Oleander

XXII. Crumbling Walls (part three)

As if a clammy hand had wrapped its fingers into her chest, Yalira's heart faltered. Blood rushed to her cheeks, leaving her vision dusted with darkness and stars. Her own fingers as cold as the phantom touch beneath her ribs, Yalira absently traced the tingling at her lips. Her tongue was not so numb as to be held in silence.

"That's not possible," she said, but her thoughts jumped to cycles and symptoms and sylphium. She'd assumed her missed bleeding courses a side effect of the contraceptive tea, a reaction to stress, a miscalculation on her part. She'd brushed aside nausea as overindulgence, as perhaps early, weak signs of the purging illness. Her frozen lips ached with hollow laughter.

A healer unable to recognize the signs of pregnancy in her own body.

Sharpness smoothed into gentle concern, and Oristos took her hand in his. Yalira's thoughts were countered in self-annoyance and burning accusation. Those mismatched eyes saw more than she realized. Oristos, perhaps, was unkinder then she'd believed. She swallowed that strange lump forming in her throat. Anger. Humiliation. Fear. Pain. Yalira could not find a word to describe the tightness at her chest, the emptiness of breath, the color at her cheek. She ignored the steady drum of her heart and forced her voice into the cold-forged weapon Semyra demanded.

"How did you know?"

"The servants, the maids, the errand boys—" Oristos shrugged. "They report to me."

His hands felt heavy in hers, and Yalira ached to draw her fingers away. Oristos who knew each queen so intimately, who tracked Andar's position throughout the palace grounds, who was her friend. His knowledge was born of careful, patient watching. She'd never imagined those gentle eyes also watched her. The betrayal burned at her skin, sent knives to her belly.

"You have the servants monitor my courses?" she asked. It was easier to pretend she was calm, as still as the sea at the horizon, than it was to acknowledge the painful edges of the ragged fracture between them.

"Yalira," he breathed. His lips, full and downturned, remained a hard line that belied the pleading softness of brown and blue. "Of course I have the servants monitor your courses. I monitor all the queens' cycles, their moods, their activities." The muscle at his jaw tightened as he swallowed. "Nine powerful women from other countries, each carrying their own goals and secrets and ambitions? Armies guard the borders. Spies guard against intrigue. I guard this palace and all the wickedness within it." He laughed dryly. "How could I not keep close watch?"

Yalira pulled her hands from his and stood. She could not longer tolerate the feel of his skin against hers. Rubbing the gooseflesh at her arms, she turned away. From the entry way, Gallus still watched in unflinching silence. Though his dark face was smooth, untroubled, he undoubtedly heard each word. Andar had placed his most trusted to guard her: another spy at her inner circle.

"Does Andar know?" she asked. Yalira watched the curtains fill with the midnight breeze; she listened to the shift and sigh of wind through summer's last leaves. Her fingernails bit into her palms. Tiny distractions to pull her away from the fraying strands of her composure.

"No," Oristos answered after a pause. "We cannot tell Andar yet. Not until we're certain."

Certain of wait, Yalira was not sure. Certain that her pregnancy would not end in early miscarriage? Certain that she was not carrying another monster? Certain that she held the promised answer to his legacy? Not a drop of valerian had met her tongue, but there were other blights that could fall on motherhood and child. Her throat tightened. How many babes had she delivered non-breathing? How many mothers died in their birthing beds? For every healthy child she'd helped into the world, it seemed there was shadow of death and despair, of suffering and pain.