Oleander

XV. Horizon (part one)

If asked, Yalira would not have been able to truthfully say that she had ever felt safe within the marble prison of the high city's palace.

As the glassy, slitted eyes of the goat's head stared back at her, Yalira decided that, in hindsight, there had been some semblance of security. There had to have been, for in the unblinking stare of the mutilated creature, it was now torn away.

Yalira held to her resolve.

This was just a message, a threat. Evil and foul, but no deeper than an attempt to frighten her. For a buck's head was a clear symbol of Carthas, a promise of death.

But who?

Yalira immediately jumped to accuse Valen. The Prynian queen had made no effort to hide her dislike, her desire to see Yalira out of Semyra. But that was emotion's voice. For Valen was busy complaining over her dinner with Dezma and Sasha.

She had only heard those voices—perhaps more of the queens sat with them? Did trembling Avalyn hide a vicious nature? Did quiet Xaisha loathe another queen standing in the way?

It was a man who ran, Yalira reminded herself. Surely a queen could hire someone to place a goat's head in her rooms, but were there more enemies to consider? Despite his smiles, his unassuming manner, Rodan's familiarity with twisting words filled Yalira with suspicious dislike. And he'd been missing from the forum, hadn't he? But the runner had been swift, surefooted. Rodan could not run, but would the palace turn a blind eye to a smiling Lyroc? Lyroc bore no limp and had made his feelings for Yalira known more than once. Was he the type of enemy that would leave a carcass in her bed?

Could Andar have asked one of his men to deliver this hideous gift?

As much as Yalira wanted to blame him for the act, she could not find a sound reason. For the first time, Andar of Tyr was not a target for blame. The realization left a sour taste in her mouth. It did not settle.

But for what purpose?

It seemed petty, this threat. While the high city was filled with those who might fight with childish viciousness, this ugly message was less than she would have expected.

Any breath that might have sparked a scream held fast within her chest, coiled around her ribs. With slow steps, Yalira moved toward the bed, toward the tucked corner that hid the pages of prophecies. Ignoring the carnage, her fingers slipped between to meet the edge of bound vellum.

Relief, discordant and loud against the silent bleated warning, ripped through her. That comfort was short-lived. Yalira, caught in dread's thrall, watched her hands move.

The thin tome opened to its center, to blank pages.

To a tucked away note that was not the confession she had hidden there.

Unsteady fingers unfolded the page, traced the words that she whispered.

Ends of beginnings, beginnings of ends!

Your words, Prophet Queen. His end is your beginning.

Find us.

This was not a message from Thais, not guidance from a nostalgic past. A sharp hand on papyrus: this was not a threat, not a warning. And yet it filled Yalira with the same foreboding as the goat in her bed. This was danger of another kind—a danger that used her words, her first prophecy, in tempting treason.

And Thais's letter was gone.

In promised coercion.

A king with a hale bastard son, but a mountain of broken heirs. Decades of lies built in the truth goddess's name. Queens with lovely faces that hid secrets. A monster who loved his people. And now decapitated livestock in her bed, hints of blackmail and regicide scrawled next to her prophecy of endings.