Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [155]
He aimed the bow at Chrysate’s heart at last, the fiend he himself had summoned to Rome. She smiled at him, daring him to shoot, and that was what made his decision.
“You will die,” he said, and pulled at Hercules’ bowstring, but it did not move. How could this be? It was his bow. He had taken it from its hiding place. He, Augustus Caesar, the emperor of Rome. This was his destiny.
The witch looked into his eyes and laughed.
Augustus pulled with all his might, but the string did not move. Augustus, his heart despairing, his shame infinite, his fury unalloyed, recalled the words of the priest of Apollo.
The bow of Hercules could be drawn only by a hero.
Mark Antony looked at him, a shade, his enemy, the man he had painted as a coward, as slave to a woman. He held out his ghostly hands.
Augustus handed the bow to him without a word. There was no other choice.
Antony pulled back the string and drew the bow easily. He aimed, trying to find a clear shot at the witch, but it was impossible.
Cleopatra’s mouth was covered in blood, and her hair flew in the wind. Her eyes were lit with golden wrath, and her body was nothing human any longer. She was a goddess, shining and tremendous. Her feet did not touch the ground as she grappled with the witch. She tore at the woman’s throat and lifted her high into the air, their bodies entwined.
Antony squinted at the light that emanated from her. He could not see for brightness.
“Shoot!” Cleopatra screamed. “Shoot her now! Hecate is coming!”
Antony could not shoot the witch without risking his wife. His fingers hesitated on the bowstring, the arrow trembling. The witch gained the upper position, and he caught a glimpse of her gaping jaws, her claws tearing at Cleopatra’s breast, her strength increased by Hecate’s presence.
Antony looked down. On the grass at his feet, Ptolemy stared sightless at the moon. Alexander lay covered in blood, drained by ghosts. The shades of his children moaned, bent over their lost bodies. He did not know what had happened to Selene.
Antony felt himself falling, felt his fingers weakening. Cleopatra twisted, her body between Antony and the witch. She strained to hold Chrysate, looking at her husband.
“If you love me, you will do it!” Cleopatra screamed.
He looked at her. His love. His wife, her hair bloodied, her hands talons, and her eyes golden. He could see her inside all of the chaos. Cleopatra was there.
“I am yours,” Cleopatra said, and then Antony shot her.
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The arrow of Hercules pierced them both, stabbing into Cleopatra’s back and passing through her into Chrysate’s body.
The sounds ripped through the sky. The Earth herself roared. The Earth herself cried out, and Antony’s cry mixed with Cleopatra’s scream of agony and Chrysate’s wailing howl of despair. Sekhmet, bonded to Cleopatra, sharer of her soul, screamed in unison with her, doubled over, holding the place where the Hydra’s immortal venom had entered her body. Stars dropped and scattered.
Cleopatra pressed her hands to the wound, and, for the first time since she had summoned the goddess, there was blood.
The queen released Chrysate, and the witch fell, spinning and screaming.
“I dedicate this soul to Hades!” Cleopatra shouted, her voice strangled.
In the crater, Hecate’s shine dimmed, the water taking her back into itself, the chain of the dead wrapping about her ankle and pulling her down. The crater awaited Chrysate, and in it, the millions of ghosts she had called from Hades.
The army of shades rose up and took her beneath the waters, and Chrysate, witch of Thessaly, was gone into the darkness with her goddess, swept under and fallen upon.
Holding her wound, tears running down her face, Cleopatra hung in the air over the abyss and turned her gaze to Augustus, who stood, stunned, looking up at her.
She smiled at him, and he shuddered, unable to move.