Chapter 2 Losham
LOSHAM
The backyard looked like a war zone.
Losham stood at the edge of the collapsed area, watching the devastation he'd caused.
A crater had opened in the manicured lawn, swallowing the carefully tended flowerbeds and decorative pathways that his father had installed during the mansion's last renovation, which had been done not too long ago.
In fact, it had been completed just recently, and then only because the mansion had gotten priority over nearly everything else that had been damaged during the rebellion.
Luckily, Navuh wasn't around to see this because his rage would have been one for the ages.
The edges of the hole were still crumbling as Losham watched, more dirt and debris sliding into the darkness below.
At least the mansion was still standing.
It was damaged, with cracks running up the exterior walls, and one of the decorative columns flanking the back entrance was toppling, but those things were superficial and easy to fix.
The collapse had been largely contained to the basement area directly beneath the backyard, where the glass enclosure had been built.
Small mercies.
"My lord." Rami walked up to him, a tablet clutched in his hands.
He'd already removed the bandage from his forehead.
The deep gash inflicted by flying debris from the explosion was mostly healed.
"The structural engineer is requesting permission to begin his assessment. He has two assistants with him."
Losham nodded. "Tell them to be careful."
The engineer was human, and Losham didn't want any more casualties.
"Yes, my lord." Rami made a note on his tablet. "There's also the matter of the damage to the main house. Plaster has cracked in various locations, and some of the granite floor tiles have split. The engineer is saying that the foundation may have shifted."
Losham waved a dismissive hand. "This house is built like a bunker. This is less damage than what it suffered during the rebellion."
"Yes, my lord." Rami shook his head at the crater they were standing next to. "The backyard suffered a lot of damage back then, and now it's destroyed again."
Losham's thoughts turned to the tunnel beneath the mansion and the enhanced soldiers his father had entombed there after their failed coup. They were still down there, buried under tons of concrete and steel, and he wondered whether this collapse had affected their makeshift tomb.
It was an unsettling thought.
The rebels had entered stasis a long time ago, and no one woke up from stasis spontaneously without being doused with fresh water. But what if the high humidity was enough to resurrect them? What if, in addition to structural damage, a pipe had burst somewhere?
He turned to Rami. "Check the water meter and compare the readouts to those taken before the collapse. I want to make sure we don't have any burst pipes under there."
"Yes, my lord. I shall do that right away."
Navuh had sealed that tunnel with enough concrete and steel to hold back an army, so it wasn't likely that a secondary collapse would have breached those barriers. If anything, it would have added more debris to their tomb.
Still, a burst pipe could undermine the integrity of the building, so it was worth checking. And just from an abundance of caution, it would be prudent to inspect the tunnel itself.
"Also, have a team inspect the seals," Losham said. "The ones my father installed after the rebellion. I want confirmation that they're still intact."
Rami arched a brow, but he didn't question the order. "Yes, my lord. I'll ask the engineer to check them."
After his assistant left, Losham regarded the crater for a few more moments before turning away from it and heading back to the mansion. The cleanup would take weeks, and the repairs even longer.
The only saving grace was that Navuh was gone.
Losham didn't mind the mess as he picked his way through the debris that littered the once-pristine lawn.
He didn't care about the resources required for the repairs either.
The only thing he cared about was keeping up the pretense that his father was still around and was running things from the harem.
For now, the gas leak story seemed to be holding. The guards had spread the word, and with Dave's reinforcements, people seemed to have accepted the explanation without question.
A few of the more senior commanders had given Losham skeptical looks, but none had challenged him openly.
Not yet, anyway.
He was almost to the back entrance when his phone buzzed in his pocket. Then buzzed again. The vibrations were coming so rapidly that they blended into one continuous hum.
Losham pulled out the device and stared at the screen.
UNIVERSAL ALERT. PRIORITY ALPHA
His blood went cold.
Priority Alpha alerts were reserved for the most critical communications—declarations of war, imminent threats to the island, or urgent messages directly from Navuh himself. Even the rebellion hadn't merited that. In fact, Losham hadn't seen one in years.
He opened the message with trembling fingers.
To all my sons,
A traitor has sprung the traps I've set up, which means that I'm either dead or compromised, and that the traitor is most likely one of you.
It is your duty to identify the traitor and deal with him accordingly. Those who are currently off island are to return immediately and join your brothers in the investigation.
You are to form a council and arrive at all decisions unanimously. If even one disagrees, negotiations are to continue until you are all in agreement.
Follow my instructions, and more will arrive later. Disobey them and suffer the consequences.
Your father, Lord Navuh
The words blurred before Losham's eyes. He read them again, then a third time, his mind struggling to contain his rising panic.
This was impossible.
His father was dead. Had been dead for weeks, his body presumably rotting at the bottom of the cliff he'd thrown himself from, but he had planned all this in advance as if knowing precisely what would happen…
The shaman.
He must have seen the future and warned Navuh.
But if Elias had seen the future, he would have known that Losham hadn't betrayed Navuh. He hadn't been the one who had ended his life. He was just trying to hold the Brotherhood together as best he could. He was doing precisely what Navuh would have wanted him to do.
Even breaching the enclosure made sense if Navuh was dead. Whatever was in there belonged to the Brotherhood, and Losham needed to find out what it was. Wasn't that what a leader was supposed to do?
The other option was that Navuh wasn't dead at all, and that he had staged all of this and was now watching from the shadows, waiting to see what his sons would do in his absence.
It fit Navuh's personality to devise such an elaborate test—to disappear and let his heirs think they were free to start their game of thrones.
Perhaps Navuh's objective was to find the most suitable successor, and then to reveal himself when the right son rose above the others, or conversely, at the moment of maximum chaos, in case the situation devolved into an all-out war between the brothers.
Losham's phone resumed buzzing, with more messages coming in—responses from his brothers, no doubt.
With hands that shook more than slightly, he scrolled through the messages.
His brothers were reacting to the alert with various degrees of confusion and alarm.
Some demanded explanations. Others announced they were booking immediate flights back to the island.
A few accused each other of being the traitor mentioned in the alert.
Chaos.
And Losham was standing at the center of it, covered in dust from the explosion he'd caused, surrounded by evidence of his attempt to breach their father's secrets.
Was there a way to still save the house of cards he had built?
Would Dave be able to turn this shipwreck around?
Losham forced himself to take a breath. Then another.
Panic wouldn't help him now. He needed to think, to plan, to find a way out of this trap before it enclosed him completely.
He walked into the mansion and took in the damage with a critical eye.
Cracks ran through the plaster walls like the mansion itself was bleeding.
Several of the ornate light fixtures had fallen from the ceiling, leaving tangles of wire and broken glass scattered across the cracked granite floors.
A fine layer of dust covered everything, turning the once-immaculate space into what looked like a war zone.
Fitting. His father had abandoned this place when he'd thrown himself off that cliff, had left Losham to pick up the pieces, and with that alert had declared an outright war between his sons.
Navuh had instructed them to form a council and take all decisions unanimously, but Losham knew that would never work.