Page 104 of Cleopatra

“Sister?” Ptolemy called out. I was lounging on my balcony, a bottle of palm wine on a table next to me, despite it being early morning.

“What is it?” I laid bare my resentment towards him in every look, in every word.

“I have a headache—might you have a remedy?”

I did not get up from my seat; instead I pointed to my medicine bag, which had remained untouched for some time.

“Brew some willow bark in hot water,” I said, my words slurring slightly.

I heard him rummage in the vials and jars of medicines before retreating. I closed my eyes and thought of him no more.

“Cleo, Cleo, wake up.” Charmion was shaking me awake.

“What is it?” I said groggily, but my mind cleared as I read the horror in her face.

“It’s Ptolemy,” she said, her voice clotted with unshed tears.

I gathered up my skirts and strode through the palace until I reached Ptolemy’s chamber. He lay slumped across his bed, the shattered pottery of a broken cup on the floor.

I checked his chest for breath, but there was none.

“What happened?” I spoke with numb lips.

It was one of his servants who answered. “He asked me for hot water, Pharaoh, to mix with some herbs. When I returned to collect the finished cup, he was gone.” The servant quivered, holding in the sobs that threatened to overcome him.

I recognised the jar of herbs set on the table beside his bed. My mouth went dry when I saw what I had written on the label.

“Wolfsbane.”

Poison.

My stomach lurched and I turned away from the body of my brother. Bile rose up in my throat. Servants attempted to catch the vomit but it was too late. It splashed across the tiles, coating my feet in sour wine.

“He came to me and asked for a cure for his headache,” I said.

Like Theos before him, there had been no deep love between us, but he had still been of my blood. And I of his. I felt his death like a spear to my guts, deep enough to cause irrevocable damage.

There would be no healing from this.

I was destined to see each of my siblings suffer in turn. Ptolemy was just a boy, not many years older than Caesarion. The thought made my stomach heave again, but there was nothing left.

“I am empty,” I said, not really knowing what I referred to. For I was hollowed of all.

I had endured many things during my life, but Ptolemy’s death pushed me beyond my limits. Death courted me time and time again, but I was an unwilling consort.

The mark on my neck prickled, reminding me of my patron goddess.

Why do you neglect me so?

“Call the priests to prepare his body,” I said quietly before I left the room.

I cannot tell you if Ptolemy intended to die this day. Perhaps he had awoken that morning with his god’s voice calling to him—beckoning him to his kingdom. Or did he go ignorantly to Anubis’s side?

I tortured myself for many years that I had said “wolfsbane” instead of “willow bark” that fateful day. The other likelihood is that he misheard me and reached for the poison.

Or perhaps the most horrific scenario of all: my treatment of Ptolemy had driven him to seek the beyond.

But wherever the path began, the destination was the same.