And what was she? A betrayer. A child killer. Was she not the same as the creature she had murdered? Was she not herself a murderer? At the same time, she had torn herself from Sekhmet. She had done something on her own, something in opposition to the goddess. She had delivered the first portion of her bargain. One more act, the sacrifice of Chrysate, and she would win Antony’s soul and those of her children as well. They would go to the Duat. If that was all she could do, it would be enough. She might be a slave to a goddess, but they would be in heaven.

She stretched herself on the cold stones of the sibyl’s cave. The bats looked down upon her, their faces curious. Their high-pitched song filled her ears and gave her no comfort.

At last, she slept, dreamless.

As she slept, snakes slithered into the cave. Cats twined their sleek forms against the rock walls. In the valley beyond the crater, a bear trundled down a hillside, and a tiger traveled silently across the field. The rhinoceros immersed itself in the lake of Avernus, washing the dust of the road from its rough skin. A small splash, and a crocodile surfaced in the lake, having traveled by water through underground caverns and along coastlines for days.

An elderly lion, toothless and mangy, padded across the mouth of the cave, lashing its tail, and guarding the queen who slept within.

19

Sekhmet reeled on her hilltop, gasping and shaking. The quiver of Slaughterers hummed with confusion. Only six were left, and one had gone into the dark, where she could not see it. Where she could not feel it. Where she could not find it.

Her youngest child had been taken from her, by the human she had made into a god.

Night fell, and still she was broken. Ra did not come to comfort her. He traveled senselessly, silently, his boat traversing the Duat. He cared nothing for his daughter. He’d abandoned her, and she was alone.

The wind spun about her head, blowing and singing, and Sekhmet shook with sudden cold.

The earth rattled with the grief and fury of the sun god’s forgotten daughter, but she could not smite Cleopatra without smiting herself.

20

The seiðkona sat in Selene’s room, her back straight in her chair, her seiðstafr spinning in her hands. The floor still quaked beneath the Palatine, and high above the house, there had been a long and woeful scream. A hungry star had died, and the seiðkona had heard it. A goddess grieved her child. The seiðkona stretched her fingers, paying close attention to the alterations in the tapestry. Sekhmet’s fate had shifted. An immortal’s child had been killed. Auðr searched for the thread of the killer and discovered that she already held it in her hand.

Cleopatra.

She looked up, feeling the movement of dark magic somewhere on the grounds. She twisted her distaff just slightly, and the sharp thread of the witch coiled about it. Chrysate would not enter this chamber. She felt the creature stop, change course, depart to another place. Soon, Auðr could no longer feel her.