8. Navuh
NAVUH
N avuh let Annani believe she had won.
For a few seconds.
She had, of course, in every way that counted.
He wasn't in the habit of lying to himself about facts, and the facts were that she had Khiann, or rather the chest that contained him, and that she'd crippled his island and killed his leverage, the one thing that was supposed to make him worth more alive than dead.
He had gambled and lost.
But Annani did not have the chests yet, and he was not done tormenting her. He was an expert on preying on others' fears.
Under the triumph and the perfected regal aloofness, under the five thousand years of grief, forged into a weapon and pointed at him, he had seen fear.
Annani was afraid of what she was getting back.
Was Khiann even alive in that chest? And if he was, was his brain intact after five thousand years in stasis? Would he remember her when he was revived?
Could he be revived?
Navuh did not have the answers for any of these questions.
He had never had Khiann examined. He had dug the god out of the sand, confirmed by the faint persistence of the body that the spark had not gone out, sealed him into a container that preserved his body, and buried him again where no one would think to look.
He had not cared. Khiann had been an asset, a coin kept in a vault, and checking carried a risk that Navuh had preferred to avoid.
But Annani did not know that.
"Nothing to say?" Annani asked. "I expected more from you. A denial, a threat, something."
"What would be the use of a threat?" Navuh said. "You have described my situation accurately. There is nothing I can threaten you with. You are correct in every respect." He let his gaze rest on her, unhurried. "I am simply thinking."
"About what?"
"About Khiann." He said the name, and watched, and there it was again, the flicker, quickly hidden. "Of the long years I had him. Five thousand of them, give or take. That is a very long time, Annani."
She went still, and he savored it, because it was the only thing left to him to savor.
"So? What are you trying to say? That you know something I do not?"
"Perhaps." Navuh did not say anything more.
That was the art of things unsaid. To claim knowledge outright was to invite a test, a test he would fail because he had no knowledge to offer.
But to imply it, to let the implication hang in the air and allow her own fear to fill it in, that cost him nothing.
"It is a curious thing, stasis. You will learn about it now, I suppose, you and your clever physicians.
You will learn what five thousand years do.
I confess I am almost sorry I will not be there to see your face when you open those chests. "
"You do not know anything about stasis," Annani said, but there was doubt behind the words now, doubt that he had put there. "And you know nothing of Khiann's condition because you've never bothered to check. He was just your contingency plan."
"Maybe." Navuh inclined his head. "Perhaps I know nothing.
Perhaps I am just grasping at the one thing that might trouble you, since I have nothing else.
That is entirely possible, and you would be wise to assume it.
" He paused and let the pause do its work.
"Or perhaps I held your husband for five thousand years, and I know something about what is coming home to you that you do not.
" He delivered the blade, soft as silk. "And I am choosing, out of the small spite that is all you have left me, not to tell you.
You can't be certain which. You will sit at his side while he sleeps, and you will wonder.
Every hour you wait for him to wake, you will wonder what I know that you do not.
That is my gift to you, Annani. It is a small thing, but it is the last gift I have to give, and I give it freely. "
He watched it hit home, saw her fighting not to let it penetrate, and he knew with cold satisfaction that it had. He had put a splinter into her that would cause her pain and fester until Khiann either woke up or didn't.
It would not free him. It would not restore anything he had lost. But it would ride home with her, and sit with her at the bedside, and trouble her rest, and that was something.
In the ruin of everything, it was something.
"You're full of shit, Navuh," Kian said. "You are a spiteful little male, using the only thing left to you, but my mother is too smart to let your poison affect her."
Navuh shrugged, but Kian's words hit exactly where he'd aimed them.
"You are being moved," Kian continued.
"Moved where?"
"Out of here. We need Hildegard and Bridget to take care of the five males in stasis, and you are no longer in critical condition.
We are moving you into an apartment in the dungeon.
It is very comfortable, and even my sister stayed there for a while when she insisted on keeping her mate company.
You will not suffer there." Kian's mouth curved in a sardonic smile.
"Since you cannot yet care for yourself, you'll still need someone to care for you, and we found a perfect solution for that. "
Navuh felt the first thread of unease.
"A new nurse?" he asked.
"As I said, we need all the medical staff we have. Areana will take care of you. She will move into the apartment with you, and she will tend to you."
Navuh had managed to keep his composure through the devastating news that Annani had Khiann and he had lost his only bargaining chip, but he had been expecting that for some time now.
This was different.
What Kian had outlined was not a strategic loss to be absorbed but a personal degradation that struck at his core, and the calculating part of him did not govern that.
Areana, his queen, his truelove mate, would be forced to be his nurse.
Areana was to be the one who lifted him to the toilet, because he could not yet lift himself, who cleaned him, who bore witness to every humiliation of a body that would not serve its owner.
Every indignity he suffered would happen in front of the one person before whom he least wished to be diminished.
"No," Navuh said before he could stop himself.
Kian raised an eyebrow.
Navuh mastered himself and reached for reason, for his strategist's tone.
"It is not suitable work for her. Areana is not built for that kind of labor.
Give me a Guardian. A strong male who will not think twice about such tasks.
That is the sensible arrangement. Areana is...
" He stopped because he did not have a way to finish the sentence without exposing more than he wished.
"Areana is your mate," Kian said, "and she loves you, though the Fates alone know why, and she will do this for you because people who love one another do not shy away from difficult tasks when their loved one requires them.
" Kian was plainly enjoying this, and he did not trouble to hide it.
"You will not have a Guardian. You will have her. The transfer happens today."
Navuh didn't respond because nothing he said would change the verdict.
"I'll send Hildegard in to prepare you." Kian signaled to the blond, stoic Guardian to open the door.
Annani and Kian turned to go, the goddess with her hidden fear, taking the splinter with her wedged deep as he'd intended, and the son with his petty triumph and his open contempt.
The door closed behind them.
A moment later Hildegard came back in.
"Well," she said. "It seems this is goodbye. They're moving you this afternoon, and I'm going home, so you'll not be seeing me again. Are you going to miss me?"
He grimaced. "Terribly."