“You cannot burn me,” Cleopatra told him. “I will not burn.”

Augustus signaled to a grouping of soldiers, who stepped forward, their arms filled with clay vessels. They poured the contents over Cleopatra’s body.

A sleek liquid that shone in darkness.

“You will burn this time,” Augustus said.

The queen writhed, tormented by the silver, and by the liquid drenching her hair, her hands, her fingers. The legionaries piled wood about her, a circle of kindling, and those assembled stepped back.

The emperor took the final vessel. He tilted it over Cleopatra’s head, and a single spark leapt from it and into her hair.

There was a rushing sound, and Cleopatra was aflame.

Her children screamed in horror, Ptolemy’s face hidden in Alexander’s shoulder, Selene unable to keep from looking. From the corner of her eye, though, Cleopatra’s daughter saw something on Chrysate’s face. The witch glorying in the flame. As the light reflected off Chrysate’s skin, Selene saw into her for a moment. Something ancient clothed in a beautiful body. Something was not as it seemed. Selene gasped, and dropped Chrysate’s hand, trembling, but the witch did not notice. The power of the fire was too compelling. She let the heat warm her face.

High in the stands, Nicolaus watched, his face wet with tears. They were making a grievous mistake, and he was powerless to stop them.

Augustus shouted with triumph as the inferno grew hotter and hotter still, white and blue, and at its center his enemy twisting, her body lit from within, incandescent with heat. This was the end, and he had won. This was the end, and he was watching her die.

Cleopatra struggled against the net, her body heated past pain, the silver melting into her skin, and yet she was not consumed.

She screamed in agony and felt the earth shake as her bones glowed, and her voice filled with thunder. Something was changing. The flames were not burning her but feeding her.

The sky tore open with lightning, and from it came the roar of a goddess. The legionaries looked up, terrified at the sound of the storm’s voice, and in the sky they saw a tremendous fireball crossing the heavens. Another roar, this one of resurrection. Romans fell to their knees, praying to their own gods, but it did no good. Sekhmet slashed the sky above them.

Augustus himself stared at the comet. An omen. But of what? He did not know.

Cleopatra burned brighter and brighter until through the flames, she saw a single living creature, a moth with a red coral body and enormous pearly wings spotted in black flecks, like hieroglyphs.

The moth was drawn toward the inferno, its flesh singing in anticipation, its wings spreading, its destiny certain.

At last, it was there, its delicate membranes heating, its creamy wings catching fire. She could see it, illuminated in the last moment of its life.

As it died, Cleopatra was carried through the net and high into the air on a sudden current.