Oleander

IX. Unknown (part one)

Save for the deformed infant's whimpering, Sasha's chambers were painted in uncomfortable silence. The queen stared into the ceiling, beyond its tiled surface, her face resigned and hollow. Her servants stood with clenched fists, darting eyes, as if the anxious energy between them threatened to boil into screams. The surgeon's assistant only had eyes for the disfigured child, not in horror, but detached observation.

"What will you tell him?" the surgeon's assistant asked suddenly, brown eyes edged in curiosity. Andar of Tyr's presence was so dominating, it pervaded every corner of his palace, every thought in every mind.

Yalira looked at the infant—the cyclops—in her arms with sorrowful eyes. Misshapen face scrunched and twisted, its weak mewling tore at her heart. Even if there were a place in the world for another monster, a veil of death surrounded the creature tighter than its swaddling. It would not live past morning.

Give his life purpose, her thoughts hissed viciously.

For a moment, the image of her standing before Semyra, brandishing the monster as an evil omen, roared with such addictive pleasure, Yalira heard the crescendoing savagery of the crowd. It would be another lie, for she refused to believe the gods, the goddesses, marred and mangled the innocent to voice their displeasure. Antala and her sisters were sometimes petty, but always just. To use the pitiful creature for her own purposes would be wicked, evil.

And foolish.

For the truth would do harm. Sasha, Yalira, her priestesses... all would suffer if Andar of Tyr learned his child was cursed. He would blame the queen as a broken vessel, an unfaithful wife. He would decry Yalira as a false imposter, a malevolent presence. All the witnesses would be silenced. The man so yearned for his legacy, for an army of sons to reap the world. How could he not punish the women who took that from him?

Forgive me, Antala. The words became a mantra, a prayer, a plea.

Even if she found supporters, even if she used a deformed child against him, Yalira dao Eheia had stood before the forum and let it believe that her goddess favored Andar of Tyr. Her position would suffer from the contradiction. She would lose the only power she had as an unmarried woman in this empire. She could not protect her people without her status. Antalis would survive only in ruins.

And I am better than him, she added firmly. Regardless of the cloying sweetness of justice and vengeance intertwined, willingness to sacrifice and destroy in pursuit of obsession was Andar's path, not hers. She had to uphold her oaths, the sanctity of life. And truth.

Though that half of her devotion was harder than she once imagined.

She had used the innocent lies of pleasantries as High Priestess, let her sharp tongue fall into the traps of snappish sarcasm with Andar, and played with the lines of dishonesty to influence perception. But her next move was different. Though not in the confines of their blood oath, she had promised Andar that she, Yalira, would not lie to him. The words had stemmed from stubborn pride, but she had proclaimed them just the same.

And now she would be guilty: Yalira the Deceiver, Yalira the Oathbreaker.

Forgive me, Antala. Just once more.

"He will not survive the dawn," Yalira answered softly. She prayed for oleander to burn sharp in her mouth, but only tasted sand. Any guidance from the goddess was silent tonight. No company stood near her on this twisted course.

"I can take it," the surgeon's assistant volunteered. "No one will question a surgeon leaving a stillborn at the steps of Carthas."

His intelligent eyes were deep with meaning, dark with terror. He saw that the truth risked their lives as clearly as Yalira did. The shame of delivering a corpse! Rumors would spread through the social circles of his career. Whispers of Sasha's inability to carry a son—Yalira's competence as a healer—would litter Semyra, but Andar's reputation would not suffer. And for it, they might live.