The Tyrant's Tomb

ugly zigzag; heavy-lidded, suspicious eyes; and long, stringy hair that looked
like drizzled clay.
Just a few years before, when he ascended the throne, Tarquin had been
praised for his manly good looks and his physical strength. He’d dazzled the
senators with flattery and gifts, then plopped himself onto his father-in-law’s
throne and persuaded the senate to confirm him as the new king.
When the old king rushed in to protest that he was, you know, still very
much alive, Tarquin picked him up like a sack of turnips, carried him
outside, and threw him into the street, where the old king’s daughter,
Tarquin’s wife, ran over her unfortunate dad with her chariot, splattering the
wheels with his blood.
A lovely start to a lovely reign.
Now Tarquin wore his years heavily. He’d grown hunched and thick, as
if all the building projects he’d forced on his people had actually been
heaped on his own shoulders. He wore the hide of a wolf for a cloak. His
robes were such a dark mottled pink, it was impossible to tell if they’d once
been red and then spattered with bleach, or had once been white and
spattered with blood.
Aside from the guards, the only person standing in the room was an old
woman facing the throne. Her rose-colored hooded cloak, her hulking frame,
and her stooped back made her look like a mocking reflection of the king
himself: the Saturday Night Live version of Tarquin. In the crook of one arm
she held a stack of six leather-bound volumes, each the size of a folded shirt
and just as floppy.
The king scowled at her. “You’re back. Why?”
“To offer you the same deal as before.”
The woman’s voice was husky, as if she’d been shouting. When she
pulled down her hood, her stringy gray hair and haggard face made her look
even more like Tarquin’s twin sister. But she was not. She was the Cumaean
Sibyl.
Seeing her again, my heart twisted. She had once been a lovely young
woman—bright, strong-willed, passionate about her prophetic work. She had
wanted to change the world. Then things between us soured…and I had
changed her instead.
Her appearance was only the beginning of the curse I had set on her. It
would get much, much worse as the centuries progressed. How had I put this