Oleander

XVI. Dreams (part two)

Andar's mouth was a slash of anger and grief.

"I cannot let my city die, Yalira."

This was a creature who fought against men, who destroyed cities in a single night, who broke apart the world to build his empire. The tendons in his arms tightened and loosed, empty of a weapon—and this was not an enemy he could defeat in strength and violence.

"My advisors call to end the threat," Andar continued, his voice low.

To burn out the source. To abandon the people.

He did not need to speak the words. Yalira could hear the voices of his advisors, dispassionate and removed, order to cut away the infection before it could escalate. The men who disdained the slums, Andar's refugees, the poor and the other. She could hear Oristos, reluctant but logical, agree with their arguments.

It would ravage Semyra if it spread past the slums. And it would spread—to the barracks, to the market quarter, to the high city—for disease only began with the most vulnerable. The forum did not see the lives, only the probabilities. It would spread, and they had no cure save execution.

All stubbornness and spirit, Yalira's frown grew a hard edge. She was not unarmed in this battle.

"Let me try."

As the words left her lips, as she caught Rishi's narrowed gaze, Yalira realized what the queen had wanted her to understand. There was power in refusing to fight Eheia's shadow. She could let his people die and let plague and pestilence fester into the blade that would overthrow a tyrant.

Yalira moved to him, to the path he blocked, and met his gaze with furious determination.

"First, let me try."

A pause.

The space between them pulsed, silent understanding and desperate hope, as he wrapped his fingers around her wrist. It was them, alone. He guided her through the palace, to a waiting Shadow for a flight into the slums, into the dying heart of the source. A chance to survey the damage before burning away a limb of his city.

The blue of the sky, the warmth of the sunlight. It hardly seemed right for the world to glow in such brightness when death breathed through the city. As if Eheia had already claimed her due, the streets were empty and silent. Dark news traveled on swift wings.

As the clean lime-wash became the worn facades of the slums, scattered doors bore new plumage. Among barricaded windows, scarlet gleamed at the entries.

Without words, without guidance, Andar steered their course to follow the fresh lines of water to the altar. If there was hope, it would be there.

A bloody smear marked the door.

Death, it screamed.

Though they dismounted, and he let her step towards the unguarded, marked altar doors, Andar grabbed her arm in unyielding fingers. Burning gold flashed in wariness, darting to wan faces that peered from shadows. Loved though he was, Andar was not so arrogant to underestimate the danger of desperation and fear. The heady threat of it dominated the abandoned streets, a lull before the inevitable storm.

"Let me try," Yalira whispered. In the eerie silence, her words were strong. The bond of his grip fractured and fell, twisting into her hair, pulling her mouth to his, robbing her of that determined spirit in a blistering kiss. Desperate hope mingled with lingering ashes, muted oleander.

He pressed his forehead to hers and breaths intertwined.

"One chance, Yalira. Three days. That is all I can give you."