The Shards of Heaven (38 page)

Selene just stared, disbelieving what she was seeing even as her heart told her she could have expected nothing less. Their mother, Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, the living embodiment of a god, had obviously been roused from her bed in mid-sleep. Her short-cropped hair was messed, and she was wearing nothing but her night linens. She'd collapsed as soon as she'd stepped from her bed, and she'd fallen back against the cushions at the foot of it, her night linens twisted obscenely by her position, exposing her glistening right breast in the lamplight. Her face was streaked with tears and blood. In her arms, his head dangling lifeless off her elbow, was their father, Mark Antony, once general of Rome. His torn shirt had been pulled closed, but nothing could be done to hide the wide red stain spread out across his abdomen, or the thicker gobs of red that dangled from his fingertips above the pools of blood on the floor and on Cleopatra's naked legs.

Through the gore, their mother's face was serene. She smiled in a look that made something knot in Selene's gut. “Children,” Cleopatra said, “our beloved father has left us.”

Kemse was trying to turn Philadelphus to look at his divine mother, but the little boy was fighting her in his sobbing urgency to bury his face against the nurse. Helios had slumped against the wall, his eyes staring at everything and nothing all at once.

“Be not sad,” Cleopatra continued. Her voice sounded far away. “This is how a king should die. In honor, not in chains. In happiness, not in misery.”

Selene saw how their father's face was twisted in the agony of his death. A shiver ran up her spine, tamping down the sobs that welled up in her throat.

“He told me that he loved you all. He asked me to see him buried with full Roman honor before we joined him.”

Selene's heart skipped a beat. Philadelphus looked up through Kemse's arms, their mother's words reaching him through his horror. “Join him?” Helios asked, his voice breaking.

Cleopatra looked at him as if he were a far younger child. “Yes, prince of Egypt. None of us are meant for chains.”

Something broke in Selene. She wailed. She screamed. She pulled at Helios, screaming against the insanity of it all, but his gaze would not meet hers, and he shrugged off her touch despite his weakness. She grabbed for Philadelphus, too little, too young to know any better, but Kemse held him tight, and his body was racked with terrible shrieks.

Then she ran. Not looking back, not caring where she was going. Her face streaming tears, she let her legs take her out through the halls, out of the palace, out into the thick night air.

Out of breath and out of tears, she looked up to the uncaring stars, over to the sleeping city, and then across to the glowing lighthouse. At last her gaze fell upon the little supply ship in the small harbor. There were two men nearing it, readying it for a return to the docks.

Selene thought for a moment about going back for her brothers, about shaking them out of whatever it was that held them to that room, but even if she could do it she knew the boat would be gone when she got back. Taking a deep breath to calm her heart, wiping quickly at her eyes to focus her vision, Selene hurried through the shadows to once more steal her way to the mainland.

By the time she'd slipped beneath the tarp covered with her father's blood, she knew what she was going to do. How she would do it, she didn't know, but she was going to kill Octavian.

*   *   *

An hour and a half after stealing away from Antirhodos, as the sun was brightening the sky to the east and melting the stars into a pale blue wash, Selene stood behind one of the pillars flanking the entrance to the Museum. Peering out across the wide main square of the city, ignoring the pain of her blistered feet, she watched as Roman legionnaires that were not her father's marched down the Canopic Way out of the bright dawn, their footsteps hard and angry.

Selene's heart sank, but only for a moment. She'd come too far to turn back now. She'd been halfway across the harbor when she'd realized, through her silent tears of sorrow, rage, and fear, that she had only one hope of killing Octavian: the Shard that she'd seen on Alexander's breastplate.

It had to be a Shard: a black stone, swallowing light, just like the one Jacob had described as being in the Trident. Somehow it had protected Alexander. Somehow it had kept him strong. It could do the same for her.

And no army of Romans was going to keep her from it.

Besides, they surely would think her no threat. She was just a little girl, alone and unarmed. Surely they wouldn't even stop her.

She smoothed out her dirtied linens to wipe the sweat from her palms, then stepped out from the pillar and hurried across the avenues and up the steps to Alexander's tomb. The legionnaires kept marching. No one shouted for her to stop.

The great gallery of pillars detailing Alexander's life was usually dim, but this morning it was dark as night, its lamps all lifeless. Selene moved quickly despite her sudden blindness, trusting her memory and urgency to get her where she was going. Ahead, she could see the light-framed portal between this chamber and the central chamber beyond, which was lit from above by windows. Alexander's crystal coffin glimmered as if beckoning her.

Moving so fast she was near to a run, she had no time to stop when the shape of a man in Roman armor stepped out from the shadows in front of her. In the instant before she ran into him, she tried to dodge aside but only succeeded in bouncing off his hip and leg. She fell forward into the lighted chamber, her ankle twisting badly on the steps. With a sharp cry of pain she struck the dark stone floor, her loose night shift catching in her feet and tearing as she crumpled to the ground.

“By the gods, girl! Are you hurt?”

Selene could not see the Roman, but she could hear that he was coming down to help her. She scrambled to stand, wincing at pains in her ankle and ribs, and tried to get away from him. “Stay back,” she gasped.

“I'm not going to hurt you,” the man said. His boots made shuffling noises in the chamber as he stopped.

Selene, panting from the pain, managed to limp close to one of the white-marble statues of her mother's ancestors, and she reached out to it, bracing herself. “Just stay back,” she said, closing her eyes to swallow the pain and try to think what next she could do. With a Roman soldier here, she couldn't get the Shard. And Octavian's armies were just outside.

“I am,” the man said. “I'm sorry. Can I get you some help?”

Selene at last opened her eyes and turned to look back at the Roman. Her ribs wailed at the movement, but it was not pain that made her take in her breath. The man with her in Alexander's tomb was a handsome young man wearing fine leather armor. Emblems of eagles held his white cloak back off his shoulders, and the ornate, burnished helm under his left arm was crowned with a shoulder-to-shoulder red crest: all told, he wore the battle dress of a high-ranking centurion at the least, more likely that of a member of Octavian's most trusted staff. But it was his skin that most captivated her: darker than that of a Roman, dark enough for him to be a Numidian. Selene's eyes widened as there was only one man that he could be: Juba, the adopted son of Caesar who'd sought the Scrolls of Thoth, the man whose messenger had nearly killed both Didymus and Vorenus on that terrible night. “I'm … I'm fine,” she managed to say.

Juba's face softened with relief. Then his gaze fell down along her body. His cheeks darkened. “My lady,” he stammered, “your dress…”

Selene looked down, saw that her torn shift was hanging open, exposing much of her just-budding chest to the man. She blushed and grasped the opening shut, thinking despite herself of her mother's bared breast and the way her father's torn shirt had been pulled closed. She tried to say something, but among her fear, horror, and revulsion, no words would come.

“Here,” Juba said, his hands quickly working to free his cloak. “Take this.”

Head bowed low to avert his gaze, he hesitantly stepped forward, right arm outstretched with the white cloth. Holding her torn dress with one hand, Selene snatched the cloak from him with her other. She wrapped it quickly around her own shoulders, letting it fall around her body like a robe. “Thank you,” she managed to say.

Juba nodded, glanced up hesitantly and then smiled. “It's my pleasure. I'm sorry I frightened you.”

Selene started to say something more, but one of the doors leading out of the chamber opened loudly, revealing the high priest of Zeus-Ammon in his finest garb. “Lord Juba,” he said, “I'm sorry for keeping you waiting.”

Juba looked over at him and smiled. “Not at all. I was just talking with one of your anxious acolytes.”

The high priest turned to where Selene stood and instinctively spoke her name. Even as the words escaped his lips, he seemed to be trying to swallow them, his eyes wide at both the shock of seeing her and the horror of having given her away.

Juba stared at her, his face unreadable. “Selene?”

Selene backed away like a caged beast, but she could only manage two steps before her back was up against the wall.

Sounds from the great gallery suddenly echoed into the chamber: cheers, salutes, movement. “He's here!” the high priest gasped.

Juba blinked and shook his head as if waking from a dream. Then he rushed forward, quicker than Selene could react, and grabbed her arm. “You've got to hide,” he whispered, voice urgent.

Selene agreed, struck dumb with confusion. Was he helping her? Why would he do that?

Juba looked around, his eyes desperate. He spotted the open door behind the high priest and reached down to lift her up with his right arm, as easy as he carried his helm in the other. He hurried her over as the sound of footsteps grew louder. The doorway was a gaping mouth of shadow compared to the prismatic light of the central chamber. Juba's grip was firm but soft, protectively secure over the looseness of the cloak he'd given her to wear. His body was warm through his armor. Selene started to say something as he set her down inside the door, started to ask why he was helping her, but he held a strong finger to his lips. The footsteps were very close.

Selene reached up to touch him, but he was already pushing the door shut, cutting her off from the light of Alexander's tomb. Her hand went forward in the sudden dark and touched only hard wood over-strapped with iron.

She stood in silence and felt a shiver run up her spine from something other than the slightly cooler air in the hallway. There was a small lamp lit a short distance from the closed door, and her eyes quickly adjusted to focus on the door. She leaned forward to rest her ear against the crack between thick boards, and she closed her eyes to listen.

“Lord Octavian,” she heard the high priest say. “You grace this place with your presence.”

Selene felt her fingers flex against the wood of the door, as if she might tear through it, but she forced the rage down until it was only a tightening in her jaw. She moved her ear away from the door long enough to look around and see that there were no weapons nearby. Perhaps if she went down to some of the other tombs she'd find something, but she was certain she'd have no chance of killing him right now even if she did.

Patience, she told herself. Patience.

Selene put her ear to the door once more. “Juba, you've lost your cloak,” a voice said. A commanding, arrogant voice. Not Juba's. Not the high priest's. Octavian's, she decided.

“Lost it this morning. On the road. A beggar girl was in need of warmth.”

“And you gave her royal linen?” The tone of Octavian's voice was mocking. He sighed loudly. “Your too-warm heart will cost me dearly one day, I fear.”

“I hope it does not,” Juba said. His voice sounded weaker than that of his older adopted brother. Selene imagined him with his head lowered.

“So. This is Alexander.”

“Yes, my lord,” the high priest stammered. “The Great Conqueror, son of Zeus-Ammon, king of Macedon and Egypt, Persia and—”

“Spare me the list,” Octavian interrupted. “I haven't the time.”

“As you wish,” the high priest said, his voice quiet.

“Don't you think he looks smaller than you expected?” Octavian said.

“I don't know,” Juba said. “I suppose we always imagine the men of legend to have been larger than they really were. He was, in the end, just a man.”

The high priest of Zeus-Ammon made a coughing noise, but apparently the other two men ignored him. “But a man who did great things,” Octavian said.

“Yes. He was that.”

There was silence for a moment, then Selene heard someone else approaching the chamber. “Ah, the wreath,” Octavian said.

“Wreath, my lord?” the high priest asked.

“Yes, priest. A conqueror, I've come to pay my respects to the man who built that which I've conquered,” Octavian said. “Open it up.”

“My lord?”

“The coffin. Open it up so I may place a wreath upon him.”

“But this … this is highly irregular,” the high priest said. He seemed to gather himself. “I cannot allow it.”

“Very well,” Octavian said, his voice cold. “Legionnaire?”

“Yes, Imperator,” a fourth voice answered.

“Fetch a hammer.”

“No!” the high priest blurted out.

“No?” Octavian asked. “Then open it up.”

Several seconds passed before Selene heard keys shaking. Boots shuffled on stone. Four locks were unlatched. Then came grunting, followed by the sound of something heavy sliding away.

“Remarkably preserved, isn't he, Juba?” Octavian said.

“So he is. His armor in particular is…” Juba's voice abruptly trailed off. Selene felt her heart pumping hard in her chest. If he was looking at Alexander's armor, he was looking right at the Shard. If he saw it …

“Is what?” Octavian asked.

Selene strained to hear what was happening, her ear pressed as hard as she could bear against the door.