Resounding joy followed their circle of the city, Andar's victory circuit amongst the people who loved him. Eyes full of rapturous tears glistened from the street, from balconies, from stairwells. If she did not believe it for strategic importance, Yalira might have been impressed at their route. With a steady grip, Andar guided their lap through the entirety of Semyra—no neighborhood was too low or too poor to receive the honor of their presence.

Yalira's face ached with the force of her smile. Dirty hands threw petals and coins and grain, bright offerings to new gods. Andar's lifted hand drew a fresh wave of euphoria. Gold and ivory, her darkness to his light, they were perfectly crafted idols. She wanted to scream at them to keep their gifts, to see the truth before them, but her voice circled in her empty chest.

Their twisted spiral ended at the round edifice that overlooked Semyra's harbor. Nestled above the slums, the colossal sandstone amphitheater caught rays of sunlight, bloody and orange. It was home to performances and public spectacles, blessed in the breath of Olia, goddess of music and spirit. The dark vacancies in its walls, its massive arches, became empty eyes, sightless skulls. It was also home to the games, to pain and death.

Their steps into its shadows echoed with dread. Or they might have, Yalira decided, if the roar of the crowd had not drowned them out. Faces and bodies blurred around her, high-born and common, as Andar guided her through the tunneled entrace. The stale smell of wine, the cries of vendors, the taut energy that pulsed through the people—the celebration had festered here through the day, waiting for the event. An evening opening to a week of bloody games.

In the austere halls of the high city, clean and removed from the world, she had agreed to support the bid for the games. An old tradition, the high-born wives mentioned over wine. Good for morale, the advisors grunted in the forum. But it was Rishi who convinced her. Wedding Games had not been held since Andar's father had married. The golden son had been too busy conquering the continent to fully celebrate his eight previous weddings.

Queen of Tyr, Rishi had whispered.

From their place of honor over the wide circle of sand, Yalira fought nausea as Andar received congratulations from the high-born men and honored few seated with them in the royal booth.

"Afraid of a little blood, priestess? Shall we have the salts ready for you?" Valen's voice hissed from over Yalira's shoulder. Any tenuous alliance between them had burned to bitter ashes.

"I do not enjoy violence," Yalira said. "But my stomach is stronger than you give credit for."

"Strong enough for Andar, I hope. For violence is all he offers." The threat was a whisper behind a beautiful face. You should have left Semyra. Her laughter sounded with acidic bite.

"And miss our charming conversations?" Yalira answered with forced gaiety, the painted smile she'd worn through the day. Her cheeks were numb.

Seated at her right, Rishi chuckled.

"Our king-husband is a lamb," she drawled, tapping her tapered nails on the end of her seat. "Perhaps it is just you that brings out the worst in him, Valen."

The other queens were silent, but a few of the high-born wives smirked behind their hands.

"At least I didn't have to buy his attentions."

"No," Rishi said agreeably. She paused to examine the gilt and onyx rings on her fingers. "But gold is so much easier, wouldn't you agree? I'd hate to do something drastic to keep a man's attention."

The cut was discreet, devastating. Valen's black eyes narrowed, her body tense as if to leap forward and tear out Rishi's throat. The Lytvian queen's smile did not waver.

The men—husbands and keepers—did not notice the sudden shift to strained silence from the women's corner of the box. Though a few heads turned when a high-born wife suddenly trilled her excitement for the games, her adoration of another's skirt. Insipid chatter buried the palpable loathing between the two queens.

With the memory of perfumed eucalyptus, Rishi's casual grin reminded Yalira of another conversation, one in the breath of a steamy bathhouse.

Do you know how his father died?

Valen orchestrated it, of course.

The words had seemed offhanded. Rishi had spoken cleverly, carefully. Her tone and smile made the truth sound like gossip, a petty stretch to paint Valen with a dark brush. In the aftermath of a forced drowning, Yalira was not listening for truth. She had barely considered the implication. Valen was unkind, vicious—but did her beautiful face hide another monster? Would she have murdered her competition if there were no witness to see it?

Moment after moment of ceremony had passed without true understanding, but the tension between queens—sister queens—grounded Yalira in sudden clarity.

She was one of them.

Her limbs heavy as lead, she was rooted to her chair as Andar sat beside her. His hand found its way to cover hers. She suppressed the urge to snake away from his touch and instead forced that practiced smile.

"Trouble amongst the wives?" Though he did not meet her eyes, Andar smiled. The easy cadence of his tone sparked understanding—he was aware the queens bickered for his attention. He enjoyed it.

"If I said yes, would you have us battle it out on the sand?" Yalira answered wryly.

Andar laughed, drawing every eye in the box. Where the people of Semyra rejoiced in his laughter, each face flickered towards Yalira in discontent. A forced queen, a worthless bride. Another competitor in their twisted game. Their flashing eyes could not hide their thoughts.

The brassy sounding of horns, the beat of drums, cut Andar's reply. Below, the music swelled, tempting armored men from the labyrinths beneath the arena. Their march across the sand followed those notes of victory.

"As much as I love the idea of my wives fighting for my attention, this is hardly battle."

Andar's face was twisted in patronizing affection, as if he found her endearing for attempting to understand. Golden eyes watched the procession but with idle intent, as if the proceedings bored him.

"No?" Yalira replied, tempering her irritation with a soft smile. "I'm afraid all of this needless bloodshed looks the same to me."

"This is sport and sport only," Andar said, raising his palm when the games master finished his praising his name, his many achievements. "There is no strategy."

An eavesdropping Rodan, nearly invisible at Andar's left hand, leaned forward to reply. "There is honor in it, brother, is there not?"

Andar scoffed, and Yalira was inclined to agree. There was no honor in death, or war, or slaughter. But his answer did not mirror her thoughts.

"What honor is there for slaves and criminals?"

"Redemption!" Rodan smiled. "It is food for the spirit. Look how your people cheer!"

"Don't win this argument by twisting my love for my people. I would take this diversion from them if I could."

Yalira blinked in surprise. The image of Andar she formed in her head, the face she commanded herself to hate, was built with a spine of brutality and bloodshed.

"Why?" she asked.

Andar returned her incredulity with a smile. He heard the question she did not ask. "You still think me so cruel as to revel in all forms of violence and death?"

She was learning his mercurial nature: that thread of teasing humor, the self-deprecation he liked to use against her, rang through. Yalira pulled. "Yes, of course. You've given me little reason to believe otherwise."

Those listening shifted uncomfortably. Even Valen, well-known to hate Andar as much as she loved him, did not oppose him in public. Their snapping quarrels echoed in the palace, but outside its columns, Valen was the picture of wifely obedience.

Andar laughed again, startling the eavesdroppers. It was the boyish joy she'd spied in the garden, and it set him ablaze.

"Andar," Rodan whispered.

With bows to their king, the twenty-seven men below formed a line for introductions to the audience. The warrior-king stood to raise his arms, pulling forth the screams of the crowd and then silencing the arena. No words, presence and tradition were a powerful signal. As he sat, he leaned towards Yalira, his breath close enough to pull at the loose strands of her hair.

"I'll have to rectify that, won't I?"

The words were innocent, but the smooth promise in them sent heat to her face, her neck. Feigning indifference, Yalira focused on the scene below, on the men in the sand, on anything other than Andar of Tyr.

Even from the distance, Yalira counted their armor, their weapons. Tridents and nets, spears and shield, swords, hammers. The weaponry was as diverse as the men themselves. Dark skinned warriors from the south, tall northerners with golden hair. They mirrored stocky, long-bearded barbarians from the Hoard and thick-muscled prisoners from Prynia. The conquered, standing in the stand, waiting to die.

At the very end of the line stood a man in vambraces. A dark slash through one eye.

The lion queen's champion will redeem his crimes honorably in the sand!

His shorn hair had grown to his ears and he no longer wore indigo, but Yalira recognized him as easily and surely as she had recognized Thais's handwriting. There were some things that the spirit could not forget.

Shame filled her. There had been no victory in sparing this life. She claimed him, deprived him of swift defeat and honorable death and, in the moments that passed, Yalira had forgotten him. She made no effort to know his name, to explain her purpose, to apologize. And now she sat before him, again, bride to an enemy.

Those eyes that had once followed her in confused betrayal now burned. At Andar, at the privileged and wealthy—at her, beside them, in a position of honor.

How it must appear! Yalira shrank in the face of fresh condemnation, spirit raw. She had slowly rebuilt the priestesses of Antalis, introducing betrayal in tiny cuts to harden them so they might survive. For this unnamed guard, alone and abandoned by Antalis, her blow was merciless.

"Interesting choice of champion, Queen Yalira," Rodan said, smiling as if they were friends, as if they shared a delicious secret. Pride itched to ask why—what was wrong with a defender of Antalis? Suspicious dislike paused her tongue.

"The queens' choices never do well!" a male voice called.

"They get too distracted by pretty faces!"

The introductions drew cheers from the watching crowd, but the high-born men had no interest. Their debate consumed them, each rallying behind or against the queens' champions.

"Queen Valen's chosen an ugly brute, hasn't she?"

"No uglier than beast fighting for Queen Dezma."

"Now this one's a monster, isn't he? Fists the size of boulders!"

Disgust ignited a wildfire of hatred—they spoke in the voices that appraised animals, that bet on fighting dogs. The women on her left, behind her, were no better. Valen wagered her sapphires on her champion's victory, daring the others to counter her. Yalira clenched her teeth so that her hand beneath Andar's might stay unaffected. Her jaw ached.

"It surprised me when I heard of your bid for the games," Andar said, his voice obscuring the casual dehumanization of the men on the sand, the men wrongly captured and bound. Yalira leaned into the distraction.

"I was told that it is a tradition much beloved by the people." Yalira did not mention that she had forgotten the temple guard, that she had assumed the queens choosing champions had been a choice of their own volition, that her heart ached with shame and loathing.

"It is," Andar said, frowning. "Only, I did not think that mattered to you."

Yalira did not fight the curve of her lips, though she knew she did not deserve the reprieve from self-examination. There was comfort in familiarity, in trading spars with Andar.

"Wasn't it you who questioned my reputation in Antalis? Yalira the Loved. The criers you claim we hired must have forgotten the rest: for she so loves the people."

"Is that sarcasm, Yalira?" His voice was soft surprise over her name. "I did not think humor was allowed in Antalis."

Turning to look up into his golden eyes, Yalira answered, "We are not in Antalis."

Andar's reply died with the last introduction, the name that crossed the desert below them, a whisper on wind.

"Mathais of Antalis!"

Yalira's gaze fell to the sand, to the man she had saved out of selfishness and then left behind. 

A/N:

How many of you also forgot about poor Mathais?