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.

"Sasha," Yalira murmured. She did not know if mothers in Crosao believed in sharing a breath of spirit with their newborns. But she did not have the strength to not try to ease the misfortune of inevitability. Perhaps there might be peace in letting the dying creature rest in the arms of its mother. "Do you want to hold your child?"

The queen did not move, did not speak. Her distant eyes were open, but no spark of thought touched the perfect blue void. So still and detached, harrowed and wan. If it were not for the gentle rise and fall of her chest, Yalira might have feared the woman had taken Eheia's hand and slipped into the place beyond death.

"The tonic," the surgeon's assistant explained in a whisper. "It'll keep her quiet for the night."

Quiet seemed too small a word to describe the listlessness, the haunting numbness. Yalira could not name a single tonic or tincture that dulled the spirit into this pale shade. The priestesses coaxed deep slumber and painless dreams; they did not smother the life that lived within its body.

"Priestess," the man continued. "Let me take the child."

Yalira shook her head. Surgeons and servants were too easy to trace back to Sasha. Even with Sasha's censure of the priestess, Yalira was too connected to this night. Another must do Eheia's bidding.

In the high city, with its listening ears and scheming wives, who was there to trust?

Her priestesses safely tucked away in the slums of Semyra, Yalira had no allies within the palace walls. Her assigned servants reported to Andar, the wives played dangerous games, Oristos was too close to Andar, Rodan too unknown. Even a man of healing was a man before a healer. Intentions and motivations nebulous, Yalira feared to trust that this surgeon's assistant would protect anyone except himself. The deceit and treachery of Semyra threatened to thunder into a headache.

Yalira rubbed her brow. "Stay here and care for the queen. If the afterbirth does not come soon, give her myrrha, or sagebrush if you have it."

With a tight nod, the surgeon's student kneeled to rummage through his own kit of medicines. The resin and the herb both would stimulate her body to expel the afterbirth. The protective blanket of blood and flesh that nursed the unborn infant would fester if it remained within her body. Pregnancy, labor, its aftermath—battle after battle women fought for their child's first breaths.

Sasha had survived the pregnancy and the labor, but the shadow of death wandered close to new mothers. Antala demanded blood for life, Temia tested a woman's strength beyond endurance. Silent, Eheia lingered close at the birthing bed and the hours after, curious and patient. Yalira prayed that only one of these lives would follow the dark-mantled goddess.

Yalira held the child close as she pulled her veil back over her hair.

"Speak to no one. Direct anyone with questions to me," she ordered, hiding the infant's face. "I will find someone to take the infant to the temple of Carthas."

"Monster," Sasha breathed, her tone accusatory. "Not child. Not infant. Monster."

The room flinched at the bite of her whisper, at the burning hatred in her bloodshot eyes.

"The tragedy of a stillborn is a horrible thing for a mother to bear," the surgeon's assistant answered, his words careful. Yalira could see the frantic calculation behind his sharp face, the answers he was already preparing for his teacher, for his colleagues. He would silence Sasha with the guise of hysteria, he would paint her in unstable colors to protect their deception.

Yalira swallowed the lump of pride in her throat, transforming Sasha's shock and grief and heartbreak into female hysteria—into a narrative that men would happily ignore—burned with injustice. It chafed against her spirit, but there was room to hide behind prejudiced perceptions. Another lie.

"I will bring the news to Andar," Yalira said. The stench of fear and pain wafted through the room, thicker than the choking opium smoke that had greeted her. She had entered an uncomfortable scene, the beginnings of a nightmare. It had grown and twisted and pushed into something beyond that.

The memory of this night would find its way to her haunted dreams. More death and sorrow and suffering. Though they lurked so close to the surface of her control, Yalira forced the churning sea of darkness away. Voice strong, she added, "Keep her comfortable until I return."

If I return.

Tenuously held, their lives depended on the ability of the Truth Goddess's chosen to lie. And a leap into darkness.

Author's Note:

I had a lot of trouble writing this scene -- I wanted to just retroactively visit it in the next bits, but it felt too heavy to brush over.

History-wise, these chapters bring up some pretty troubling topics of infanticide and women's health. The ancient Greeks believed that most medical problems in women were due to a "wandering uterus" that rampaged through the body making mischief. The cure was usually to put that naughty organ to its proper use--ie pregnancy.