The Passion of Cleopatra (Ramses the Damned 2)

"What? What do you see?"

"She was your queen," Cleopatra whispered. "She is still your queen, which is why you cower here at your estate even after she slaughtered so many of your children."

"Nonsense."

"It's the absolute truth. You occupy yourself torturing me because you are powerless before her. You are not immune. You are impotent!"

"She would not dare." His voice was a low rumble.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because I am all that remains of our kingdom. She's nourished no grand design for her immortal life other than petty, dithering historian. She envies me, and she feels a bond with me that is tangled and confused, and so be it. For I'm nothing she believes me to be and I never have been."

A brittle silence.

"You told us she slept."

The voice next to her was timid and weak, but the newness of it caused Cleopatra to jump. One of the immortals had said this, the one standing to her left, holding one of the chains to the collar around Cleopatra's neck. A pale-faced woman with huge, expressive eyes and a glittering, fragile dress much like the one they'd given Cleopatra. She was countering Saqnos's glare with one of her own, but this took all her strength, for the hands in which she held Cleopatra's chain now shook. Her jaw quivered. There were tears standing in her eyes.

"You told us we had nothing to fear from her because she slept."

Saqnos leapt to his feet and slammed both his fists down upon the table with such force it looked as if a wave had coursed through the tablecloth itself, jostling every tray of food along the way. She relished the sight. Knew instantly it would deliver information of value, to see him so undone by two simple remarks from one of his children.

"Weeks," he growled. "All of you. You have only weeks, days. If that. And it was you who woke me, believing this Ramses, this king, would be your great hope. The plan was not my own. You assembled it before I arrived. Now you seek to lay this slaughter at my feet solely because I took her centuries of silence to mean she slept. This is an outrage! I have been shown more respect by our prisoner."

"She won't kill you because you are the other half of her kingdom," Cleopatra said quietly, "but clearly she does not feel the same way about your children."

"You know nothing of this!" he declared.

"I know more than you would like. Now. Perhaps you should send your ungrateful children away before they reveal even more. Of course, they would first have to release my chains."

"We have lost sight of our exchange," he said.

"No," she said. "We have simply welcomed a new member. A new member who has only weeks of life left, despite bearing the marks of one who has consumed the elixir. If there is only one pure elixir, that is."

"It is my turn to request information."

"Then why not ask me what you truly wish to know?" Must sustain this upset that had just taken place, must open the wound further, sending her captors further off balance. "Ask me the question that's burned in you since you first saw the blueness of my eyes."

"You believe I have only one question for you? You degrade my capacity for inquiry and complex thought."

"I believe you have a need, a want, that outweighs all others, for which you are willing to endanger your own children."

"And what is this need?"

"You need the elixir. You were g

iven it, but you were not given the knowledge of its ingredients or how it is made. And you've concocted some bastard version that does not last. And it's all traceable back to your queen, isn't it? The queen of Shaktanu. The one you served as prime minister."

"I served her as many things. As prime minister. As lover. As friend. And when she made the greatest discovery of humankind, she kept it secret. From me. From her subjects. This was a betrayal of our kingdom and all who served her."

"And yet you somehow managed to consume this secret?"

"I stole it. It was my right. The hours she spent in her workshop were a luxury wrought by my loyal service."

"I see. So it was a golden age. Free of war. All thanks to one man. You."

"It was a time unlike any you have ever known."