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morning, where a platform is being erected for the execution. It takes longer than it should for my husband's harem, all his children and all of the most important nobles to assemble. Then we wait beneath blooming almond trees that weep pink and white flower petals down upon us.
    King Lysimachus is solemn. This is his fault, I think. Men like him. Men like my father. Men who marry so many wives and make so many children that we must compete for attention, for power and for survival. But it isn't
only
his fault. Prince Agathocles played his part. So did his sister. Now these monsters sit here to watch the murder of their own brother.
    The soldiers lead Cassander onto the wooden platform. His hands are tied behind his back and I feel the cords cutting into my own wrists. When the executioner places a knotted rope around his neck, my throat aches. Cassander doesn't move. He stares straight at me—and my heart batters against my ribcage. I want to run to him, even if it means my own death. The pain cannot be worse than losing him; let them plunge knives into both of us.
    But Cassander's eyes beseech me to live for him; it is a horrible choice.
    The king nods to the executioner and Cassander blows out his last breath.
    The springtime breeze carries it my way and I gasp, filling my lungs. I hold it inside me as the executioner twists the rope, cutting off Cassander's air.
    My beloved begins to strangle. As I watch, I squeeze my hands into fists, wanting nothing more than to pummel the executioner and make him stop. I want to save Cassander. I'm desperate for him to live. Then, as Cassander's lips begin to turn blue and his eyes bulge in agony, I want nothing more than for him to die.
    Die. Die swiftly. Be free of these pains! Be free of this world and its betrayals.
    Then I know that I'm wrong. If Cassander lives inside me now, he'll never die. For as I watch them murder him, I make this solemn vow.
    I will have revenge.
    I will have revenge on King Lysimachus. I will have revenge upon Prince Agathocles and his sister. I will destroy each and every one of them. I will see them suffer. From this day forward, no one—not even Lysandra, wherever she is now—will ever hurt me, or anyone I love, without paying a price. And I will make that price steep. My enemies will pay in blood.
    Rivers of blood.
    For I have Cassander's breath inside me. To hurt me now is to hurt
him
too, and I'll defend him with the ferocity of a hippopotamus.
    Until now, I've been only that soft-hearted Princess of Egypt who did not want to listen to her mother's warnings. I’ve been that fool of a girl who did not want to see rivals or learn to play political games. That girl, that princess, dies with Cassander. She
must
die.
    For today I'm born anew.
    Today I'm born a
true
queen...and an avenger. My rivals will learn to fear me. They will tremble at the sound of my name. And when I've destroyed them, I'll take those dreams I had on the banks of the Nile and make them true.
Somehow , I'll make them true.
    For Cassander, I will return to Egypt.
    I
will
become Pharaoh.
    And we will
both
live forever.

AUTHOR'S NOTE
     
    Based on the life of Queen Arsinoë II who was born into the Greek-Macedonian Ptolemaic Dynasty that ruled Egypt, this story imagines an explanation for the ruthless woman who would become one of history's greatest survivors.
    Except for Cassander, I based all the characters upon known historical figures. King Lysimachus would go on to lose the support of his people—in part—for murdering a son. That's what gave me the germ of my story idea.
    It took Arsinoë years, but she eventually
destroyed
the royal family of Thrace. Later, she returned to Egypt, became queen and was anointed Pharaoh in her own right. She planned victorious wars. She won an Olympic medal for horse harnessing. And she was deified as an incarnation of the goddess Isis, whom the Greeks believed was the eternal goddess of spring.
    She was also an ancestral