Chapter 27 Annani
ANNANI
Darius squirmed in Jacki's arms, his small face scrunched in displeasure as he let out a series of unhappy whimpers.
"Shh, shh." Jacki bounced him against her shoulder, patting his back in a soothing rhythm. "I know, sweetheart. I know."
Annani watched her great-nephew fuss and wriggle, fighting his small body's need to sleep. Little ones were sensitive to the moods of those around them, and the anxiety permeating the penthouse seemed to affect him.
"We should take him home," Jacki said. "He needs his nap, and he's not going to fall asleep here. He's just getting crankier the longer we wait."
"Not yet." Kalugal rose to his feet and took the boy from her. "I want to hear how it went." He started pacing the living room with Darius.
The gleam of anticipation in Kalugal's eyes bordered on glee. He expected Kian to return triumphant and couldn't wait to hear how badly his father had been humiliated.
Kalugal and Lokan had many good reasons to resent their father, and the desire to see their father brought down was natural. But Annani had been defending her people from Navuh for a millennium, and she knew not to underestimate her opponent.
"I'll make more tea," Carol offered, rising to her feet. "Is the coconut tea okay, or do you want something else?"
"The coconut is fine." Areana stood up as well. "I think I saw cookies in the pantry. They might even have coconut in them to match the tea." She followed Carol to the kitchen.
The minutes stretched on as Kalugal paced the room with Darius in his arms, the baby's head resting on his shoulder, his thumb in his little mouth, and his eyelids at half-mast.
Perhaps Kalugal would succeed in putting him to sleep.
But then the penthouse front door opened, Kian walked in, and Darius lifted his head off his father's shoulder and looked at Kian with curiosity in his sleepy eyes.
Annani regarded him with worry.
Kian's face was drawn, and he moved like a man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. This was not the expression of someone who had just delivered devastating news to his enemy. This was the expression of a man who had been on the receiving end of bad news.
"What happened?" she asked.
Kian ran a hand through his hair. "Navuh confirmed that Khiann is in the glass enclosure as we suspected."
"Then why do you look like someone has died?" Kalugal asked.
"Because knowing that doesn't help us." Kian walked over to the armchair Kalugal had vacated moments ago and sat down. "The enclosure is booby-trapped. It's designed to destroy everything inside if anyone tries to breach it without inputting the codes that only Navuh knows."
Annani felt as if she had been hit in the chest and all the air had been expelled from her lungs. "What do you mean by destroy?"
"The glass is specially treated. It resists cutting, drilling, extreme heat, and direct impact. Any attempt to open it without the disarmament codes triggers a failsafe. Khiann and the others would be reduced to dust."
"That's convenient." Kalugal transferred Darius back to Jacki. "Navuh is creating a false sense of urgency to spur us into action. Classic manipulation to make us agree to his terms quickly before we have time to think it through or find another way."
Kian shook his head. "That doesn't make sense given the bargain he offered. He specifically said he would be freed only after we recover Khiann. If we don't get Khiann, Navuh doesn't get his freedom. It's in his best interest that we get Khiann. He has no reason to lie."
"He has every reason to lie," Kalugal countered. "He wants to control the timeline. Wants us scrambling and desperate instead of methodical and careful."
"There's more." Kian's expression grew grimmer. "Losham, or whoever is running things on the island now, has most likely noticed the enclosure in Navuh's basement and has probably been trying to get into it since shortly after Navuh's capture."
Annani's hands gripped the arms of her chair. "If Losham breaches it without the codes—"
"The failsafe triggers, and Khiann is gone forever." Kian met her eyes. "Time is of the essence. We don't know how long the glass will hold against whatever methods Losham is using. Could be weeks. Could be days. Could be that we're already too late."
As panic rose in Annani's throat, cold and suffocating, she forced it down. She could not afford to fall apart, not now, not when so much depended on her making the right decision.
"That still doesn't make sense," Lokan said.
"Losham wouldn't tamper with Navuh's possessions unless he knew for sure that Navuh wasn't coming back.
No one on the island knows for sure what happened.
The human guards in the harem have been thralled to forget what they saw, and there were no surveillance cameras in that area of the harem. "
"How would they explain the ladies and Navuh disappearing?" Jacki asked.
"Navuh believes that Losham assumes he's dead," Areana said. "And he's covering it up somehow, pretending that Navuh has either left the island or is refusing to see anyone. That's the only explanation for why chaos hasn't erupted yet. He's not expecting Navuh to return."
"Even so," Kalugal pressed, "I don't believe Navuh would rig the enclosure to destroy Khiann.
It's not how he thinks. Khiann is his leverage, his insurance policy.
He would have designed the trap to expose whoever tampered with it, maybe even collapse the entire mansion, but he would have made sure his treasures remained intact. "
Areana shook her head. "When Navuh designed that enclosure, he couldn't have predicted the situation he's in now.
He would have assumed that no one would touch it unless he was dead.
And if he was dead..." Areana's voice caught slightly.
"He wouldn't care what happened to Khiann and the others.
They would be useless to him at that point. "
The logic was sound, and it chilled Annani to her core. Navuh's mind worked in layers of contingencies, but those contingencies were designed to serve Navuh's interests. If Navuh were dead, he had no interests left to serve. The failsafe made perfect sense from that perspective.
Kian turned to Annani. "What do you want to do? We need to act quickly, and we need Navuh's help. We can't extract Khiann without it."
"What does he suggest we do?" she asked.
"I didn't get that far." Kian grimaced. "I needed to find out what you wanted to do first. Navuh won't help us unless you vow to give him his freedom. He made that very clear."
It was an impossible decision, and yet she had to make it.
Free Navuh, the Brotherhood's leader, who had waged war against her clan and the humans the clan supported for five thousand years. He had built an empire on cruelty and conquest and had caused immense suffering, plunging the world into darkness time and again.
Free him to get Khiann back.
Refuse and lose Khiann forever.
How could she make such a choice? How could anyone?
"I need to pray," she murmured. "I need to beseech the Fates for guidance."
"Mother, we may not have time—"
"I know." She held up a hand, silencing her son. "I know time is short. But this is the most difficult decision I have ever faced, and I cannot make it alone. I need a sign."
The room fell silent. Even Darius had stopped fussing, sensing the gravity of the moment.
Annani closed her eyes and tried to center herself. She reached for the calm that usually came so easily, the connection to something greater than herself that had guided her through countless crises over the millennia.
But the calm wouldn't come. Her thoughts were too chaotic, her heart too turbulent.
She tried to remember what Syssi had told her about her vision.
There were people on the island worth saving.
Syssi had seen two couples who might be somehow connected to the unfolding events.
The Fates had shown them for a reason, perhaps just to point out that love was the strongest power in the universe, but it was also possible that they had a role to play in this.
The portal to another world they had shown Syssi, which was located on Mount Ararat, seemed unrelated to Khiann, but it was unlikely that the Fates had just randomly shown it to Syssi. The problem was that they had not explained the connection, and Annani could not begin to guess it.
She opened her eyes. "Syssi's vision showed her two human couples in love.
I think the message was that love is the most important power in the universe and should be prioritized.
Perhaps they were trying to tell me that I should choose Khiann above all other considerations.
The portal on Mount Ararat leading to another world is more of a mystery, and I cannot imagine what it was trying to tell us. "
"What does that have to do with Khiann?" Kalugal asked.
"Perhaps nothing." Annani shook her head. "Perhaps everything. The Fates rarely show us things without reason, but they also rarely make the meaning clear."
"So, what do we do?" Carol asked. "We can't just sit here and wait for divine inspiration while Losham chips away at that enclosure."
"No," Annani agreed. "We cannot."
But she couldn't bring herself to make the decision either.
Freeing Navuh would unleash his evil upon the world, and hoping for another chance to catch him was no plan. Thousands would die before they could recapture him, and untold more if the opportunity never came. All sacrificed so she could save her truelove mate.
Khiann would have done it for her. She knew that without a doubt, but then Khiann had not carried guilt for five thousand years for bringing about their people's demise and destroying the ancient world.
She had chosen love before and had broken her engagement to Mortdh to marry Khiann.
Her actions had brought about the end of the era of the gods, and the consequences had continued rippling outward in waves of destruction that still had not stopped.
Every death, every battle, every life ruined by the endless conflict could be traced back to her choice.
"I need more time," she said. "I need to think and to pray."
"How much time?" Kian asked.
"I do not know." She rose from her chair, her legs unsteady beneath her. "I will try to give you my answer by tomorrow."