Page 150 of The Oracle of Dusk

Aurora rested her head on the bark of the tree at her side.

She needn’t think of such things. Those were decisions she didn’t yet have the luxury of making. Drakon still needed to be destroyed. Theron’s fate needed to be altered. After all, according to the histories, he was the first monarch to perish in the initial cycle of calamity. If she stayed, would she be able to alter his doomed course? She’d managed to alter it already, marrying him in place of the princess he was supposed to wed. But what if the histories had simply been incorrect all along and she’d changed nothing? What if, like her visions, she’d be forced to watch his death play out, no matter how hard she struggled against it?

Perhaps it was time to tell him everything. About who she really was, where—and when—she’d come from. About his ultimate fate, about the course of history. After all, the kind of love she wanted to share with him had no place for secrets. Aurora didn’t know if what she felt for him was love yet, but it was achingly close. Even now, Passion’s bond was like a tether between them. In this lifetime and in all her others, she was meant to find him. It was a comforting thought that though there was great evil meant for her, there was goodness too. She could only hope he would take the news of her origins half as well as Hyllus had. If he didn’t… she didn’t want to contemplate what her married life would look like.

Aurora chuckled softly to herself.

It would have been better to go back to bed, if staying awake was only going to make her morose. Just as she decided to seek her husband’s warmth, the sound of a cane clicking on the mosaic floors of the temple caught her attention. There, in the gloom, Orithyia appeared like a wraith, draped in the deepest black of her high priestess’ robes.

“I’d hoped I might find you here,” she said, pulling back her veil to hang behind her, attached to the silver and black tiara atop her white, braided hair.

Aurora stood, squaring her shoulders and bracing for a fight. She was no longer the scared, lost girl who had come to her for aid. She was the queen of Aureum now, and she would not let this woman harm her again.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“If you’re going to be a queen in more than name, you’ll need to learn to lie better than that.” Orithyia chuckled.

“What do you want?” Aurora seethed.

“I see his temper has rubbed off on you. But you have nothing to be cross about,” Orithyia chided her.

“You left me to rot in the vivarium!”

“After you broke into my private chamber, raving like a madwoman.” Orithyia raised a brow.

“Then what was your excuse to maim me?” She motioned to her eye.

Even now, Aurora feared the woman’s switch. Her flesh had been fully healed and yet Aurora still remembered the panic, the agony. Invisible scars that would linger for a lifetime. She hated the fear this woman inspired in her, how now every crack of thunder brought her back to that horrid day.

“During the outbreak of plague? You dawdled while people died. Your reticence was costing lives I could have been saving. And in any case, you were seducing the Aurean king. I had every confidence you would be healed within the hour.”

Aurora heart hammered with anger. She was so blasé about the suffering she’d caused.

“And what of your cruelties in Flora’s throne room?”

At every juncture, Orithyia had chosen to harm her. Never once had she chosen kindness or compassion. Always she chose pain.

“You’d made it impossible to conceal your magic, screaming for days before the monstrosities had appeared what would occur. I held that demonstration to save your life. What would have been more believable—a worshipper of the sinister Triad receiving messages from their goddesses, or a true oracle? That demonstration proved what you are—and what you were not. Are you complaining because it hurt?”

Aurora swallowed her angry tears. It was quite rich for someone protected by a goddess from ever suffering more than a papercut to chide her for despising pain.

“And the princess? What excuse did you have to separate her from Hyllus?”

Orithyia laughed. Aurora reviled her in that moment. Aurora’s hurts were but drops in an ocean of pain that Epicasta had suffered. Three unwanted marriages, her body used like a bargaining chip as the life of the man she loved was used as a cudgel to force her obedience. Years of agonizing heartbreak and horror. And for what?

“You mean the only other woman capable of keeping her mother in line?Thatprincess? The same Epicasta who was wise beyond her years and intelligent enough to win the title of crown princess in spite of being the youngest of four? Why do you think, Aurora? Was it because I’m a cruel old bitch, or because the well-being of the queendom was more important than the heart of a single woman?”

She raised her brow, triumphant.

“So you don’t deny it?”

“Did I help Flora imprison Hyllus far away from Epicasta? Yes. A prison he escaped soon after, never to darken the doors of the royal palace again—until recently. I allowed her to believe he was still in custody rather than let her know he’d abandoned her, because only one of those outcomes ensured she would stay in the palace. I did what had to be done to keep Epicasta where she was needed most.”

Aurora glared at the high priestess.

“I don’t believe that.”

“You lived in the vivarium, Aurora. Yes, I know what it is called. I didn’t realise how dreadful it was until after the attack. That is something I deeply regret.” Orithyia sighed. “Flora is…unwell. She has always been unwell. I’ve spent a lifetime doing my utmost to keep her darkest impulses at bay, or at least mitigate them. I thought, with a strict and steady hand, I could help her overcome her character flaws—give Viridis the monarch it needed. Alas, her flaws ran so deep and were so destructive that all I could do was race from one fire to the next, putting them out as best I was able.”

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