The young girl rose up from her seat, smiled and lifted her hands, throwing some glittering substance into the air.
It showered over Cleopatra, and for a moment, Cleopatra was no longer a lion. She felt herself melt back into her human form, crouched atop Augustus in his laurel crown, her fingers bloodied.
She did not care.
Everything ceased to matter as she finally saw the face of the man who stood beside the witches, the man she’d thought an impersonation of her husband.
“Antony!” she screamed.
The knowledge ripped through her. It could be nothing but dreaming—but she reached out her hands to touch him. Did she imagine it? Did he cringe back from her?
She did touch him, an almost him, a faint him, with her fingertips, just as someone leapt upon her and tore her from her husband again.
23
A grippa and Usem both threw their bodies between that of the emperor and the monster. Agrippa locked his hands about Cleopatra’s throat, feeling the woman’s flesh in his fingers, even as the lioness growled before him. Her fangs grazed his shoulders.
He clung to her, screaming wordless obscenities against a world wherein something that should not exist, that could not exist, could suddenly be before him, attacking his emperor. He howled invective against magic and its unpredictability, the witches surrounding the emperor even now, and yet here he was, fighting the monster, and he was not a witch at all, but a soldier. Agrippa did not believe in magic. He did not believe in witches.
He did not believe in the thing he was doing.
Usem attacked the lioness from behind, his arms locked about her shoulders, his dagger seeking purchase. Would its poison kill her? He had no way of knowing. The Psylli clung to her back, feeling her toss him from side to side, feeling her sandpaper fur and, at the same time, her silken skin.
She was one moment a lioness and the next a woman, and Agrippa held her ferociously, pressing his thumbs into her jugular vein. Even a monster could be killed. Monsters died in the stories, their heads chopped off and buried, turned to stone by the sight of their own hideous aspects, poisoned by their own venoms.
He would kill this queen, this beast, this fury.
Her lips were pink, and then black and feline. Her eyes were golden and slitted, and then dark and long-lashed. Her fingers were dainty and pale, and then curved and taloned. Her waist was tiny and her hips were round, and her thigh came up beside his and wrapped around his back. He gasped, feeling suddenly deranged, and losing his grip on her throat.
Was he killing a woman, a defenseless—
No. He was killing a monster. He saw her jaws opening for him.
Out of the corner of his eye, Agrippa saw the man who was and was not Antony lift his hand in a gesture of command.
“Now!” Antony yelled, and suddenly there were men running toward them. Soldiers. Agrippa could see the flash of their swords.
He felt the Psylli pressing the hilt of a weapon into his fumbling hand. Agrippa looked up and saw Usem yank Cleopatra’s head back. Agrippa thrust the serpent-poisoned dagger deep and hard into the monster’s breast, feeling nothing but her demonic body engaged with his, hearing nothing but her shrieking roars. Her breast. At once creamy and bare and tawny-furred, both lioness and queen, and the blade had struck true, he knew.
He felt the dagger penetrate deep into her chest, and he twisted it, grunting with the effort. Surely, she would die. Surely.
He could hear swords clashing, men surrounding them, his own men, he thought, but he was not sure. Someone tried to wrest Cleopatra from his arms.
Chrysate muttered under her breath, whispering darkness, trying to bind the queen. She was strong enough to weaken her but not to break her. She called to Hecate, but Hecate was bound herself. The priestess clutched her holding stone. The shade was resisting her, too, and beside her, Cleopatra’s daughter trembled in terror, barely contained. She turned her head to look for Auðr and saw the Northerner, her hands high in the air, moving rapidly, spinning, the distaff nearly invisible between them.
Agrippa’s men were fighting Roman soldiers who had come from nowhere, and who seemed to be trying to defend Cleopatra. The shade of Antony shouted encouragement at them.
Cleopatra’s face was pinned upward, the general clenched about her throat like a chain, muscles heaving and sweating, blowing like a bull. She hissed, air slipping from her lips.
Something was weakening her. Cleopatra shuddered, feeling a chill rising inside her, dragging her back into her human body.
Her husband, a false vision. An illusion. It could not be Antony.
She tried to convince herself, to banish it. They were tricking her. She’d seen something that could not be true. The man she had seen could not be Antony, but with every part of herself she knew it was. The smell of mint and wine. His smell.
She could feel the magic coming from the old woman, with the strange motions of her distaff, and the other, the one whose hands rested on Antony’s shoulders, chanted words in a language even Cleopatra did not know. Any sorceress who had sway over the dead had sway over Cleopatra. She was not alive enough to resist it.
She struggled against Agrippa’s hands and against the other man clinging to her shoulders. How could a mortal man hold her so tightly? Usem’s dagger lay in her breast like a hornet’s sting, maddening. She wailed, not for pain but for Antony. She had touched him, and now he was gone. She had touched him, and yet he was dead. He had cringed away from her. His face had shown her things she never wanted to see.
She terrified him, and with good reason. She terrified herself.
She let her body go limp, and Agrippa released his grip on her throat slightly, thinking her dying. She felt herself gripped by several other men, the soldiers who had appeared fighting Agrippa’s men. She shook them off.
“NO!” Usem shouted, but Agrippa had no time to move before her tail whipped up and wrapped around his torso, flinging him deep into the stands, and Usem down through the crowd. Agrippa landed on his back, feeling ribs crack, an arm splinter. He gasped, unable to breathe, and then, choking with horror, he watched as the snake’s tail lashed around the paralyzed Augustus and lifted him from where he stood.
She twisted the emperor’s body before hers, bringing his struggling form to a level with her eyes.
Augustus looked into them, strangely calm. It was happening at last. He should have died in Alexandria. Human. Snake. Lioness. None of these things, and all of them. He had not been mad, nor had he been preparing all these months for no reason.
As the pressure of her coils grew greater around him, he felt his heart trying to leap out of his throat. He gagged on bile. This would be the end of Augustus. He knew it with every bit of his soul. All these years of surviving intrigue, surviving Rome, for nothing. For this.
Her mouth opened wide in a hiss. Her cobra’s hood spread wide, the torchlight shining through it, and where were his defenders? The circus was half empty now, he could see from his vantage point, and the people who had not been quick enough to flee the stadium were trampled and dead in the stands. His soldiers were engaged in battle with the wild animals, whose assigned human combatants had fled the circus for the streets. Agrippa lay across a row of seats, possibly dead himself. Usem crawled up the aisle.
Augustus’s eyes began to close, the world dimming before him. The snake surrounded him, pressing in on his bones and blood, chilling his heart. He’d been a fool to think Agrippa would kill her with a dagger or with any of the other weapons they’d assembled. She was not of this earth.
He felt his body giving over to her.
“No,” he whispered. Cleopatra looked into his eyes, caring nothing for his life.
“You killed my husband,” she hissed. “You killed my son. You took my home.”
Augustus felt his bones beginning to crack, his ribs splintering inside his chest. The serpent coiled tighter about him.
Then he saw the Psylli stand, his eyes dark and wrathful. A whirlwind hung b
eside him and then dispersed, whipping through the air of the circus. The warrior shook his head furiously, and a sound suddenly began to echo, swooping and whirling from end to end of the stadium.
Cleopatra, in the throes of her triumph, felt herself falter, her body transfixed. She began to lose her grasp on her prey.
Amplified by the wind, Usem stood in the stands, singing the song he’d learned as a child in the desert to make snakes forgive the sins of humans. He sang, his throat open to the sky, his hands thrown out into the air, his feet stamping in the dance of the Psylli.
The serpents of Rome heard him.
All over the city, people leapt from their doorsteps in horror, watching serpents surge from tunnels and secret holes, watching the streets of Rome fill with a slithering, tangling mass, all the snakes proceeding to the circus. They continued to come until they ran like water down the Appian Way, stacked ten deep in every slender alley. They swam the river, their heads bobbing over the surface of the water like eels. They poured through marble hallways and over the tombs in the graveyards. They slipped through secret doorways, coursing over the unsuspecting bodies of illicit lovers and spilling across their beds and out of their windows.
There were more serpents in Rome than there were human souls.
The snakes danced for Usem the Psylli, and in the Circus Maximus, the great serpent that was the queen rose up as well, her green scales shimmering. Augustus fell from her grasp, tumbling end over end to the ground beside Agrippa, who lay transfixed, looking up at the serpent that had almost killed him.
Cleopatra’s tremendous form undulated helplessly, senselessly, as though the Nile had been made flesh and now stood on end before the emperor of Rome, enslaved to his will.
Usem sang the final notes of his song, and the serpent ceased weaving. She stood frozen before him, before the wounded emperor, before her stunned children, and then, with a motion like the shrugging off of a veil, her head fell back, and she collapsed onto the floor of the circus, her body naked and human once more.
She was beaten.
Usem hesitated for a moment. Around him, the wind surged insistent, whipping his garments, informing him that he must capture and kill Cleopatra now, or risk further damage. He could not leave it for Rome to do, but Usem found himself uncertain of anything. He had spent too much time looking into the queen’s eyes, had seen her there, lost and alone. He was not sure who his song had worked on, the serpent or himself. And his dagger. The poison on it had not even wounded her. What could he do?
Chrysate stepped behind Usem, remaining hidden. There was an opportunity to take what she wanted, weak as she was. Even the small spells had nearly broken her.
Auðr stayed at attention, her fingers moving in the air, spinning the greatest thread, that of the queen herself, now fallen in the dust. She’d tried again to cut it, but she could not. It was still too strong, too twined with the goddess’s. The seiðkona pulled at other tense threads, tightening them into a web. The Psylli and the Greek priestess. The shade of Antony. Panting with exertion, her chest rattling, she twisted them together with the fate of the queen. And with her own fate. Always her own fate.
Antony cursed, his legionaries beaten. Half of them were dead, and the rest had been captured by Agrippa’s men. What had he been thinking? His plan had been terribly flawed. He had failed Cleopatra, hired drunken soldiers, and not enough of them. They were scattered now, holding their heads, raving. The men had not been prepared to do what they should have done, taken Cleopatra from the circus as quickly as possible. He could not blame them. When he’d hired them, he hadn’t known she was what she was. They’d had no warning.
Augustus’s private guard surrounded Cleopatra, their spears and swords poised to attack her should she move again. Marcus Agrippa struggled to his feet, gasping for breath, lifting the emperor from the ground, wincing at the pain in his fractured arm.
The Egyptian boys ran from the stands to Cleopatra, crying out her name. Selene stayed where she was, looking down upon her mother as if frozen. Her mouth hung open, and her eyes were wet. Antony took a step toward his daughter, and then, seeing the horror on her face, he shifted and took another step down the stairs and toward his wife.
Chrysate exulted, pulling him back, her fingers laced around her holding stone. Behind her, the man in the employ of the senators stood, waiting, biding his time, even in the midst of chaos. She did not notice him.
“You are dead,” Chrysate told Antony. “You have nothing more to do here.”
“My wife is here,” Antony said, his voice low and dangerous. “And I will go to her.”
He tore himself from Chrysate’s side, his face twisting with the pain of resisting the holding stone. Moving without touching the ground, he was nearly at Cleopatra’s side within seconds. A shred of his soul remained in Chrysate’s fingers. She clung to it fiercely, and Antony screamed with rage.
“I am no slave! You will release me!”
On the floor of the arena, Cleopatra trembled, her body still ruled by the snake song, though she’d shed the snake’s form. She looked up, her face unbelieving.
“Antony,” she whispered. “I thought you were dead.”
“He is,” Chrysate said, and swiftly twisted the edge of Antony’s soul in her fingernails, crushing him back into the wisp he had been when he first rose from Hades. She smashed him back inside the silver box, and then she moved toward Cleopatra, swift and graceful as a wolf assessing wounded prey.
The legionaries moved closer to the stricken queen, prodding her with their spears. Her two sons huddled beside her. Antony was gone. Surely, she’d hallucinated him. She stretched her arms to touch them, but the elder cringed, fearful of her hands. Ptolemy crawled into her arms, crying, and she held him tightly against her. She would not have long with him. She kissed his face, and whispered into his ear.
“You are the king of Egypt now. You and your brother. You must behave like kings.”
“There is no Egypt,” her elder son said. “Egypt is dead.” But he came to her anyway, and burrowed into her arms. Cleopatra held her children with all her strength and looked back up into the stands. Selene was still seated above her, looking horrified.
“I came for you,” Cleopatra said. “You are why I am here.”
Selene shook her head. Cleopatra looked into her daughter’s eyes, at her small copper face. It had been over a year since she had seen her in the light, and the girl had changed.
“You are not my mother,” Selene said, and Cleopatra felt the words stinging her skin, breaking her memories of joy.
Her face a mask of confusion, Selene reached out to the witch who stood beside her, the witch who had captured her father. She took Chrysate’s hand, and the priestess laughed. Strength flowed into her from the girl, even now.
The emperor hobbled down the stairs and appeared at Cleopatra’s side, his eyes lit with triumph, despite his pain. In his hand, a silver net glittered.
Augustus threw the net over her, and she gasped at its scalding touch. The pain shone through the center of her bones, nearly intolerable. Her children were pulled from her arms, and she was left alone, tangled in silver.
“Did you think you could win over Rome? We will burn you this time,” he sputtered, rage and pain choking his voice. “Make no mistake, we will burn you.”
“You cannot burn me,” Cleopatra told him. “I will not burn.”
Augustus signaled to a grouping of soldiers, who stepped forward, their arms filled with clay vessels. They poured the contents over Cleopatra’s body.
A sleek liquid that shone in darkness.
“You will burn this time,” Augustus said.
The queen writhed, tormented by the silver, and by the liquid drenching her hair, her hands, her fingers. The legionaries piled wood about her, a circle of kindling, and those assembled stepped back.
The emperor took the final vessel. He tilted it over Cleopatra’s head, and a single spark leapt from it and into her hair.
There was a rushing sound, and Cleopatra was aflame.
Her children screamed in horror, Ptolemy’s face hidden in Alexander’s shoulder, Selene unable to keep from looking. From the corner of her eye, though, Cleopatra’s daughter saw something on Chrysate’s face. The witch glorying in the flame. As the light reflected off Chrysate’s skin, Selene saw into her for a moment. Something ancient clothed in a beautiful body. Something was not as it seemed. Selene gasped, and dropped Chrysate’s hand, trembling, but the witch did not notice. The power of the fire was too compelling. She let the heat warm her face.
High in the stands, Nicolaus watched, his face wet with tears. They were making a grievous mistake, and he was powerless to stop them.
Augustus shouted with triumph as the inferno grew hotter and hotter still, white and blue, and at its center his enemy twisting, her body lit from within, incandescent with heat. This was the end, and he had won. This was the end, and he was watching her die.
Cleopatra struggled against the net, her body heated past pain, the silver melting into her skin, and yet she was not consumed.
She screamed in agony and felt the earth shake as her bones glowed, and her voice filled with thunder. Something was changing. The flames were not burning her but feeding her.
The sky tore open with lightning, and from it came the roar of a goddess. The legionaries looked up, terrified at the sound of the storm’s voice, and in the sky they saw a tremendous fireball crossing the heavens. Another roar, this one of resurrection. Romans fell to their knees, praying to their own gods, but it did no good. Sekhmet slashed the sky above them.
Augustus himself stared at the comet. An omen. But of what? He did not know.
Cleopatra burned brighter and brighter until through the flames, she saw a single living creature, a moth with a red coral body and enormous pearly wings spotted in black flecks, like hieroglyphs.