The senators nodded at one another and walked off into the city, each in his own direction, each with his own instructions, each with his own set of weapons.

These men fought not with swords but with sharpened tongues.

They would wound Augustus with words, and then, when he was suitably damaged, they would kill him by more conventional means, just as his uncle had been killed.

Outside the arena, the Psylli stood at the center of a whirlwind, arguing with his wife. Against her will, she had helped him force Cleopatra into Chrysate’s prison, and now the whirlwind filled with hailstones and rain.

“The queen is captured,” Usem protested. “What they do with her is none of my concern. We were brought here to help them trap her, no other reason.”

The wind twisted around him, and he suddenly felt his wrists bound by hurricane. Hailstones pelted his face. He shut his eyes, frustrated. The voice of the West Wind’s daughter whirled through the buildings and pressed into his ears.

“I did not enslave her,” Usem said, his voice taut with fury. “Rome will be at peace through my efforts, and my tribe will be safe. Our children will be safe. They will never be at the mercy of Rome.”

The wind tossed dust in the street.

“She was already entwined with the Old One. If anyone has enslaved her, it is the goddess, and now they are both captives.”

The wind whipped Usem into the air, lifting him until he could not breathe. On the horizon the fireball crouched, shining bright against the edge of the world.

Usem stared at it, miserable. His wife was right. The queen might be captured, but Sekhmet lived. He was not finished. There were things he did not know, and he had not been paying enough attention.

The wind about him faded, dropping him slowly to the earth. The air was still and heavy. The summer night settled around him, hot and thick, and above him, the stars gazed down, careless.

Usem looked up, wishing to apologize, but his wife had gone.

Gasping with exertion, Auðr made her way from the arena, surrounded by Agrippa’s men. As she went, she laid her distaff against the brow of each legionary, and they forgot what they had just seen. Knowledge increased chaos.

Things had gone horribly wrong. Auðr had not been strong enough to keep the snake sorcerer from acting outside the fate she’d woven for him. He had been meant to deliver the queen to the seiðkona, and instead, Cleopatra had ended up in the hands of Chrysate.

She’d lost control of several strands, and the chaos still showed, dark and twisting, larger than it had been. Nothing the seiðkona did seemed to change it.

Auðr knew only that her own fate was tied to that of the queen. It all fit together in the tapestry, each thread twisting with others, each warp to each weft, and the knots and spaces were part of the whole.