5. Annani
ANNANI
Annani smoothed the blanket over Khiann's chest and fought the urge to kiss his cheek before settling back into the comfortable rocking chair Bridget had asked Turner to bring over.
"It is only a loan," the doctor had said.
"Hopefully, you won't be sitting here for more than four weeks because I will need the chair by then.
" She had patted her belly. "I intend to spend the last two weeks of my pregnancy in my rocking chair reading books about baby development.
It's been a long time since Julian was a baby. "
It was very gracious of the doctor to loan her the chair, and four weeks should be long enough for Khiann to recuperate enough to move out of the clinic and go home with her.
This morning, he had been awake for twenty-two minutes.
On Wednesday, when he first opened his eyes, he had stayed with Annani for almost as long, but that had cost him, and he had later slept for almost four hours. Since then, he had been waking for only a few minutes at a time, and the rest periods hadn't been as long either.
Still, he was making progress.
Bridget said the only thing that mattered was whether the awake times were getting longer over a week and the sleeping times shorter, and that occasional regression was nothing to worry about. That made sense, so Annani accepted it and remained optimistic.
Behind her on the far side of the room, one of the John Does was making sounds that, from a distance, could be mistaken for words.
Yesterday, she had gotten closer and tried to make sense of them, but unless he was trying to communicate in a language she did not know and had never heard before, he had been speaking like a baby and just imitating the sounds of words.
Julian had propped him up on two pillows and given him a cup with a straw. He was still too weak to hold the cup himself, but he managed to sip through the straw, which was progress.
Annani rose and went to him.
"Good morning," she said in the old tongue. "I am Annani, daughter of Ahn and Nai. You are among friends, and you are safe."
He watched her mouth as she spoke, and he seemed to understand she was trying to communicate with him, but the words meant nothing to him.
"Annani." She touched her collarbone. "Annani."
His lips moved, but nothing came out, and he made a small, frustrated sound.
"That is all right." She gently patted the back of his hand. "It will come."
She said the same thing to the second, the third, and the fourth. She had been doing it three times a day since Wednesday because it seemed important for them to hear someone speak a familiar language, even though they still could not make out the words or recognize her.
None of them had so much as blinked at her father's name.
She had been the most talked-about person of her age, and these four males had served in her father's guard before being assigned to Khiann. They should have recognized Ahn's name.
Annani went back to Khiann's bed, sat down, and started rocking.
The bargain she had made with the Fates had been Khiann's life for his memories of her. She had not said anything about the other four, so why had they lost their memories too?
It was possible it was just the effect of prolonged stasis and that the Fates had nothing to do with it, but it was also possible the bargain included Khiann and those with him.
It reminded her of the spindle-and-hedge-of-thorns story, or Sleeping Beauty, as it was now called. The whole court went down with the princess. The cook, the scullery maid, the horses in the stable, and even the flies on the wall. A hundred years of sleep because one girl had triggered a curse.
Nobody in that story had asked the cook whether she had agreed to share her princess's fate.
"I never asked for you to be included in the bargain," Annani said in the old tongue. "But if your memories were the payment the Fates demanded for your lives and minds, then it was a good trade, and I do not regret making it for you."
None of the four looked up.
As the double doors swung open, Annani turned the ingenious rocking chair, which also swiveled, and smiled at Alena, who walked in with her phone clutched in her hand.
"I talked to Esag." Alena crossed the room and stopped at the foot of Khiann's bed. "He's hurt because he isn't allowed to see Khiann. He didn't say that, but he didn't need to. It was obvious from the way he sounded."
Annani tightened her lips. If Alena thought she could emotionally blackmail her, she was mistaken.
"He had a suggestion," Alena continued when she realized her gambit had failed. "He wants me to photograph the four guards and send him the pictures. He thinks he might recognize their faces."
"That is a very good idea."
"It's the second-best idea, and you know what the best one is." Alena slipped the phone into a pocket of her skirt. "Invite Esag to come look at them himself."
"Not yet."
"Mother."
"Do not 'mother' me, Alena. Just look at them.
" Annani gestured toward the row of beds and kept her voice low.
"These males woke two days ago into a world they do not recognize.
They cannot speak, and every so often, a new face leans over them, moves its mouth, and makes sounds that mean nothing to them.
We will do them a disservice by letting too many people in here.
They need to feel safe, and seeing the same faces every time they surface helps them. "
"Esag is not a stranger. He's Khiann's best friend, and he's just one male. I'm not talking about inviting Roven and Davuh as well."
Annani did not answer.
"For what it's worth," Bridget said from across the room, "I don't have a problem with Esag coming, provided it's just him."
Annani shot her a glare.
Bridget was not the kind of woman who withered under a hard look, even one from a goddess. "Esag speaks their language fluently, which could be very helpful. Honestly, if he can follow directions, I'd put him on shift."
"He is a woodcarver, Bridget. Not a medical practitioner."
"I'm well aware of Esag's talents." The doctor maintained a steady, unwavering gaze. "I see him every time Tula comes for a checkup, and he's well-behaved and polite."
"He did not use to be." Annani looked at the line of beds. "He was very spirited as a young immortal. But I will think about it."
Alena and Bridget exchanged a look as if she could not see it.
"You let Syssi in," Alena said.
There it was.
"Syssi is like a daughter to me. I want Khiann to meet his family."
"Yes." Alena nodded. "So that's the rule, then. Not what's good for the men in those beds, but what's good for the family."
Annani said nothing.
Alena let out a breath. "Sometimes you are so stubborn, Mother."
"Of course." Annani gave her a chilly smile. "My stubbornness and gut instincts have served me well for the past five thousand years. I would not have survived without them."
Alena threw her hands in the air. "As you wish."
"I said I would think about it." Annani took hold of Khiann's hand.
As Alena retreated to one of the white plastic chairs lined up against the back wall, Bridget walked over and leaned against the foot of Khiann's bed.
Annani braced for another onslaught.
"William called this morning," Bridget said, surprising her.
"About the earpieces?"
Bridget hooked a stool with her foot, dragged it over, and sat down.
"He says he got Toven to help with the language, but the timeline depends on how much Toven is willing to devote to the project.
He offered to send the techs to Toven's house instead of having Toven come down to the lab, so let's hope the god is polite and doesn't kick them out after an hour.
I thought it would be a good idea to speak to Mia.
If anyone can motivate Toven to put some effort into this, it's her. "
"I am glad. Somehow, Toven managed to retain more of the language than I did, probably because he writes. Mine drifted over the years."
Behind them, Alena chuckled. "Do you want to talk about it? Mine barely exists."
"That is not your fault. There was no one else to speak it with except the Odus and me."
"That's plenty. But all of you also spoke other languages, so there was no pressure to learn the old tongue."
"Does William have an estimate for when the update will be ready?" Annani asked.
"I wouldn't expect it this week." Bridget got off the stool, which took a moment. "Probably not next week either. I'll be in my office if anyone needs me. If I don't sit in a chair with a back for twenty minutes, this baby is going to come out sideways."
“What about the Odus?” Alena asked. “They know the old tongue.” She snorted. “Perhaps they can download their vocabulary straight to William’s database.”
“Theirs is full of impurities, even worse than mine, influenced by other languages they learned over the years. I would rather it be done right than rush it and keep correcting it.”
Alena nodded. “You are right. But that means it would take longer.”
“I am well aware of that.” Annani still remembered how long it had taken to program Mandarin into the system, and that one was not extinct.
She turned the chair around to look at her daughter. "Are you going to take the photographs?"
"Yes." Alena rose to her feet. "Better sooner than later."
For a moment, she thought Alena would say something else, and she braced herself, but Alena just went to the first bed and began explaining to a man who could not understand her that she was going to take his picture.
Annani turned back to Khiann.
The double doors opened a hand's width.
"I know I'm not supposed to come in," Anandur said from the other side. "I just have some things that belong to these men."
As Julian walked over to him, Annani turned, curious to see what Anandur had brought.
"The guys who cleaned the chests found these." Anandur handed Julian a small plastic bag. "Rings. They must have fallen off their fingers when they turned skeletal."
Annani's heart began to hammer in her chest. Was Khiann's ring among them?
When she saw that Khiann's fingers were bare of rings, she had assumed they had been lost. Hers had disappeared during one of the hasty evacuations she had been forced to make for one reason or another.
Julian walked over to her and handed her the bag. "I think you should look through these, Clan Mother."
"Thank you." She took the bag from him with surprisingly steady hands.
The bag was a small, transparent thing with a seal along the top, and there was a label on it that someone had filled in with a marker.
Annani spread her skirt across her knees and upended the bag.
Twelve rings rolled out onto her lap and settled. Nine of them were plain, unmarked bands that were a little dulled. They were not identical, but they were close enough.
Three were not, but only one of them brought tears to her eyes.
Annani picked it up.
The special alloy had not tarnished. It had not thinned, or scratched, or worn away at the underside the way gold did. It looked the way it had looked on the day she had put it on Khiann's finger, and on every day of the few precious months they'd had together.
She turned it toward the light and looked inside the band.
The letters were still there. Not worn, not softened, not one stroke of them gone.
For eternity and beyond.
The same four words had been inside her own ring.
Annani held it in her palm, and when the tears came, she did not try to stop them.
She was permitted to shed a few.
Alena had long since abandoned her task of photographing the four guards and was now standing beside her chair.
"This is his joining ring." Annani turned the band between her fingers.
"I had one to match. I lost it. I do not know where or when.
" She picked up the other two, made of gold and precious stones, though they did not mean as much.
"These were his before we were joined." She turned them between her fingers.
"He was a wealthy merchant's son, and he looked the part.
" She smiled. "He will be so glad to see these when he wakes up. "
Provided that he remembered them.
Annani gathered the nine plain bands back into the bag and pressed the seal shut with her thumb. "Give these to Bridget and ask her to keep them somewhere safe," she told Alena.
"Of course."
Alena took the bag and went out the doors to look for Bridget in her office.
Annani lifted Khiann's hand from the blanket. It weighed almost nothing. There was flesh on it now, warmth, and the shape of tendons beneath the skin where three weeks ago there had been a claw, but it was still so insubstantial compared to how she remembered it.
She fitted the ring to the third finger of his left hand. It slid down past the knuckle, turning as it went, and sat at the base, loose enough that she could see daylight through the gap.
She took it off and tried the middle finger, which was thicker, but it was still too loose.
Annani looked at Khiann's hand and thought about how she had stood on a dais before gods and immortals and pushed this ring onto a finger that resisted her, working it over the joint. He had laughed, because he was so tall and she was so very small, or maybe just because he had been so happy.
She tried his thumb.
It went over the knuckle with a little resistance, settled, and stayed.
"There," she said quietly. "You have it back. When your fingers fill out, we will put it where it belongs. The other two rings can wait. I will keep them safe for you."
Khiann did not wake or even stir, completely unaware of the moment's significance.
The circle that had been interrupted was now closed. At least in her mind. It might be imperfect, it might require a lot of work, but it was no longer broken.