Page 114 of Cleopatra

I slept that night with the feather clutched in my hand. When Antonius sent word that the deed had been done, my grief had already dulled.

All my siblings had made the transition to the afterlife. As a Ptolemy, I was alone once more.

—

“Antonius has sent you a dress for the evening’s entertainment,” Charmion said. She pulled out a finely made woollen sheath. It was less opulent than anything I had brought, but charming in its simplicity. I also had enough jewels to make it grand.

“He likes you,” Charmion said carefully.

“Yes, I think he might.”

We spent half that day dressing me. First, we smoothed my skin with cedar oil flecked with gold leaf, so I shimmered as I moved. Next, we knotted my braids beneath a wig made of pearls. Then we adorned me in gold cuffs, emerald earrings and a copper mantle studded with amethysts.

Finally, I changed into the dress Antonius had gifted me. It was the colour of harvested wheat. Though it was humble, it was gentle on my skin. I imagined it was Antonius’s hands and I shivered.

“Are you cold?” Charmion asked. “I can get your robe.”

“No,” I said. Antonius’s phantom hands warmed me. “My crown, please.”

She lifted my Isis crown to my head. I stepped back and looked into the polished silver mirror.

Charmion dropped to her knees beside me as she took me in.

“You are Isis herself,” she breathed.

“Yes,” I said. I felt I was wearing my divinity like a jewel.

“Shall I tell Seti you are ready to leave?”

“No. Tell the captain that we are to set sail immediately.”

“We are to leave? What of your dinner with Antonius?”

I smiled.

I was not someone who easily broke promises, especially political ones. But there was something alluring about the game he and I played—the intoxicating sport of denying him. And though I wasn’t ready to admit it, I ran because I was scared of what would happen if I stayed.

I stood on the stern of the boat, looking back at the city of Tarsus as we began to sail away. There was movement at the end of the harbour and I saw Antonius, riding a horse along the pier as if he could reach me.

“Pharaoh, where are you going? We had an agreement!” The still harbour air carried his voice to me.

“You invited Selene,” I said. “Not Isis.”

He looked me up and down, in my glittering jewels and the dress he had gifted me. Then he began to laugh, great guffaws that shook his chest and unsettled the beast beneath him.

I thought that was the last I was to see of him. That my heart would be safe from the perils of love.

How wrong I was.

Chapter Twenty-Three

41 BCE

“haraoh, a Roman ship is approaching the palace harbour.”

I looked up from my work, irritated at being interrupted. “Tell Faunus.”

The guard hesitated. “The dockyard attendants believe the ship belongs to a triumvir of Rome.”