Page 75 of Cleopatra
Both were much changed.
Theos had thrived. He was taller, and his battle-worn gaze had lost all trace of childishness. He wore his gold armour which, though it was still big, fit better than it had done half a year earlier. Arsinoe, on the other hand, had lost some of the vibrancy of her beauty, and I wondered if the toll of war had also stripped her of some of her arrogance.
The dress she wore looked as if it had once been a deep indigo, but it had faded from exposure to seawater. She wore a tripartite wig, hiding her natural hair beneath. Perhaps without her handmaidens, she suffered to maintain it.
She looked tired, but resolute.
I want to be seen, Arsinoe had once said to me.
“I see you, Arsinoe,” I said gently. For all that she had wronged me, she was still my younger sister, whom I loved.
Her eyes narrowed. “You have crowned our baby brother,” she said.
Theos looked at Ptolemy, seemingly for the first time. The two had always had a bitter rivalry. “He will not be a better king than me,” he said.
I felt a surge of affection for the insolent child. His innocence had been ill-treated, his wants and desires twisted for my sister’s purpose. Even the words he spoke did not sound like him any more. He’d had no ambition to rule.
“We are here to discuss the terms of your surrender. Bow to your brother and sister and we may yet be able to forge a path forward in peace,” Caesar said.
Arsinoe’s nostrils flared and a flush ran up her neck. “I will bow to no one.”
“Arsinoe, do not be foolhardy,” I snapped. “Death or surrender are your two options.”
“There is a third. Rule,” she replied coolly.
I shook my head, incensed by her lack of judgement. “And what say you, Mikro Theos? Your home awaits you.”
Theos looked to Ptolemy, then to me. “I will not bow to this little boy.”
I hissed through my teeth, “Do not fall prey to your sister’s poor judgement. Bowing to your brother is a small price to pay to live. You can come home again, swim in the harbour, go back to your studies.”
He hesitated, and Arsinoe saw it. Her lips puckered in disgust. “Go, then, join them if that is what you desire. But know that you will be beholden to their rule, never to make your own decisions. Never to be seen.”
Arsinoe was always wrong about the throne. She thought it would allow her to ascend to a state of absolute freedom. But it was always the opposite. Few people ever truly saw me for who I was, and that was because of the crown I wore. Even Caesar saw me as his queen first, and his lover second.
Everyone except for maybe Marcus. But it is not his time yet; he lingers in the margins of the page, awaiting his moment.
Theos turned to Arsinoe. They exchanged words I will never come to know. The ocean wind stole them from me, so I didn’t hear my brother speak for the last time.
But I saw Arsinoe’s rage, and I watched as she pushed my brother, with all her might, off the boat and into the sea.
Theos began to flail amidst the waves, his armour weighing him down.
We all watched in shocked silence as he began to sink.
“He can breathe underwater, all will be well,” Ptolemy said next to me.
Arsinoe’s triumphant smile turned to horror as Theos disappeared beneath the sea. We waited for him to resurface, but as time moved on, it dawned on us that he was not coming back up. I looked over to Arsinoe, but all expression had slipped from her features as though she defied even her own emotions. It left her as stoic and as still as a statue.
“Julius, send someone after him!” I shouted, the spell broken.
Caesar shook his head sadly. “It is too late, my queen, his armour will have taken him too far out of reach for a swimmer without his gift.”
“So he is to remain beneath the waves forevermore?” I was tired of grief, and no tears fell. I had already lost the brother I had come to know half a year earlier.
Caesar met my gaze. “Unless he can remove his armour.”
I shook my head. The suit had been made entirely from gold, with hinges that required four men to screw them together. Without their help, Theos was incapable of getting free.
