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forced himself not to sob. Alexa, Alexa! Why had they ever fought over Ctesiphon? They would have been free, if only they had not fought. His life was worthless now that Alexa was gone, and it did not matter that she had loosed Ctesiphon to fall into the path of the soldiers' horses, or that she had laughed as he died. It even did not matter that she had drawn steel on Marric himself, or that she was no stranger to magic best left untouched. None of that mattered against his memory of her fall.
    Alexa was dead. Marric let his chin fall into the moldering straw of his pallet. And he was Irene's prisoner. Could he starve himself, or would the fever in his wounds suffice to kill him? Despair made him even weaker.
    Maybe his struggle had been in vain all along. Alexander had been a good man, but he was no priest. He had been unfortunate, too, in his sons: Ctesiphon was no man; Marric was no priest and no emperor. The line was unhealthy; best it die out. So, when Irene killed Marric, she would end the entire line of Antony, of Alexander, of the pharaohs themselves. Marric's amendment had come too late, and been denied. But it was the empire that would pay for his negligence.
    After years of striking bargains with the gods or yawning through rituals, Marric found himself praying passionately to Osiris—May He turn His face toward His son!—that he could retain some measure of integrity. Prayer had never come with such force or simplicity.
    If the fever didn't kill him, perhaps he could struggle against his chains until the bondspell's agony stopped his heart. Death would come soon. He lay back, eyes rolling upward. Then he saw the darkness, like a cloud of ebon smoke, hovering beneath the room's low arch.
    "Come out!" he croaked. By Horus, was all the city corrupted by foul magic? Or had Irene simply left this guard to turn his hopelessness into utter torture? The blackness drew nearer, sending out tendrils that promised release . . . He could draw them into himself, be free, just accept . . .
    "I will not surrender," he hissed. "Begone." He faced down the black haze as if it were a human enemy. He then sensed another promise . . . power, blood to slake his grief if only . . . No, he would not be bought either.
    If it were Marric's fate to die, so be it. But he would at least die cleanly, not enthralled by Irene's demon. Having made that decision, Marric fell into exhausted sleep.
    The screech of outraged, resisting metal woke him. Shadows reeled as men thrust in first a torch, and then their heads and shoulders. Marric forced himself not to cower. Regardless of what misbegotten sorceries Irene used, she could only command his death, not his self-betrayal.
    "On your feet, prince!"
    "He's lazy, or drunk. Can't move without his slaves to stir him."
    "Or his catamites. Maybe he likes to play rough, Demetrius. Hoist him up."
    Both guards laughed. Alexander would have sent such offal to labor in the mines, not in the city's prisons. How could such prisons have existed during his father's reign?
    Perhaps they had been kept for the vilest of felons, men who violated their mothers, deliberate parricides, traitors—breathing carrion. But now Irene had cast a prince into them.
    As the guards, still jesting foully, manhandled Marric onto his feet and bound his arms behind his back, he summoned all his remaining strength. He would not threaten. He would not fall. He would not plead. He would deny them the chance to kick and jeer at him. They forced an iron bar between his arms to brace them, and it grated painfully against the untreated slashes on his arms and sides. He did not cry out. And he would not stagger when they brought him before Irene.
    That was where they were taking him. He was as sure of that as of his own heartbreak. Perhaps the sight of him would enrage her so that she would order him killed.
    A shove at the base of Marric's spine forced him into a passage lit by smoky torches. The orange light and violent shadows