Oleander

XVI. Dreams (part one)

"They say the goddesses spin a thread for each of us."

Light poured into the temple antechamber, setting flecks of floating dust aglow like tiny embers. Bathed in the haze of sunlight, the High Priestess of Antalis did not smile as she spoke. Despite the waves of her silver hair, the memories of joy etched into the lines of her skin, there was no gentleness in the woman, no matronly softness. Thin as the reed she twirled between her fingers, Thais dao Nadira inspired fearful obedience from her audience of acolytes.

"Some of us have long, winding threads." The girls avoided her sharp gaze as she walked between them. To be caught and measured in that piercing scale, to be seen and weighed by the High Priestess, was as terrifying as facing Antala herself. "Others weak." Tala blushed. "Or short." Nadya paled. "Or frayed." Tamren fidgeted.

"But they're all woven together with careful intent."

Without pause, Thais circled Audre, who seemed to sink into the floor, desperate for the earth to swallow her. With the reed, Thais corrected the girl's slouching posture. The tap of its stinging edge did not interrupt the lesson.

"Only Eheia, the weaver of death and dreams, and Antala, who sees all things, know the full tapestry. They alone see whether our threads run in parallel, never to touch, or if they twist together and join for eternity. The goddesses—"

"What if the thread is wrong?"

Miles and memories away, Yalira flinched. Her childish voice echoed with innocent petulance.

"Wrong?" Thais towered over her and, even in the phantom-grip of dream, she smelled of oleander and dulcamara. "Do you think the goddesses can be wrong? Or do you think that bastard-born girls know better than the divine?"

The laughter of the High Priestess was acidic, sharper than the slap of her reed. Humiliation scalded her cheeks, burned away her voice. Or at least, that was how it had happened, that morning's lesson as an acolyte.

Dream diverged from memory.

"I only mean, what if you dislike your thread?"

Thais dao Nadira rippled, her edges as insubstantial as the light and shadows that enveloped her, her voice as faint as smoke, as deep as water.

"I wonder where your thread will lead, Yalira dao Eheia. Will you follow it to the end?"

In her bed, free of any traces of goat heads and treasonous messages, she woke with sudden clarity. Sleep had come reluctantly in the aftermath of Andar's truths, his motivations and delusion, but it had come, and with it had followed the strangeness of dreams. The names of now dead sisters, the embarrassment she'd felt before them. Hadn't they laughed with the High Priestess all those years ago?

Don't be foolish, Yalira, Thais had chided. All mortals follow their threads.

There had been no question of choice. The High Priestess had fixed her unflinching gaze upon her someday successor and, in the privacy after lessons, slapped her hands raw for interrupting. The message had been clear: there was no room for doubt in the service of Antala.

In the wake of sharp memory, her palms stung, itched with restlessness.

We are not in Antalis, Yalira reminded herself. Though the thought did not soothe her. Full of doubt, she had no thread in Semyra. Was she a bridle on Andar's onslaught of the known world? A bastard turned priestess turned queen? Or was she a conspirer against him? A hidden knife?

Weak, short, frayed—was this a warning, a sign? Was there no destiny for Yalira of Tyr?

She reached into the secret confines of the bed frame, retrieving the tome that bore her name. She had not thought it important to read that night she'd spent pouring through the prophecies of Antalis. These were her words. Or else they were the worthless manipulations of her words. Regardless, she knew them well. Even in their familiarity, dreams spurred her searching fingers.