Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [50]
She’d acted with only the spells she had, she reminded herself, trapped in the mausoleum as she had been. Osiris had not survived, in any case. Isis had lost him again, just as Cleopatra had lost Antony to a second death. Osiris had become the Lord of the Dead, and Isis had been left to grieve him.
The New Isis. Cleopatra moved slowly toward the temple, all the rapture of her transformation forgotten.
She entered one of the seven doorways, once resplendent with cedar and copper trims, but now empty of wood. The world and all its creatures might come in and out as they wished here. She made her way through the temple rooms, hearing nothing. The wise woman—the rekhet of this temple, the reason Cleopatra had come—was gone, or hidden.
At last, she entered the sanctuary of Sekhmet and stopped, her breath coming quickly. She could feel the power here, different from that contained in the other rooms. There’d been recent sacrifices. Her nostrils flared. She could smell the blood. Nothing large. A hare. A bird.
Against the back wall of the sanctuary was a tremendous statue of the goddess, smooth black stone carved into the shape of the familiar lioness with the body of a woman. A sun disc with a uraeus balanced atop the statue’s head, and over this, a portal in the stone admitted moonlight to illuminate her figure.
Cleopatra stood in front of the statue, uncertain. The light glinted off the goddess’s pitiless features, and though Cleopatra knew that the statue was not the actuality, she still found herself trembling. The statue reminded her too clearly of the summoning, and the things she’d done in the mausoleum. The man’s heart in her hands. The brilliant absence of her own heart. She heard her voice giving Sekhmet anything. Anything I have is yours.
It had been the right thing, surely. She had power now, beyond anything she’d dreamed. Enough to avenge Antony and Caesarion, enough to destroy her enemies.
Why, then, was she afraid? What was there for her to fear?
It was horribly quiet. There were not even any birds. She looked into the flat eyes of the icon, remembering the shining light within the living version, the sharp white teeth, the talons.
Was this what she wanted to be?
Did it matter? This was what she had become. She could feel it.
Suddenly, the hair rose all over her body.
“There is no need to fear me,” said a voice from the room behind her. “I am the last priestess of this temple.”
Cleopatra spun, placing her back against the statue, feeling its stone claws digging into her shoulders. “I do not fear you,” she said, her voice clear and queenly. But somehow, she did.
A white-haired woman stood before Cleopatra, gazing at her with thin-lipped reserve. She walked forward and draped Cleopatra’s naked body with a pale, red-bordered robe.
“This is your home, and you are welcome here,” the priestess said quietly, but there was a note in her voice of something other than welcome. Cleopatra looked at her, but the woman’s eyes revealed nothing, and her thoughts were veiled. “Come with me.”
The priestess led her from the sanctuary and into an open area. In any other temple, there would have been soft carpets, goblets of wine. Here, there was only the darkness and the chill of the marble floor. A tiny animal, some rodent or lizard, skittered across the stones and was gone. Cleopatra felt her head snapping to the side, following its progress into the night. Her tongue rasped against her teeth.
“I have been waiting for you,” said the priestess. “I felt it when you joined her. The earth shook, the animals fled, and I knew one would come. What is it you seek?”
“Knowledge,” Cleopatra managed through the hunger that had overtaken her.
“What knowledge? Two have become one,” said the priestess. “You share your soul with the goddess I serve. Though I am certain you know that already.”
“I do not know enough. You will tell me what you know of her,” Cleopatra said. “Where