Tiberius took another long drink before setting down his cup. “They are not civilized, Selene. You have to understand that. They are barbarians. Heathens. They know nothing of law and of order.”
“Whose law?”
Tiberius stared at her. “Caesar’s.”
“And what if he doesn’t come back?”
“Some say the next Caesar would be Agrippa or Marcellus. But we both know it will be me. I am the adopted son of Augustus, just as he was the adopted son of Julius. I will be Caesar after our father’s death. I may be Caesar now.”
“You don’t know if he’s alive?”
“If I were Corocotta I would have killed him already. I would have killed them both.”
Selene opened her mouth to say something more, but the words choked off in her throat. She had to swallow hard to keep her fear in check. Juba is alive, she told herself. Juba has to be alive. She would see him again. She just had to survive.
Survive. How many times had her mother thought the same? Had she thought it before she’d taken Julius Caesar into her bed?
“They’ve made no contact,” Tiberius continued. One of his fingers idly traced the rim of his cup. “And they took the wagon of gold with them. I’m not sure what more they could expect to get out of Father, and of course Juba is worth nothing on his own.”
Selene’s arm twitched, and her hand curled up in a fist, but she pushed her anger back down. “But he’s your father,” she managed to say.
“Yours, too,” Tiberius corrected, and his lip ticked upward in the faintest of smiles, laced with cruelty. “And he said it himself yesterday morning, didn’t he? By adoption. For us both, my sister.”
Something about the way he said that last word, like the sound of a slithering snake, sent a tremor up her spine. Like the asp that she’d brought for her mother, hissing in the corner before Octavian ran it through with a spear.
“But the difference between us, Selene, is that even before I was his son, I was a Roman.” One of his fingers continued to trace the rim of his cup. “You were an Egyptian. Without him, you’re not even a citizen. Not even by that beast you call a husband, who is no better than a Numidian.”
Selene tightened up, and his eyes narrowed even as his smile grew.
“Ah, yes. The last time I was here you slapped me for speaking ill of him. But now you begin to see the place you’re in. Until Augustus returns—if he returns—I am Caesar now. It’s my law, Selene. My Rome. And you’re the daughter of the woman who brought war upon it. You’re the daughter who still dreams of continuing that war.”
“Tiberius, I don’t—”
His hand balled into a fist and slammed down upon the table, cutting her off. “Enough!”
Selene gasped, but said nothing.
“Enough of your lies. Your games. The last time I was here, girl, I told you that I’d find out what you took from the Temple of the Vestals that night. I promised you. It’s time.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
“You do understand,” he said. He stood abruptly, staggering for a moment before making three heavy-footed steps toward the corner of the tent. For the moment his back was turned, and the thought of running once more flashed through her mind, but she knew the guards would catch her. And his anger would not be lessened for it.
Then she saw that he had stopped in front of Juba’s chest, that he was leaning down to reach through its broken lid.
Oh gods, she thought.
When his hand came up he held the small bag, made of her own royal Egyptian cloth, which held the Palladium of Troy. “I recognize this,” he said, turning to her. “You carried it that night. I remember. The very same one. You had it with you.”
He walked back over to the table, but he didn’t sit down. He only stood there, looking down upon her. With one hand he held the object inside while with the other he unwove the strings that were binding the bag shut. Then he pulled down on the cloth, exposing the Shard. “Tiberius,” she said, trying to keep her voice from cracking.
He looked at it and laughed. “Not a statue of Horus after all. You lied to me. Because of this. Because you’re a part of it. Just like yesterday. The fire. The lightning. The storm. It was the same as I saw that night. The same as that wind that left my cousin half blind.”
Selene swallowed hard, thankful that his eyes were fixed on the little statue and not her. “I’m sorry about what happened to Urbinia,” she said, her voice small. “But what you think you saw—”
“I know what I saw,” he snapped. “And I saw it yesterday, too.”
“I had nothing to do with yesterday,” she said, the truth of the words giving her strength.
“But you know what it was.” He stared down at her, and she could see the fierce anger in his eyes. And with it a rising, terrible passion.
“Tiberius,” she said, trying to sound gentle, trying to sound calm. “I think you should go now. The day has been long. We’ve had too much wine.” Her eyes fell to the statue still half-hidden in its bag. Thankfully, he hadn’t yet touched it directly, hadn’t yet had a chance to feel its power. “It’s just a trinket. I took it, though. You’re right. And the wind … the gods must have been angry. Like yesterday.”
“I saw it,” he protested.
Selene’s gaze returned to meet his, and she smiled, reaching up with one hand to rest it on his. “Please, Tiberius. Put it down. No more of this.”
For a second he simply stared down at her fingers upon him, and then he recoiled, eyes widening. “You filthy witch,” he spat.
“No,” Selene gasped. “Tiberius, I—”
His free hand shot forward, slapping her out of her chair. Her legs kicked the table as she fell, and her full cup of wine was flung onto the white linens of the bed. “You slapped me,” he growled. “How does it feel?”
Still stunned, Selene tried to crawl away from him, her fingers gripping and pulling across the slats in the floorboards, though she had nowhere to go. She felt but didn’t see his footsteps rocking the wood beneath her, and then he kicked her in the stomach.
Selene coughed, doubled up. She heard him let out a noise of anger and frustration, and then she heard something crash above her, the sound of something hard being broken.
She tried to say his name, tried to beg for him to stop, but there was no air in her lungs. His rough hands picked her up by the hair, and she gasped as he lifted her and shoved her forward onto the wine-stained bed. Unable to hold it back any longer, she began to cry in voiceless sobs.
“You think you’re grown up,” she heard him saying from behind her. For a moment she looked back and saw him. He’d shed some of his clothes, and his skin was pale in the lamplight, sickly and weak. “But look at you,” he said. “Just a scared little girl, aren’t you?”
His hands ripped at the wraps of her clothing, and she kicked and screamed out. He paused and punched her in the back of the skull.
“Don’t fight it,” he said. “Your mother would have taken it. She always spread her legs for Rome.”
The world was spinning, jerking as he manipulated her clothes and her body. Her face was wet with spilled wine and shed tears. She gasped as he exposed her at last and began to press into her, pronouncing that he’d make her a woman.
But she did not scream again. As she opened her eyes to look across the stained bed to where Juba would have rested his head, she saw that Tiberius had thrown the Palladium against the iron headboard. It lay there, nestled as if it were sleeping. And when he thrust into her at last, when she swallowed her horror and revulsion, she watched with hatred and hope in her eyes as the little statue rolled over.
It was broken. And through the crack in the rock she could see a blacker-than-black stone, gleaming in the lamplight.