Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [102]
Behind Chrysate, the man sent by the senators moved for an instant, his hand outstretched to snatch the holding stone from Chrysate’s seat. In its place, he left a piece of green glass. He slipped back into the darkness, gone before the priestess saw him.
The newborn moth fluttered, caught in a current, helpless, rising, rising, and the wind, angrily following the orders of Usem, carried her into the priestess’s clutches instead of the seiðkona’s.
Chrysate’s face contorted as she fought against the power the fire had lit in the queen, using all her strength to close the silver box around the moth.
Everyone in the arena watched light wings disappear into the dark, and Chrysate cried out with triumph.
Beside the priestess, a small girl with long black hair cried out as well, a broken, despairing cry, and then, disregarding the emperor, disregarding the witch, disregarding the soldiers who tried to stop her, she ran out of the arena.
She did not look back.
24
Nicolaus rose from his crouch high in the stands and looked down into the dust where the bloodstains were still bright and the bodies of bestiarii and animals lay. There was a tremendous blackened circle in the sand at the center of the arena, and the smell of fire still lingered in the air.
How could he have been so foolish?
On the ship, he had seen what she had done, but he had not seen her do it. He had not imagined what she was capable of, not truly. A lioness, he knew, but tonight, with every flicker of torchlight, she became a new thing, and all of them equally savage. With every move, she lacerated skin and wounded innocent victims, without conscience, without care. Nowhere in the stories, nowhere in the histories, was there anything comparable. And the sky. He knew that the Romans had called the goddess back to earth with those flames, as surely as he knew anything. Fire was Sekhmet’s family. She was a daughter of Ra.
Now a lowly witch held her in a box.
Did they not understand that a witch could not cage a goddess? Cleopatra would escape, and when she did, she would tear the world apart.
Nicolaus knew that he should take to the sea and disappear beyond the horizon. He was a scholar and a fool, and she was a monster.
Instead, he ran down the stairs, trying to force himself to do what needed to be done before he had time to regret it. He sprinted through the Circus Maximus and out the gates, saying a silent good-bye to any life he’d had as a historian. His fate had changed, and he must follow it.
He climbed the Palatine Hill. He would go to the emperor.
He’d lost hope of separating Cleopatra from Sekhmet. The queen he’d known was gone.
Now, in spite of his conscience, in spite of his guilt, in spite of his fear, Nicolaus sought a weapon that would kill her.
The senators convened in a secret chamber, quickly accessed from the Circus Maximus, all of them nearly frantic with excitement and shock.
“There is opportunity in this!” cried the first senator. “Augustus employs powers far beyond his control. The emperor will say the fire in the sky was an omen for his success, but Cleopatra lives, and our emperor marched through Rome declaring her dead. He is a liar and a betrayer of the republic. He deals in the very things he decries.”
“More than that. He battles against something Rome has never seen before. What is she?”
“Nothing Rome should provoke.”
“We have all seen her captured.”
“Who can know what we saw? We saw the witch take her. We did not see her destroyed. Who knows who the witch truly serves? Perhaps the emperor seeks to turn Cleopatra to his purposes. To kill his enemies.”
“We are the Senate,” scoffed one. “He would never dare.”
“Do you feel so safe?” asked another.
“The emperor is not as protected as he once was. It was only sorcery that saved him,” said another, still trembling from the proximity of the serpent, from the searing heat of the unnatural fire.
“What emperor of Rome encircles himself with witches?” howled the eldest.
“Even his uncle would never have dared traffic