Song of the Nile by Stephanie Dray Page A

pound not from fear but from the pleasure of skin against skin, breath upon breath, the tangle of my fingers in his hair. It was a promise from my goddess to me, that a lover would come to purify me, like the Nile washes over Egypt and makes it new again. A promise I’d find someone who would take the pain away.
    I awakened to see Juba hovering over me. Was he the lover my goddess promised? I’d married him. It would be only right if he were the one to make me feel safe and whole. So why did I flinch when his hand touched my shoulder? “Selene . . .” Juba had once seen my blood blossom to flowers on the temple floor. He’d tried to stop me from running into a pit of crocodiles. It had frightened him. I could see he was frightened again now. “How is it that you’re working magic again?”
    His gently spoken remonstration wasn’t meant to be a question, but I wondered myself. How had Isis come to me? Always before, she was moved to speak when I’d touched the blood of her worshippers. Only now did I remember how Chryssa had cut herself with the strigil , her blood in my bathwater. “My goddess is moved by suffering.”
    “What torments you?” Juba asked, rubbing at the stubble of his beard. “Why does your goddess come to you like this?”
    How could I tell him without confessing what the emperor had done? I wanted to trust him with the truth, but I remembered what Livia had said. Juba wouldn’t believe me. How much worse for him it might be if he did! What if my new husband took my part, raging like a lion, thundering down the hall to the emperor’s rooms, pounding upon his doors and demanding satisfaction? It would cost Juba his throne, if not his life.
    As Juba searched my eyes for an explanation, I said nothing. He couldn’t know. I didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want anyone to know. That the emperor had forced himself upon me was a wound so deep it might be fatal to expose. For now, I must give this pain to my dark shadow self, with all my unworthy thoughts, all the wrath that Isis warned against. I let my khaibit hold my atrocities—the ones done to me, and the ones I wished to do—knowing they’d be there for me another day.
     
     
    AS the skipper led our small armada out of port, I stood at the rail, refusing to look away. From the shore, Augustus watched me go. I’ve always said that his power was in the cold treachery of his gray eyes, with which he could hold me perfectly still. Now, after four long years, his eyes were fading into the distance, his figure getting smaller on the horizon. His grip was loosening and I wanted him to remember me like this. Let him look at my cloak billowing behind me like the aura of a goddess. Let him wonder about the curse Isis had laid upon him in my name.
    The sailors busied themselves with ship’s tasks and my attendants saw to my berth. I thought I was quite alone at the rail, watching the milky green waves pass beneath us until Juba murmured, “Is it done between you?”
    My breath caught in my throat. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
    The sea breeze whipped his dark hair against the grim set of his jaw, and there was a shadow in his eyes that I’d never seen before. “The night it rained, Selene, I came to your room. You weren’t there. Where were you?”
    I turned away. I’d already resolved not to speak about that night. Not to Juba. Not to anyone.
    He put his hand on my arm, a harmless gesture, but I was still too raw to be touched. When I yanked away, Juba winced as if I’d slipped a dagger past his defenses to wound him. “Am I really such anathema to you, Selene?”
    “Juba, you misunderstand—”
    “Where were you that night?” he demanded, eyes narrowed.
    I shook my head. I wouldn’t tell him. Perhaps I couldn’t tell him. My throat closed with emotion and Juba’s expression turned to stone. Snapping his gaze away from me, he stared out to the sea as if it might swallow us both up. The harbor of Ostia was receding