Selene saw them all in her mind: the Trident, the Lance, the Palladium, the Aegis of Zeus. Even Alexander never had so many.
He shook his head. “I would like to destroy them, like he said, but I don’t think that’s even possible.” He took a deep breath. “They must be kept safe. And they must never be used.”
Selene nodded, though in her mind she felt again the closeness of her mother’s memory as she’d soared with the Palladium. What had that meant? She yearned to feel it once again.
“Selene,” Juba said.
Selene blinked her focus back to her husband, her king.
“They must never be used. We must not let what happened in Vellica happen again.”
Selene nodded, consciously forced her hand to move away from her belly. “I understand,” she said. “We aren’t meant for such things. We can’t take it.”
His smile, she thought, was genuine and beautiful. “We will keep them secret and safe. We must hardly even speak of them.”
Selene swallowed the memories of Tiberius that flashed against her mind, and she agreed, enfolding herself into the warmth of Juba’s embrace for the last minutes before the dark.
He lingered as long as he could, but his duty called him away. He dressed, kissed her, and was gone.
Selene rose, too, wrapping herself in a thick robe to ward off the deepening chill. Winter was coming, she thought.
And then the spring, she reminded herself. A new start. A fresh start.
It had to be.
* * *
It took Isidora less than an hour to procure what she required. The crippled girl had followed Selene and Juba to Tarraco, and she had been given a small room close beside theirs. She had become a kind of maidservant to Selene, content to serve her as best she could on the new crutch that they’d had made for her.
She sat now upon the seat on the balcony, holding up the little glass vial, her face half shadowed by the flickering light of the oil lamps that had been lit inside the room.
Selene took the vial, then set it upon the stone rail of the balcony, as if it were hot. Her hand lingered beside it for a moment before it quickly withdrew. She pulled her robe closer.
The contents of the vial were a dirty green, flecked with spots of brown and yellow. She tried to appear disinterested, but in truth her heart was revolting in her chest. “What is in it?”
“I don’t think you want to know, my lady.”
Selene nodded. She had heard tales of such potions. “And it will … expunge it?”
“She said it never fails, though it will be painful.”
Isidora let out her breath, long and unsteady, and Selene realized that she, too, was nervous. “Surely less painful than other solutions.”
“Yes, my lady. But you will be ill before your body begins passing it.”
Selene looked out to where the lights of the city were flickering. Somewhere out there, her husband was receiving reports, keeping the watch. “Did she say how long?”
“Before it begins? An hour. Perhaps two.”
“And it will leave me unharmed for the future? It won’t prevent me from another—with Juba?”
“She said it would not. I was very clear on the need for that. She said she understood.”
“Good.” Juba said he wanted a fresh start. A family.
“Are you sure there is no other choice? You could go away, we could hide it. And then afterward claim it is mine. Give it away. Expose it. The potion … When I was asking around, some said that it can kill.”
Selene swallowed hard. “I’ve nowhere to go. I’ll stay with my husband. This must be done.”
“Then drink it all,” Isidora said. “The woman said you must drink it all.”
“I will.” She looked back at the girl. “I had no one else to trust in this. Thank you.”
“I owe my life to you, my lady. You know you don’t need to thank me.”
“And you don’t need to serve me. I didn’t take you from one slavery to put you in another. You are a Roman citizen. You can return home. Juba and I, we can give you enough coin—”
“There’s nothing left for me there. You did save me from slavery, Lady Selene. For that I thank you, and for that I choose to serve you. Not as a slave, but as a citizen. If you’ll have me.”
Selene smiled, despite her fears. She reached out and took the girl’s hand. She squeezed it. “And I will indeed. Thank you, Isidora.”
Isidora bowed her head to kiss her hand. Then, when she let it go, she looked up with a question on her face. “Lady Selene, may I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“What you said before, back in Cantabria, about my name—you said it means ‘gift of Isis.’”
“I did. Yes.”
“And you said Isis wouldn’t want me to live in chains. You said it like you knew her.”
“I suppose I do, in a way.” Selene once again recalled that feeling she’d had when she was flying, that sense of her mother’s presence. “In Egypt, where I come from, Isis is one of the greatest of the gods. She is a goddess of nature and magic. They say that a long time ago her husband, Osiris, was killed by the god of the desert, named Set. The murderer dismembered Osiris and cast the parts of his body across the world. But Isis was loyal to him. She traveled across land, river, and sea until she had brought them all together. And then, with the secret spells of the god Thoth, she raised him from the dead, and together they conceived a child, Horus, who destroyed Set and reestablished peace and prosperity in Egypt. Because of this Isis is the perfect mother and wife.” She smiled at the girl. “She is also a great friend to slaves.”
“I like this goddess. Do you worship her?”
Selene wondered what to say. Should she tell her that there had only ever been one God, and that He was dead? That the Lance Isidora had used to kill so many men was one of the Shards, one of the pieces of the throne of God’s unmaking? No, she decided. Not yet. Perhaps not ever; they must never speak of it.
“In Egypt many people believe that the queen of Egypt is the embodiment of Isis. And that after her death she becomes one with the goddess.”
“You believe this?”
There was something like hope in the crippled girl’s voice, and Selene recognized the longing in her eyes. Isidora wanted something to hold on to. Something permanent beyond the world of pain and suffering that she had known. She wanted the gods and goddesses. Selene recognized it, because she wanted it, too. “My mother was the queen of Egypt,” she said.
Isidora blinked. “Cleopatra? Your mother was Cleopatra?”
“She was. You have heard of her?”
The girl’s eyes were wide. “I heard she was very beautiful.”
“She was. My mother was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
“And she fought against Caesar. With Mark Antony.”
Selene nodded. “He was my father.”
“They say they died together. She killed herself with an asp so that Caesar wouldn’t—” Isidora’s eyes got wide and her face flushed. She lowered her head. “Oh, I’m sorry, Lady Selene. I didn’t mean to talk … I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” Selene reached out to raise the girl’s face gently so that she could look her in the eye. “It was years ago. And it is true. My father fell on his sword when our city was defeated. And my mother chose the snake’s poison over a Roman Triumph.” That she herself had brought Cleopatra the asp, she didn’t say.
“Anyway, my mother was supposed to be Isis, but she was really only a woman. I know why people believe in the gods, Isidora. I understand the fear. And it doesn’t matter to me what you choose to believe about this world, so long as you learn to believe in yourself.”
“I do want the gods to be real,” Isidora whispered. “I want to think I will see my parents again.”
Once more Selene recalled that feeling of closeness with the memory of her mother in the skies above Vellica. It couldn’t have been real, but it had felt so very much like it was, like she could just reach out and touch her, as if her face was just behind the thinnest of veils. Selene felt like she would give anything to see her mother’s face again. “I wish that, too.”