The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(48)

Neferet elbowed her and, blushing, said to the queen, “I am.”

“A woman and a physician—not a midwife nor an herb witch—a physician.” Cleopatra’s mouth bent upward. “A vocation reserved solely for men.”

She gazed around at the lot of us, an expression of deep satisfaction on her face. Most of the girls had stopped what they were doing by that point and had gathered near to hear what the queen had to say. She and Sorcha shared a glance and a grin as we all leaned in, rapt. The queen of Aegypt’s voice was low and musical drifting through the ancient vault, the flickering shadows seeming to make the figures on the walls dance above our heads.

“All of you,” Cleopatra continued. “All of you are extraordinary young women. Never doubt that, or what you have accomplished. You have all walked fearlessly into a place that, before you, was a kind of temple reserved for men only. You took oaths that, before you, only men took. You fought and hurt, and some of you even died . . . but you won glory in ways only men did. And you did it all with the grace of women.”

“And the occasional kick to the stones of the nearest man,” Elka said.

Cleopatra’s bright laughter echoed off the broken stones of the old tomb. But after a moment, she grew serious. Almost solemn. By the light of the tiny campfire, her face glowed golden, as if lit from within by some divine flame, and her dark eyes were large and luminous and seemed to take all of us in at a glance.

“When Hatshepsut died,” she said, “the pharaoh who came after her tried to have all memory of her erased. He smashed all the sphinxes with faces carved in her likeness. He defaced the walls of her great temple and had her image chiseled from the stone, her cartouche—her very name—malleted to dust. And yet, her legend and her legacy persist down through the ages. You all have left your home behind, and your arena. And that wounds. Deeply. You think you will be forgotten. You will not. You will find your place, you will find your purpose. And you will inspire the warriors—the women warriors—who will come after you.”

A kind of hallowed silence descended on us then, with the only sound the crackling of the fire and an owl hooting somewhere in the distance.

And then Antonia leaned forward, her eyes glinting, and said, “Is it true you had yourself rolled up in a carpet and smuggled past the praetorian guards into Caesar’s chambers?”

The rest of us might have been a bit shocked by Antonia’s audacity, but Cleopatra just grinned and said, “That . . . was Sennefer’s idea.”

“And you all thought I was such a stick in the Nile mud.” He sniffed, clearly pleased at having his cleverness acknowledged, and produced a small bowl of figs for his mistress to nibble at.

“If you want something bad enough,” Cleopatra said, settling back on one elbow and looking every bit a queen among the ruins, “then don’t let anything—or anyone—stand in your way. And always enlist those clever, helpful friends who stand by your side. You are each other’s greatest assets, ladies. Never forget that.”

I suspected I knew what Cleopatra was doing in that moment, and I was grateful for it. Throughout the day’s travel, everyone had been fretful and on edge, riding into absolute uncertainty. We knew—all of us, I think—the essence of what she was saying. But hearing someone like her say it . . . it made a difference. The air of unease that had settled like a fog around us began to lift and fade. There was murmuring and quiet laughter now among the girls as they bedded down for the night.

I went and laid down my cloak near Elka and Vorya, across from Hestia and Ajani, who sat cross-legged on hers, staring up at the sky through the gaping hole in the vaulting roof, watching the stars.

“What do you think wrecked this place?” Ajani wondered aloud.

Vorya glanced up and grunted. “Earthquake, probably.”

“I’ve only ever heard of those,” Ajani said. “Never been through one.”

“Be glad of that,” Hestia said. “When I was small, an earthquake brought down a mountainside and wiped out half my village.”

“What causes them?”

Hestia shrugged. “They say that’s what happens when Hades gets angry.”

“Well then,” Elka said, “let’s not anger him.”

Ajani lifted an eyebrow at her. “What do you think would anger the god of the dead?” she asked.

Vorya answered for her. “Not killing anyone within reach who richly deserves it,” she said with a knife-edge grin.

Elka and Vorya both laughed, sharing the same cheerfully grim sense of humor that was, I’d learned, a characteristic of the Varini tribes. I probably would have laughed too, except I was wondering just how long it would be before we’d find ourselves in that very likely situation.

In fairly short order, Vorya was curled into a ball like a sleeping pup and Elka had flopped down on the ground, the edge of her cloak tugged over her shoulder. Within moments, both of them were snoring gently. Ajani stayed where she was, sitting staring at the sky, and I . . . I was restless and thinking of Cai and the coming morn and wondering about everything.

“I’m going to go take a few hours of watch,” I told Ajani quietly. “I’m too wide awake to sleep.”

“Be careful,” she said.

“As a fox in an open field.”

“Don’t forget to look up.” She pointed at the star-spattered indigo sky. “That’s where the hunting owl comes from.”