She would kill everyone who opposed her.

For the first time since all this had begun, sleep swept over Cleopatra like a veil.

She would dream, for just a little while, and then she would go forth into the world.

13

At last, the queen of Egypt was dead. Octavian had been uncertain how much longer he’d be able to bear occupying the palace with her.

His official resistance to her suicide had been a mere formality, a necessary evil meant to win her subjects to his side. He’d imagined she would be more resourceful. Every time he met with her, he’d half hoped to find her strangled or stabbed, and instead, she looked at him through sunken eyes, starving herself for all to see.

At last, gritting his teeth, certain that Cleopatra would be forced to kill herself to avoid being taken as a trophy to Rome, he leaked the rumor himself and caused the guards about her chamber to be reduced. Then he waited, tapping his foot, agonizing with both guilt and rapture.

Five hours later, it was done. The spy sent to peer in at the peephole confirmed as much, and now it was time for the official discovery of the body.

He could barely contain the sound that threatened to erupt from his mouth, a sort of gasping sob. He clenched his teeth. It would not do. Marcus Agrippa was looking at him, and as a concession to his general’s paranoia of lurking assassins, the new ruler of Egypt sent Agrippa before him to knock down the door of the queen’s bedchamber, while he tried to master his emotions. It was triumph, that was all. Triumph long desired, long deserved.

Cleopatra had sent incoherent messages to Octavian in the last few days, demands that she be placed beside her husband in the mausoleum, whether she be dead or alive, begging pleas about the fate of her children, but he would not honor them. They were the requests of a whore. He was an emperor. What use did he have for her last wishes? He had what he needed from her. The locations of Alexandria’s treasures, including Caesarion, the heir to Egypt’s throne.

Only Marcus Agrippa disapproved of Octavian’s methods. He was more tight-lipped than usual, more terse, but the man was a traditionalist. Octavian was the new world. Agrippa would come around. He always did.

Octavian stepped into the room, behind Agrippa. It was aggravatingly dark in here, but a couple of lamps burned low.

He started at an unexpected movement in the shadows, near where he assumed the body of Cleopatra would be lying. His men raised their swords, only to see that the queen’s pretty little serving slave was still in the room, on her knees beside the queen’s body, adjusting the diadem.

Octavian looked at the girl’s trembling hands. No doubt, they’d surprised her as she was in the act of thieving.

She was strange-looking, this servant. Her skin seemed bruised, and her eyes rolled in her head. Her lips were blue.