Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [14]
Sobbing, she threw down the rope and let his men rig him in it. She and her handmaidens pulled him up to the window, the wound in her hand opening again as she held the fibers. She watched his face as he rose toward her, feeling every pain he did. He would not cry out in front of his men. By the time she had him in the mausoleum, her garments were covered in blood. Her limbs felt dipped in wax, slowed and numb.
“Antony,” she murmured, stroking his face, his chest, his arms. She knew every part of him. The old war wounds, white stripes in his sundark flesh, and this new wound, still gaping. His eyes focused on her suddenly.
“Why did you betray me?” he whispered. “I would have done anything for you.”
“What are you saying?” she cried, but he was not listening.
“Wine,” he called.
He was too weak to lift the cup. She held it to his lips, hoping to ease his pain.
“You must not die without me,” she told him, but he looked at her, unseeing. Never, in all the years she’d known him, had he looked through her. She was always his focus, and when his gaze landed on her, she felt her skin warm, as though she walked through a ray of light sent from Ra himself.
“I will see you again,” Antony said, and smiled.
Then he was still.
Everything was still, the air, the smoke of the incense, Cleopatra’s own heartbeat. The maids stood, wide-eyed, watching for a breath, and none came.
A tear fell from Cleopatra’s face to Antony’s, and she watched as it rolled down his skin. The bloodstain on his tunic spread, larger and larger, and he did not move.
A scream rose up in Cleopatra’s throat.
“You will not die without me!” Her throat convulsed with sobs, and she doubled over, holding him tightly, her hands gripping his bloody tunic. Her body shook, every place he had touched her, every place he had kissed her.
This could not be the end of their story.
Running feet and shouting outside the building, swords clashing, Antony’s men engaging with Octavian’s. They were coming for her.
She staggered up from Antony’s side and ran into the sacred circle, her hands dripping with his blood. She’d made the paste of honey and ash, added the lion’s fur and cobra’s skin. Now the potion awaited the final ingredient.
She knelt, her knees cold against the stone of the floor. She threw back her head and sang the spell, her voice rattling the air itself, calling out to the heavens, her hands steady now as she held the agate goblet filled with her own blood.
Forbidden.
The warning of the Egyptian scholar appeared in her mind, and she shook her head frantically to rid herself of it. Nothing was forbidden. Nothing. This was her love.
Though this goddess was meant for vengeance, today she would be called to raise the dead as well.
Cleopatra drew a shuddering breath and performed the final step of the spell, pouring the blood of kings over the bared teeth of the icon. She watched as the red dripped down into the icon’s throat.
There was a rushing sound. Time spun around her like a sirocco, a searing, razing thing. The air charged with sparks, and the edges of the treasure glowed out of the darkness.
In the darkness, there were soft steps on the stone.
Cleopatra turned, and the goddess was upon her, tremendous. She shone in the endless night of the sealed chamber with the fire of the sun, her head that of a lioness crowned with a twisting, living cobra, and her body that of a woman, her arms decked in jewels, her fingers ending in talons. Her gown, tight to her form, was bloodred with rosettas over each breast, and the fur of her throat and face was golden.
She rose to the ceiling, and beside her all the glow of Egypt’s treasure was overshadowed. She was the daughter of Ra, Nicolaus had told Cleopatra, created from the sun god’s fiery eye. Her heat shimmered in the air.
“Sekhmet,” Cleopatra whispered, and the goddess roared, the sound rattling the coins and echoing from the walls of the mausoleum.
Where were Cleopatra’s servants? Fallen against the stairs, sleeping as if drugged, guarding the room from