of the living and the city of the dead. The place the people in the tavern had spoken about.

I scrambled down the embankment, the loose shale sliding beneath my boots. I hit the shore, my breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. The air here was thick, heavy with the metallic tang of raw magic and ancient depths.

“Medea!”

The shout cracked like a whip across my shoulders. I froze.

Jason stood at the top of the ridge, his silhouette framed by the sickly violet sky. He looked magnificent, a dark hero sculpted from shadow and ambition. Behind him, the Argonauts fanned out along the ridge, their weapons drawn, their faces grim masks of duty.

Jason looked at me with a disappointment that I felt like a wound. “There is nowhere to go. The lake doesn’t answer to you. No one crosses without the ferryman of the dead.” His lips twisted into a cruel smile. “Not you. Not me. Only the monsters of that city.”

I looked at the water.

“Why should that frighten me?” The words came out steadier than I felt. “I’m a monster too. You’re the one who taught me that.”

Something moved behind his eyes. It was brief, and it vanished before I could name it.

“I didn’t teach you to be so insolent,” he said. He held out a hand, his fingers curling inward. “But you belong to me. I made you. I wove the very rot in your veins.”

He closed his fist, and the binding ignited deep inside my marrow. A cold, invasive command seized the death magic pooling in my blood. The rot burned violently inside my veins, threatening to consume my internal organs.

The agony drove me to my knees. My broken wrist hit the sand, sending a fresh wave of nausea through my body. But the magical burning in my chest eclipsed it. I curled inward, gasping, desperately trying to suppress my pleas.

“There,” Jason purred, already making his way toward me. “Was that so hard? Why did you have to make things so difficult?”

I couldn’t reply. Even if I’d been able to, words wouldn’t help me now.

And then, a miracle happened. As I writhed, my hand slid across the slick, black shale of the shoreline. My bare fingers slipped beneath the surface of the water.

A blast of pure ice rippled over my hand. The lake’s ancient consciousness surged upward, rising to meet the death energy I emanated.

For a single heartbeat, the sheer, crushing weight of the lake’s power drowned out Jason’s spell. It washed over the burning in my blood like a tidal wave swallowing a spark.

The cold moved up my arm like a living thing, deliberate, aware. Underneath the crushing pain, something else appeared. It was vast and patient, utterly unlike anything I had ever touched before.

It was not warmth. It was not comfort. It was attention.

It would kill me, and all I felt was relief.

Ignoring Jason’s sudden shout of alarm, I threw my weight backward. The steep slope of the shale bank dragged me down into the dark, and the thick water swallowed me whole.

I went limp, letting the weight of the lake pull me deep into its cold, waiting arms.

Finally, I was free.

Chapter I. The Captive’s Choice

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