Then the goddess pulled away, and agonizing pain tore through Cleopatra. She was a tree, and each leaf was on fire. She was a city, and every building was pillaged. The streets ran with boiling oil, citizens fleeing, their hair clouds of smoke, their clothing gusts of flame, orange and blue. She was a volcano erupting, and her skin was furrowed with the passage of lava, deep tunnels of searing, searching heat. The soles of her feet melted where they touched the floor, and she staggered to keep from collapsing. The goddess was the light of a thousand suns, and Cleopatra felt her skin peeling away, exposing her very bones. She was turning to ash. No human could live in flame. Her eyes dilated, blinded.

You think to summon me to serve you? You, who have forgotten your gods?

The words appeared in Cleopatra’s mind, echoing there like the sound of men stomping over decks, readying themselves for war. She could smell her own blood slipping down her throat and over her breasts, and she could smell the scent of rage as well, emanating from Sekhmet to wrap about the queen’s arms, binding them to her sides as though she were mummified already.

You are not one of our kind. Do you think I wish for your blood?

“That is all I have,” whispered Cleopatra, her voice ravaged by smoke and pain.

Is it? The goddess laughed, a horrible sound. Somewhere in the room, a glass goblet shook, shattered, and turned back into the sand from which it had come. I think you have something more.

“Anything,” Cleopatra managed, looking at Antony. “Anything I have is yours.”

And then Cleopatra felt a change. The pain was blinding but uncertain. Where did it come from? What had been taken? A sudden sense of loss, a hole at the center of her being. Her body convulsed around this absence, and she screamed and could not stop screaming. She was a husk, as thin as eggshell, and inside her was nothingness, black night, rushing chill, the frigid glow of dying stars. She gasped, searching for air, and found nothing. She was drowning, and her heart, her heart —

Her beloved moaned.

She spun toward him and saw his eyelids flutter.

Joy rose up inside her, replacing the emptiness that had been there only moments before. She was whole, with him beside her. She was herself again.

She flew to Antony and knelt at his side, her hands on his chest, feeling it expand as he took his first breath. She ran her fingers over his bare skin and felt it warming under her touch. Her pain, if not gone, no longer mattered.

Antony’s dark eyes opened, and she kissed him. She brushed her fingers over his stomach, felt the edge of the wound that had killed him, and sensed it healing. The goddess had done as she’d promised.

“Te teneo,” she whispered in Latin. “You are mine.”

His hands rose to cup her face, stroking her jaw, her lips, her earlobes, her hair.