With the loss of the records, Yalira had little to move into Andar's chambers. What she did have—dresses, shawls, and baubles—Andar watched her collect with wary eyes. She could feel each of his breaths on her shoulder, each muscle twitch as he expected some new threat lurking in her closets. It'd have felt foolish if it were not for the serpent's corpse that Oristos removed from the floor.

The walk to his side of the palace, carrying possessions that held no attachment, was quiet and starlit. A break from the stubborn, storm-cast gloom.

"If I stay," Yalira said. "I need to know the truth."

Oristos hadn't been wrong. Andar's public favor placed her in a vulnerable position. And Yalira hadn't been wrong, either. She had few allies left in the city. She swallowed. Yalira would never again submit to a goddess, never fall into the comfortable prison of tradition, but she knew her strengths. Truth the mightiest of them.

"I've never lied to you, Yalira."

There was no flash of oleander, no choking ash against her tongue, but Yalira could hear the steadiness of his voice. Andar's attention was anchored to her, his golden eyes sincere and direct. Yalira did not have the whispers of power from Antala to guide her, but she still recognized the human signs of deception and Andar did not wear them.

"But neither have you been entirely true."

He smiled faintly at that.

"We are equals in that regard."

Even tucked in the cool blanket of night, Yalira felt warmth rise to her cheeks. A novice in deceit she'd started, but Andar only knew the barest fraction of her liar's tongue. He'd teased at her sarcasm, her reluctance to answer him directly. Andar had not realized she'd spun the deepest of treacheries. How could he? She was something that should not exist: a truth priestess who could deceive.

They passed the carved entry to his rooms. The smell of ink and parchment tickled at her nose.

"Shall we trade truths, then?" Yalira asked. Her words lacked the goading of their previous games. She did not want trivialities; she wanted everything.

Bronze eyes narrowed, Andar read her clearly. He nodded and gestured to the benches before the fresh-tended hearth, the fortified wine set before it. Yalira inhaled deeply, to steady herself, and placed her pile of belongings on the cushioned edge before sitting. Andar smiled, a touch rueful, as he sat across from her and poured their glasses. She felt the shift, too. The truth liked to change the course of perception, and their new balance was already precarious.

"Why do I feel I'll need something stronger for this game?" he asked, leaning to hand her glass.

Careful to avoid touching his skin, Yalira accepted the drink. She brought it to her lips, playing for time as she bullied her reluctance into submission.

"Because I've committed acts no High Priestess should be capable of," she said, meeting his gaze above the dark wine.

"And what are those acts?"

His tone was mild, but his brows lowered slightly, shading his golden eyes so that she could not see into him. Though he was languid across the lines of the bench, leaning his head against his hand, the taut readiness that lived in each of his sinews hummed.

"Lie. Doubt." She forced herself to hold his gaze. She expected to shock him. "Kill."

But he surprised her. His eyes remained hard, but his lips curved as if he enjoyed a private jest. "I think you're hardly the first, Yalira."

The flintiness of his words sent a fissure of irritation through her, a strange shuddering anticipation. "What do you know, Andar?"

But he would only meet her halfway. "Give me your confession, sweet priestess,"

So be it.

"Your child, Sasha's babe. He was not stillborn," Yalira said. The truth did not make her spirit any lighter, but Andar's stony patience made it possible to bear. "Though it'd have been more merciful if he had."

A pause. Andar's jaw tightened. Through her eyelashes, she watched the pieces fall into place. Sudden, cold understanding.

"The babe left at the steps of Carthas? The monster?"

"Yes."

His throat bobbed as he swallowed, the only fracture in his stoic mask.

"I suspected so." Andar met her eyes and softly asked, "Did you kill him?"

Yalira did not flinch. A murderer she might be, but guilt did not follow. "It seemed the kindest thing I could do."

Andar sighed. He drained his glass in determined swallows before pouring another. Running a hand through his hair, the gesture sending a cascade of firelight through it, he stood. Cast in golds and shadows, the vibrating weight of the truth could no longer be contained within him. With a soft breath, Andar of Tyr told her everything.

"Two years ago, I received a message from Antalis. From your predecessor."

Thais.

"I admit. I had written to the temple in desperation." His mouth twisted in self-loathing, as if he disliked that there had been a moment in which he'd been weak enough to seek aid. "I wanted answers. I wanted a cure."

He confirmed her suspicions. She answered her own query: "This was not the first monstrous child."

"One of many."

His forthcoming words, both open and reluctant, egged her forward. "And Cato?"

If her guess surprised if Andar, he did not show it. He turned to the hearth, eyes fixed to the glowing embers. "When I was young, my mother feared I'd never sire a son. She suspected my friendship with Oristos would destroy any chance of legacy."

Yalira knew to which friendship he referred, to which affection he dare not fully voice. She had assumed it had been an unforgiving father who'd pushed a son into the arms of tutors of intimacy, but this shadow of a calculating mother stretched further than she'd realized.

"She meant to change me, by sending me to whores, to Daughters of Olia, to any noblewoman trusted to keep quiet." His teeth flashed viciously in the firelight. "She could not change me, but it was not Oristos that sullied her visions of heirs."

Yalira's lips burned with questions, but she held her tongue with another swallow of wine. In her forced patience, Andar paced, and truths followed his pressured footsteps.

"One illegitimate son: the product of her machinations. And then an army of royal monsters to follow."

The dancing light sent shadows across his face, throwing his features into alternating severity and softness. His voice was conflicted, edged in mockery and pain, but his hands did not loose from fists. "I sought hundreds of physicians, surgeons, healers. I've tried every therapy, every herb, every hope, but this affliction still lies, wretched and foul, within me. I begged Antalis for a cure." The word seemed foreign on his lips and as dark as the basest swear. "Months of letters without a reply."

"And then an answer?" Yalira asked, gentle as twilight.

He shook his head. "Your Thais taunted me with it. She wrote of a treatment, but refused to share its knowledge. Cursed, she called me." He laughed, dark and ugly. "Still, I begged!"

Dread crept into her stomach, sent its creeping tendrils across her skin. Yalira dreamt of stopping him, suddenly fearful of what his honesty might mean, of how the world might change. But it was too late for dreams: fierce as the winter sea, Andar could not be stopped.

"I was only half-truthful when I said I took Antalis for the danger it represented: the manipulations of false prophets."

"The other half?" Yalira caught herself leaning inches forward, as if she might sooner know for the effort.

He did not answer.

"I do not know of any cure," she said, pushing softly. "I do not believe Thais knew one either."

"No," Andar answered. A growling sigh ripped through him. "I wanted to destroy the woman who made me beg, but I marched on Antalis because Thais dao Nadira asked me to."

Yalira's pulse pounded in her ears, her mouth dried to sand and ashes. As if she were still trapped in the garden, bathed in the brassy light of morning, she could smell blood and fire, she could hear Tala's screams. Heedless of her distress, Andar did not spare from the truth. She could not fault him: she had demanded it.

"Your High Priestess wrote of corruption and darkness. She wrote of girls torn from their families and led to slaughter. She wrote of you, destined to die, and the incredible guilt she felt for it. 'Hemlock,' she wrote, 'is a death easier than I deserve. Easier than the one I leave Yalira, loved by the people.'"

"And she wrote of prophecy. She promised the fall of Antalis would mean its redemption and would end my curse." His face was brutal. "And so I burned it to the ground."

Her mouth moved faster than her thoughts. "The elders," she whispered. "If you knew their involvement, why did you allow them to live?"

"Because you asked."

He did not wait for her question. Muted in the glowing hearth, he radiated a fiery passion as he crept nearer. Hoarse, he confessed, "I knew you before I saw you. Yalira who climbed the temple walls to walk amongst Antalis. Yalira who questioned the injustices of the world. Yalira who dreamed of more. Thais promised your death, and I mourned your loss."

Her fingers, empty of oleander, could not taste truth. Her flesh, free from Antala, gave no answer. And despite the absent goddesses, there was no doubt in her. Andar of Tyr had marched on Antalis to act its savior.

She could not keep the bitterness from finding the corners of her words. "And when I was alive, whole and furious, you assumed I was a part of the corruption."

His mouth flickered into a frown; his eyes searched hers. Brilliant and burning, they did not flicker, did not falter. Thais, dead at her own hands. Antalis, crumbled into its own treacherous foundation. The priestesses, its only untarnished pieces, lost forever.

"Can you forgive me?"

"No," Yalira answered. Truth echoed. Brutal and violent and callous. Educated and passionate and just. Two halves—like fire, like the sea—in constant opposition, in constant harmony. "But I understand you."

His smile did not reach the hard gold of his eyes. Andar retreated: he returned to the safety of the bench across from her, readopted taunting mockery.

"Have I satisfied your thirst for truth, then?"

Yes, she ached to say. Thais's letters had prepared her for the shock of Andar's confession: she had been ready to meet that revelation. But she had no callus against the next.

"What happened to the last of Antalis?" she asked, words faint and brittle. "What fate met the last of my priestesses?"

A/N:

Happy New Year! A few hours early on this update as I head into my next set of shifts.

Raise your hand if you saw it coming. 

I've borrowed hemlock, the infamous plant responsible for the death of Socrates, to explain the sudden and unexpected death of Yalira's mentor. While Socrates was condemned to death due to accusations of moral corruption and impiety, Thais was her own judge, jury, and executioner. 

I'm not super happy with this group of updates, so let me know if certain bits vibe or don't vibe with you :)