The Passion of Cleopatra (Ramses the Damned 2)

Why would they think this a threat worth making with this silent, deliberate tableau?

An immortal could easily survive the fall. An immortal might be strong enough to cling to the nearest rock and keep the waves from sweeping him away. Perhaps it was then that Saqnos noticed the gift that had been left for him on the rocks nearby. Or perhaps this strange gesture on the part of Bektaten's men caused him to survey his immediate surroundings, searching for evidence of this final choice she had referenced earlier.

The mirror rested against a jagged outcropping of rock behind him. Its details were hard for Ramses to make out at a distance, but it was the size of an elegant ladies' hand mirror, with an oval reflective surface and a bright silver frame.

Saqnos lifted it and stared into his own reflection. The sound that came from him then reminded Ramses of the bellowing of some great, stricken animal brought low by spears. For now Saqnos saw what Ramses had glimpsed briefly in the castle moments before as the man had turned from the fire and stepped into the chandelier's glow; his eyes, once blue, were now brown again.

For what felt like an eternity, he did not lower the mirror. His weary bellows eventually faded into labored breathing they could not hear from this distance. He looked again to Aktamu and Enamon. Neither man had lowered his dagger or changed his stance by an inch.

Now Saqnos realized why the prospect of having the bridge cut out from under him constituted a real threat.

Saqnos was mortal again.

This was why they'd taken him to the armory before bringing him to the fire.

This was the secret in Bektaten's garden she had referred to before blessing their raid upon Havilland Park.

Saqnos raised the mirror in one hand and hurled it to the rocks underfoot. The glass shattered instantly. Ramses at first thought this act was meant to only vent rage, then Saqnos crouched down and carefully picked up one of the largest shards. Studiously, he ran one sharp end down the inside of his forearm, and then the other. He watched the blood flow. He watched the wound remain open and red. And he knew then, from the fierceness of the wounds and the speed at which the blood flowed, that he was no longer immortal.

"A choice?" he roared across the stormy gulf between them. "This is the choice of which you spoke? Where is the choice in this? You have now taken everything from me. Everything."

"You have your life!" There was such strength and power in Bektaten's voice that it seemed as if she were calmly speaking, and not shouting, even though her words were clear above the restless sea and whistling wind. "And you have your half elixir. You have the choice to make more children. You have the choice to live among them for two more centuries. And now, you have the choice to truly love them as companions and partners and equals. For you will be one of them, Saqnos. For when they die, so shall you."

"And the alternative?" he shouted back.

Bektaten uncurled the fingers on one hand and gestured to the great gap of wind and waves that now separated them.

I shall spend the rest of my existence trying to find the word to describe the change that is overtaking this man, Ramses thought. Was it peace that came to him? Was there a word in any known language that could describe the moment in which an immortal thousands of years old casts off his memories, sets down his burdens, relieves himself of the weight of a lived experience heavier than most creatures will ever know? Was it a moment for which a word need be invented, and would he, Ramses the Great, Ramses

the Damned, be the one to someday invent it? Or did the word exist somewhere in Bektaten's ancient language? Was it written somewhere within the volumes of her journals?

Saqnos stared down at his bleeding arms, studied them quietly and calmly. Then he raised his gaze and looked once more across the violent gulf that separated them.

"Long may you reign!" he sneered, and then he stepped from the edge of the cliff.

41

Sibyl screamed.

Saqnos plunged silently into the stormy dark, arms thrown out in a gesture of surrender.

His body was caught, then flipped, by a jagged outcropping of rock.

He somersaulted into curtains of whitecaps and then was lost to the roaring sea.

When he drew near to her, Ramses saw no tears in Bektaten's eyes. No evidence of triumph in her expression either. But she had an answer to her final question, an answer that could not be disputed.

No great love or passion had driven the man who betrayed her. No great love or passion held him to this earth once his immortality was taken from him. And so his tale of being hardened by grief for his fracti was truly a lie, proved so by his own final leap.

Would it bring her peace to know this?

"Sibyl," Julie said quietly, then she squeezed Ramses' hand and hurried back inside the courtyard.

The four of them remained at the cliff's edge, staring down into the foaming sea. The wind was powerful enough to make great flapping sounds as it beat Bektaten's red gown against her body.

When he noticed that Aktamu and Enamon both rested a hand on Bektaten's shoulder, he thought, at first, they were trying to steady her in the wind. But nothing about her posture seemed unsteady or unsure. Their touch was solely meant to comfort.

The look on her face was something he could not describe even to himself. A deep sorrow pervaded her, yet he could point to no one change in her expression or her demeanor. She stared down at the rocks below.