6
Augustus sat in his chamber, staring out
the window at the strange glow that remained on the horizon even in
the dark. The night was live with shooting stars, and watching them
cross the sky, and cross again, Augustus felt an irrational terror.
He had been awake too long, sitting at the window too long. Marcus
Agrippa had stayed away from his chambers since the battle at the
Circus Maximus, and lately, his only company had been the
priestess.
Chrysate practiced spells of binding, spells which,
she told him, would serve to keep the queen under her power, but
for now, it was best to keep the box under Roman guard, in the
silver-lined room.
Augustus trusted Chrysate. Though perhaps not
entirely. Strangely scented smoke trailed down the hallway, and
when Chrysate kissed him, her hair smelled of burning balsam and
damp sand, of honey and cinnamon. The smell reminded him of Egypt’s
tombs.
They had won, he told himself, but Augustus still
could not sleep. He thought of Cleopatra slithering inside the
silver box, twisting and looping around herself, and Antony, his
eyes burning embers. Every night, he stared at the paintings on his
ceiling, fearful of things he could not name. The fireball he’d
seen streaking across the heavens, perhaps. The roars that still
shook Rome. His servants called them thunder, but he knew
better.
There were petitioners and senators, armies and
advisors, and all of them demanded his attention. On the table
beside him was a tall stack of oracular prophecies, discovered in a
cave and newly unrolled from amphorae, along with a message from
Agrippa stating that they must be read.
Augustus did not feel like reading.
Augustus had even summoned his favorite poet Virgil
from Campania, but the man failed to bring him rest. Nothing Virgil
said, no matter the beauty of the words, could keep Augustus from
thinking about Cleopatra. The poet seemed to have a special liking
for poems about Hades these days, and the verses only made Augustus
think of Antony. At last, the emperor had dismissed his poet.
He poured theriac into his cup and drank. His
original dosage of two drops had begun to seem ineffective, and now
he poured it in equal proportion to his wine. He’d lost his
appetite for food other than this. With each sip, he felt his
twisting mind smoothed and relaxed.
In her chambers, Chrysate lit the fire.
With the queen captured, with Selene in her possession, Chrysate
should have been at her most powerful. Augustus had given the girl
to Chrysate three days after the battle at the Circus Maximus,
transferring her sleeping chamber to the one beside the priestess
and telling Selene that she was to be an apprentice. But the girl
was resistant to her spells. After her flight from the Circus
Maximus, Selene had spent two days hidden somewhere in Rome,
finally sighted by a centurion and brought back to the emperor’s
house. It should have been easy to woo her, but Selene looked at
Chrysate with dark, suspicious eyes, and the priestess found
herself scarcely able to accomplish the simplest things. She’d
spent the past nights trying to communicate with Hecate, to no
avail. Her goddess was still bound in the Underworld, and nothing
Chrysate did brought clarity. The scry was blurry, everything
bloody, but the future was invisible. Now that she had Cleopatra,
she did not know what to do with her. There was no clear way to
bind her, and the power contained within Cleopatra was
inaccessible.
Had she captured the queen for nothing? Was she no
longer linked with the goddess? Was there anything inside the
silver box at all, or had it all been an illusion? Had the Northern
witch tricked her? Did she have Cleopatra? Or did the
Psylli? The box rested in its silver room, and Chrysate left it
there. At least if something went wrong, Cleopatra would be trapped
in the second prison.
Chrysate opened her hand and looked at the green
holding stone. She shut her eyes, clenching her fist, and said the
name of the man who was tied to the synochitus. She might
send a message to Hecate through him. He could pass through Hades
and find the goddess.
Her call should have brought him, but it did not.
Her powers had ebbed too far, she assumed. She could not find
Antony, and she could not understand what had happened.
She did not dare go to the silver room and open the
box to find out. She needed Hecate if she was to use that power,
and to summon Hecate, she needed royal blood.
She needed Selene to submit. Every day, Chrysate
grew weaker. The effort of keeping herself disguised was wearing on
her. Finally, the deteriorating condition of her body had become
too obvious. The spell she was about to perform was necessary. If
she appeared as she truly was, Selene would never give herself over
willingly, and that would invalidate all of Chrysate’s
efforts.
Beauty was a tremendous part of her currency, both
with Augustus and with Selene. Who would trust her as she truly
was?
She scarcely trusted herself.
Groaning with effort, she opened a small leather
pouch and pulled from it a bronze cauldron large enough to hold a
boar. She settled the cauldron atop the flame, and tugged open the
pouches that held the supplies she’d brought from her cave.
Crystalline sand from the beach at the end of the world, and a
pinch of frost gathered from beneath the shine of a thousand-night
moon. The feathered wings of a screech owl, struggling against her
hands and threatening to fly from her even as she crushed them into
the cauldron. Nectar from a star torn from the sky one night long
ago, when Chrysate was only a girl. The powdered liver of a stag
that had once been a prince. The entrails of a man who had once
been a wolf. The eyeless head of a crow, which opened its dry black
beak and spoke to her as she brought it from the bag.
“Murderer,” it said.
She no longer listened to it. She brought out a dry
olive branch and stirred the mixture, letting it come to a boil
over the fire, and as she stirred, the branch grew glossy green
leaves. Chrysate let a bit of the contents of the cauldron boil
over, and where they landed, the stone floor became grass, and
flowers began to bloom.
It was ready.
She removed her gown, shuddering at the condition
of her flesh. She was withered. She’d let it go much too long,
trying to conserve her power, trying to contact Hecate, and it was
a miracle Augustus had not noticed. Of course, his theriac had
something to do with that. She had introduced a few ingredients to
it. Nothing that would disable the man permanently. She did not
seek to topple Rome. She sought to use Rome’s power, and for that,
Rome needed to be stable. Selene, on the other hand, seemed to
notice everything. Chrysate reassured herself. After this spell,
Selene would not see through her. Things would be easier.
She lifted her knife and, wincing, pressed the
point into her flesh just below one ear. She drew it beneath her
chin, and a long wound appeared across her throat. Blood ran in
torrents from it, thick scarlet down the pale skin. The witch’s
eyes rolled back, and she swayed before the cauldron, blood pooling
at her feet.
She wavered, and at last, she slumped forward, her
body slipping over the lip of the cauldron as she fell.
The boiling potion closed over her head.
The surface of the cauldron bubbled for a time,
dark and tarry, and beneath the liquid, nothing moved.