“Then you are mine, Roman,” she said, and he heard the smile in her voice. She slipped forward, and he tasted her wetness. He forgot the knife.

She did not untie him until morning, and when she did, she laughed at his sore wrists.

He was lost.

Years passed. Fulvia died, and he married again, forced into a political alignment with Octavian’s sister, Octavia, but Cleopatra remained his true wife. Two years ago, he’d divorced Octavia and married Cleopatra in a formal ceremony. Even as Octavian declared himself an enemy, even as Antony was vilified in the streets of Rome, Cleopatra stood beside him, his equal.

Twelve years had passed since their first meeting, and it was still as glorious as it had ever been. He glanced bitterly at his arm now and could still see the white marks her teeth had left on him that first night, the scar like a tattoo commemorating a victory. As the sun rose, he’d heard the words coming from his mouth, unplanned.

“I love you,” he swore.

It shocked him, but he knew it to be true, truer than anything else in his life. He held her face in his hands and looked into her eyes.

“I am yours,” she told him. “You are mine, and I am yours.”

Had she been lying even then?

Of course he’d chosen her over his troops. She was his wife. There was no other option, but fifty thousand men, his dearest friends, his own soldiers, had become with that one decision his enemies. They’d gone back to Rome.

Two days before, Antony, weary of sacrificing soldiers, had sent a letter challenging Caesar to man-to-man combat, the results of which would settle the war, but Octavian sent back a terse if cowardly reply: that the sort of combat Antony proposed, that of the common gladiator, was beneath the standards of Rome’s first citizen and that Antony had many other options if he wished to die. Antony had not expected better. The new Caesar had no reason to fight in such a contest. He had the city surrounded already, and Octavian’s army wanted Antony’s blood.

“Traitor!” the men had sneered at Antony on the battlefield in the previous days. Traitor.

Antony’s thoughts were disturbed by the sounds coming from the adjoining room.

“I come on behalf of the queen,” a high, determined voice insisted. “I serve Cleopatra.”

Antony swore. What was he doing here, at the mercy of her messages?

His servant Eros entered the room and widened the door to admit a young boy who reminded Antony of his own small son, Alexander Helios. Had she chosen this messenger purposefully? He would not see his children again, whatever happened here.

He imagined his wife on Octavian’s arm, her purple robes, her crown. Why wouldn’t she follow this new Caesar? He was to be the ruler of the world. Octavian would give her everything Antony had not. That prim boy, that self-righteous child, was to be emperor^[1] and she would rise with him. Empress Cleopatra.