Excerpt: Principate

The floor of the chamber was slick with Mark Antony’s blood. It had flowed from him surrounding the gray stone slab that served as an altar in the center of the room. Too heavy to lift on her own Cleopatra made a great effort to arrange the lifeless body of her lover where he had fallen. Slowly she extracted the blade from his chest and placed it in his hand. Crossing his arms above his chest she turned to a large wooden wardrobe at the rear of the room. From the wardrobe she removed a long robe which she donned and drew a metal censer from within. Slowly she began to walk around the perimeter of the room mumbling low in the ancient eladrin tongue as the censer swung like a pendulum releasing its cloying incense about the room. This she did for quite some time until the vast chamber was thickly clouded with the heavy smoke of the burning incense.