History isn't always written as it truly happened . . . In all four corners of the ancient world, growing threats assemble into a storm of carnage, as the Roman eagle seeks to seize all who will not kneel before it in its golden talons. In the colossal palace of Pharoah Ptolemy XII Auletes, his youngest daughter, sweet Kleopatra Vll, and her dearest friend, Akela, daughter of the pharaoh's favorite general, are only vaguely aware of the dark currents swirling under the surface of their world, and dangerously unaware of a dark prophecy concerning them both that will be set in motion by the arrival of a mysterious visitor from foreign lands. On Krete, the last Spartan princess is humiliated and imprisoned after being pulled from a city in flames, fighting to keep some vestige of her people's legendary spirit alive. In Rome, the quietly troubled Julius Caesar mourns lost love even as he solidifies his rule with the crucifixion of the slave rebel Spartacus and all who followed him. And on the far-away shores of the Aegean, the last remaining tribes of ferocious Amazons struggle to avoid extinction as they battle forces from all sides and alliances amongst enemies are forged out of necessity. In this first book of The Aegean series, a deadly secret born of vengeance and fear, known only by Kleopatra and her childhood companion, threatens to rock the foundations of a powerful empire and discredit the lineage of the last Egyptian dynasty. With hungry eyes set only on revenge, the whispered words of lustful, power-hungry men nurture the viper sleeping in Kleopatra's heart like venom infiltrating the bloodstream of history.