Oleander

XVII. Legacy (part three)

Hands trembling as they unfolded it, three leaves, a dark berry, and a withered flower, fell from the page. Nightshade.

The same nightshade she'd used in all of the brewed anti-purgatives over the past six days. The same deadly leaves she had boiled—careful to not breathe its toxic steam—into pastes and salves. She had burned away the bulk of poison, diluted the remains, and had used the barest traces in their medicines.

The same nightshade that could kill between heartbeats. Dark cousin of oleander.

Frowning, she twisted the stems in her fingers, turned towards the familiar handwriting.

Antalis stands on a crumbling foundation. Her greedy roots choke away her truth.

Where the goddess once blessed a child each year, a vessel born in her image, true oracles have become an extinct breed. Once, divine-touched girls flocked to this temple to be trained, to serve their patroness. Once, all of the priestesses shared the burden of Antala's spirit.

No longer.

One daughter each year became one daughter each five, each decade. In desperation, the elders hid the lack of tributes behind carefully worded prophecies, behind protective illiteracy and ignorance, behind the recruitment of noble daughters, behind appointed High Priestesses—the last of the goddess-touched.

We are Antala's voice, we said. We can bear the burden while we wait for the next generation of prophetesses.

No more daughters came forth with the gift. Antala left us without her offering.

And so one daughter suffered instead of twenty, instead of ten, instead of three. The heavy burden of the station claimed life after life, daughter after daughter, until only I remained.

Twenty years too long I carried her yoke alone, twenty years of pain and surrender, twenty years without a successor. And in hopeless shame and desperate confidence, I attempted to train stolen girls to share the burden, to preserve the legacy. I, Thais daughter of Nadira, stole unwanted girls from the breasts of their mothers. Daughters of whores, daughters of children, daughters of fools. I raised them on oleander and lies and sent them smilingly into the arms of the goddess.

They did not reemerge. Secretes and skeletons live beneath the bowels of Antalis.

Twenty-six girls sacrificed for the goddess of truth, for her supplicants who spin falsehood and treachery. Twenty-six dead.

I am the last touched by Antala, and so I must be the last true oracle of her city.

To preserve its legacy, it must be destroyed. And I with it.

I have put the pieces in motion. I have made promises that cannot be fulfilled. I have laid the kindling and blown sparks into the embers.

The last true words of Antala, the last words of her true oracle:

Embrace the unknown, Antalis. Embrace the unknown, daughter of Eheia.

She marks the end.

And so I, Thais dao Nadira, last High Priestess, embrace the unknown. I embrace my successor, born of Eheia, bringer of death.

The twenty-seventh daughter soon to join her sisters beneath the mountain.

She re-read each word. Blinked her eyes, mouthed the letters. She told herself her head injury was worse than she'd realized. Her mind was confused, her vision impaired. She argued that the sharp bitterness in her mouth was not the memory of oleander, but the metallic traces of blood left from Tala's blows.