Page 113 of Cleopatra

I looked down at our entwined fingers and said, “You know my guards would execute you for less.”

“Ask me for anything else.”

I looked up, and noticed for the first time that his brown eyes grew moss-green towards the centre. As I looked into them, they stirred something in me that I had thought long dead.

Desire.

Oh, do not mistake me, I had taken many lovers since Caesar’s death, but that had been about fulfilment of lust, not need.

Yet there was still something I needed much more.

I hesitated, readying myself for my next words. “Execute Arsinoe.”

A dagger to the chest would have hurt less. But I knew how powerful a wound could be. It could cut away a limb to stop disease from spreading, or bleed a brain to relieve pressure. Arsinoe was both those things and worse.

“My sister must die,” I continued against the pain. “She has posed a threat to my reign for long enough. Do this and I will formally declare Egypt an ally of Rome once more.”

Antonius nodded. “It is done.”

I swallowed my gasp as I felt again the slice of a knife.

“I will send word to Ephesus. She will be dead within five days. But I have one thing to ask in return.”

“Are my armies not enough?”

His thumb caressed the top of my hand idly. “This is non-negotiable.”

I looked into his grass-flecked eyes once more, my heart fluttering like a bird in my chest.

“Dine with me,” he said simply.

I laughed, slipping my hand from his to wave him away. “Once you have done as I asked I will dine with you, Marcus.”

His smile returned and he straightened. “I will send word when my part of the deal is complete. Then, Selene, I will take my taxes in wine, good food and very beautiful company.”

He did not linger, and I was grateful as I could feel the heat in my cheeks. I heard afterwards that he was seen striding through the harbour whistling, as though he wore the formal robes of a king.

—

I did not need Antonius to tell me when Arsinoe died. I was walking along the pier in the harbour, enjoying the morning air, when a flock of ibis flew overhead. A single white feather fell on the cobbled ground in front of me.

I picked it up and I knew.

She was gone.

I imagined her face, defiant until the last, as she was dragged out of the Temple of Artemis. She would not have made a sound as she died, or if she did it would have been to laugh. Antonius had offered to bring me her head but I had refused it. There was no trophy to be won.

I held the feather against my chest and screamed up to the sky, tearing my throat.

Arsinoe, my shadow. Arsinoe, my friend. Though the nights would never be as dark, the days would never be as bright.

Devastation wrecked me, but so too did anger.

“You made me do this, sister!” I shouted through my tears. “I would have been happy to love you only. But you had to make me hate you too.”

She and I could not both have lived. She had proven she could out-manipulate me time and time again, so I knew it would be I who would fall if I did not strike first.

But still I mourned the sister I had once loved. And loved still.