"I—" Yalira stumbled. To be thrown off balance by Oristos, in the new dawn of forgiveness, shattered any cleverness she might have concocted. The truth escaped instead. "Do you not wish me to see you this way?"

"Weak?"

The growling bite of the word, the guarded expression, Andar of Tyr was backed into a corner. He had towered—kingly, god-like, powerful—over the ruins of Antalis. He had stood before the forum with dark-edged confidence. He had threatened, with a brutal sincerity, to wound her as she had wounded him. And it it was now, to hide a moment of vulnerability, all traces of self-deprecation and restraint unfound, that the tyrant was finally more monster than man.

"Kind."

"Are they not the same word?"

"To fools, perhaps."

In a breath, his mood softened. Their easy return to verbal warfare dimmed the ire that burned beneath his skin, tempted his lips into a faint smile. A swell of power bloomed in her chest: who else could temper Andar of Tyr?

"Am I a fool then?"

She kept the lazy wryness in her voice. "When you chose to be." Paired with the reluctant compliment, it was double-edged in unsaid implication.

"Then I apologize for my foolishness. I will endeavor to choose otherwise." He paused and closed the distance between them. There was no apology for his temper, but a shrug and softened tone followed. "I meant for Oristos to wait with you outside the garden."

His eyes watched the retreating figure of Xaisha as the queen stepped into the shadows and into her garden villa. Yalira understood. He did not want her to see this private world, this open wound. The silence crumbled as bronze flickered, surrendered.

"Do you know what ails her?"

Can you heal her?

Yalira shook her head. "There are answers I do not see, illnesses I cannot heal."

Save for the tightening of his jaw, the minute flex in his hands, Andar did not react. He knew there was nothing to be done. He had undoubtedly spent years and treasuries on physicians and healers who gave the same unsatisfying response. And yet, Yalira's words smothered that tendril of lingering hope.

With the barest dip of his chin, a reluctant acceptance, Andar signaled the end of the conversation. The wavering edges returned burning confidence.

"I've heard your name echoing from the capital all morning, Yalira, loved by Tyr. What mischief have you found today?"

And in a reply that was kind and foolish, Yalira answered, "Would you like to see?"

Their ride through the city ended at Andar's hill, the grassy edge that overlooked the harbor. The echoes of cheers followed them, though Shadow had outraced the crowds of fervent admiration. Layered in a sheen of sweat, he huffed contentedly as Andar helped her dismount. She patted the horse's neck, gaze fixed on the sea.

Impulse and habit had possessed her: his bone-etched sorrow sang to each fiber and thread of her being. In the hidden garden, for a fraction of a heartbeat, Andar was a man loved, a father still grieving. Yalira had no armor against Andar the man.

"Why this hill?" she asked, brushing her fingertips across the tall grass. The dusty earth left cloudy patches against her dark skirt, the sea-touched wind tangled her hair further into the crown.

Andar stilled, watched her with careful eyes, as if they were strangers. How many had he let pity him? His mood shifted again, the tide across sand. A smile erased suspicion, masked lingering sorrow.

"It was my father's sanctuary before it was mine. We used to come here to escape my mother, the forum. He hated the scheming, the politics, more than I do."

"Was she a politica?" Yalira encouraged, curious.

The reply came as Andar finished unsaddling Shadow, as he moved closer to her.

"The worst of them." He laughed. "Rodan had to ban her from the forum."

"Truly?"

Andar nodded. "While I was fighting in Prynia. Two years before my coronation."

"Rodan was regent, then?"

"More than regent. He was to be king." He spoke without emotion, without bitterness or suspicion. It was a simple fact, a chapter of history that did not interest him. The admission stirred the embers of Yalira's curiosity—could Rodan have played a slow game to regain his crown? Did that sharp writing, those dark letters of treason, promise fratricide?

In the pause that followed, Andar pulled her hand, a gentle shackle. He guided her to the hill's summit, threw down his cloak so they might sit among the grass and the beetles.

"I admit, I was unmanageable in my youth. Rodan was the steadier choice." He smiled as if his youth was long past, as if he were not barely reaching his third decade, as if he were not in the prime of his life. The youngest conqueror history had ever known.

"What changed?" In her eyes, Andar still seemed unmanageable, a war-hungry tyrant who ignored the advice of his council. It was difficult to imagine a boy-king wilder and more reckless than the man who sat beside her.

Though they both faced the horizon, the creeping descent of the sun towards the sea, Yalira could see Andar's mouth tilt into a smile, feel his weight shift, his energy burn.

"I did."

He did not elaborate, but leaned forward, eyes alight with the afternoon's glow. The faint cry of seabirds, the wind through the grass, the quiet symphonies could not drown out the loudness of Andar's thoughts, the buzzing of hers. In the churning pause, Yalira bit her tongue, held tight reins on her curiosity.

Wait, the world seemed to say. Listen. Endure.

"I owe you answers, Yalira."

You owe me more than that, her heart answered. But she kept still and silent, a practiced patience. Something had changed, and its new birth whispered with promise. Andar shifted, ran a hand through his golden hair, swallowed. And then spoke.

"When I decided to take Antalis, to remove its threat, I assumed you were tied into its scheming. I thought 'Yalira the Loved' was a clever lie to hide a dark priestess. Another ravenous spider collecting power in her web.

"And then you came to me, covered in ash, but still more beautiful than any woman I'd ever seen. I never imagined a world where you'd be cut from the same cloth as me: a leader willing to sacrifice anything to save her people."

The fracture lines in her heart threatened to shatter anew. Death and destruction, suffering and sorrow, built from misunderstanding and paranoia. There's not an answer that would please you, he had said in Antalis. And Andar was correct, there was no justification that would heal the damage that had been wrought.

"The strong must protect the weak, Yalira. Those that rise against us will never rise again."

With the note of persuasion, the endearing effort to tempt her to his side, the pull between them fluttered, it burned. Andar of Tyr meant to convince her. Pretty words and heady charisma, he wanted everything, all of her. She leaned away.

The distance let her steal a breath of unspoiled air, clarity and resolve.

Antalis had been weak. He could argue with his perceived threats, his unfounded worry, but the temple-city did not deserve the pain he'd inflicted. The anger that lived in her heart begged a voice, but those words did not come. Yalira could not lose control, not when Andar was so willing to share the secrets she'd longed to hear.

"Then may I ask another a truth from you?"

Surprised, he nodded.

"Tyr has no active enemies. None rise against you. Why conquer Volys? Who is next? Mala? Cambria? Nikator? Vece?"

The questions did not anger him. Though his lips twitched in a contemplative frown, his eyes burned with determination.

"Yes."

In a word, he'd condemn the world. There was no obstacle too great, no distance too far.

"But why?"

When will you be satisfied? When will it be enough?

He considered her words for only a heartbeat. In those seconds, Yalira knew there was no answer that would justify the violent cost, the painful history. She craved understanding just the same.

"Because I can rule them better." He smiled. "And because they cannot stop me."

In that smile, Yalira saw the answer to her unvoiced questions. He convinced himself he was a protector, a mighty hero. So there would be no end, for he possessed an eternal appetite and the fire of will to see it sated. In those moments in the garden, she had been the balm against his fury—was she to be the hand at his bridle? Was that a destiny for her to claim? Not a priestess, not a queen, but a shadow of temperance?

His end is your beginning.

The sharp-slanted words echoed in her head. Was she to overthrow him, then? To adopt his methods of brutality?

Perhaps only monsters could defeat other monsters.

A destiny written in dark stars. Her spirit shuddered and Yalira clenched her hands to hide her trembling fingertips. The bite of her nail into palm steadied her thoughts.

"Is Tyr truly so much better than everywhere else? Disease, rebellion, could you not solve these problems before taking on the improvement of the rest of the world too?" Yalira kept her tone light with the wryness he seemed to enjoy, but her heart sank in her chest. He did not notice the shade of her fear, for this time was no different. Andar remained smiling and set his burning gaze upon her.

"You argue like a scholar. Temis would have liked you, I think." His smile bloomed into consideration. She had witnessed his arguments in the forum, the careful calculation that marked him. That wary brilliance was still there, but a gentleness tempered it. He answered, "You think I am short-sighted. That I am but collecting trophies of conquest."

"Are you not?"

Again laughter. "I admit that my empire began with bloodthirsty origins. After the death of my father, I demanded bloody retribution from Prynia. I was eager to prove myself as able a conqueror as he: he left me so little of the world to conquer. Arden. Crosao. Those were taken with selfish intent." He paused and split a blade of grass with his thumb. "But from Arden, we gained Antoch and its library. My people gained access to new knowledge, and from it, I improved Arden's aqueducts. From Prynia, we gained a history of medicines long forgotten. And despite my bitterness, I strengthened Prynia's border villages."

"And the rest? Kythis? Tern? Lytvia?" Yalira asked.

"They came to me."

The insistence, the comfortable arrogance, it eroded the truths she knew. The memories of wounded refugees, homeless, sightless, limbless. Battle had devoured the lives of the people and sent their sorrowful spirits on the path to Antalis.

"And Orvalle?" she whispered.

Andar flinched as if she'd struck him, and his incredulity echoed in defense. "Orvalle? I ended years of civil war. Years of bloodshed and violence that existed generations before I arrived. Strength buys peace, priestess.

"And on peace, what of my treaty brokered with the Horde? Have you ever seen them fight? Archers on horseback, born to it—so easily they move. With the right motivation, those nomads could take an empire, trample it to ashes. Instead, they are northern allies because I was the only man brave enough to face them on an open field."

Where she meant him to find introspection, Andar answered with a fiery self-justification. Each word, each breath, they echoed with the confidence that he was right and just. Yalira moved to speak again, to turn the conversation away from this affirmation, but Andar could not be stopped. He made his spirit plain.

"Together, united, we are stronger than we are apart. We've allowed lines and history to separate us when all it has taken is a common currency and a common tongue to let trade and information and growth flow.

"You speak of disease—spreading through the overcrowded slums. Why do you think so many refugees come to Semyra? Tyr is not perfect, but it is fair. A man will cross the continent to find a chance for opportunity. That is the legacy of my empire."

"Andar," Yalira began. Perhaps he saw further than she did, but Yalira would not let him ignore the scores and tallies that were buried into the foundation of his legacy. "It has taken far more than a uniting coin and language. Years of war, its consequences. Countless lives lost, rape, poverty, famine—are these not factored into your balance?"

He did not frown, he did not falter. Golden, god-like, atop the sun-streaked hill, Andar was beyond mortal suffering.

"Destruction marks the beginning of rebirth. You look at me and see a tyrant, a warmongering king who is only hungry for conquest. Each battle I fight is not without purpose.

"I cannot build on an unsteady foundation."

The fire of Andar's passion did not singe, did not scald. It was self-contained, confident, and he did not intend to harm her with it. Washed in his conviction, Yalira realized why he let Oristos speak for him on the forum floor.

His truth was madness and arrogance, violent dream and idealism. If she could not temper him, if she could not stop him, the world would end in ash.

"I've made you my queen, but do you have the iron in you to lead?"

A/N:

Finally the insight into our conquering antagonist's mind! Does it live up to your expectations? Demonize him or absolve him?  

I've done some scene switching with these most recent chapters, so please let me know if there's a flow problem.