26. Sullha #3
They were being treated as a security risk, so it didn't make much sense to bring them up here where the goddess was. Then again, Areana actually lived most of the time in the dungeon, right next to them, so it seemed no one thought them a danger to her.
Who were they threatening, then?
Maybe the harem ladies were afraid of them?
Tamira had told her how terrified they had been during the rebellion, cowering in Navuh's basement, but it hadn't been Yaaf and his friends who had attacked the mansion.
Yaaf had told her that they hadn't been anywhere near there.
He had also told her that the harem had been a big lie.
The legend that Lord Navuh kept the most beautiful women in the world, the daughters of gods, for himself was untrue on many levels.
The ladies were daughters of prominent immortal families, not the direct descendants of gods, and Lord Navuh had never spent a single night with any of them.
He had kept the harem for appearances, claiming the children born to the harem ladies as his, while they had been fathered by the harem servants.
Areana was his one and only, for thousands of years.
Yaaf had also told her that Lady Areana was a goddess, which should have prepared her for the impossible beauty of her, but nothing could have done that.
No wonder Navuh didn't want anyone else other than her. Not even the gorgeous harem ladies could compare.
It seemed surreal to see the goddess holding Bianca in her lap and pretending to talk to her stuffed bunny.
Sullha sat on the edge of a couch and watched the breeding enclosure women interact with the harem ladies who had also been used for breeding, but instead of producing the rank- and-file warriors for Navuh's army, they had been producing fake sons for Navuh to adopt.
Beneath the fancy clothes, the unparalleled beauty, and the command of the original old tongue, now changed over the centuries into what was spoken on the island today, they were not much different from her and the other breeders.
Since Yaaf hadn't said any of that was a secret, she had shared it with the others, so they knew who and what Areana was, and their response had been similar to hers.
They couldn't understand how a goddess could love Navuh unless she was just as cruel and evil, but it was quite obvious that Areana was neither of those things. She was gentle and kind.
Children knew instinctively who they could trust, and both Tomek and Bianca seemed to have adopted Areana as their honorary aunt.
Mirumah seemed to have her doubts, though, and regarded the goddess with eyes that were not hostile but curious and a little suspicious. "You choose to live in a dungeon beside him when you could live here all of the time?"
Everyone stopped talking, Rohilah put her hand over her mouth, and Liliat sucked in a breath.
Areana just smiled at Mirumah as if the woman had asked her about the weather. "Thank you for asking me to my face. Most people ask it behind my back." She transferred Bianca to her mother.
"Navuh is my mate, I love him, and he needs me to take care of him while he recuperates after jumping to what could have been his death while trying to save me. That should be simple enough to understand."
"What would I know about love?" Mirumah asked. "I was bred like livestock, and my three sons were taken away from me when they turned thirteen."
The words were the equivalent of a punch to the face, but Areana just nodded.
"A truelove bond is rare, and it is a blessing from the Fates that even gods don't dare to question.
" She paused, and for a moment the graceful hostess was gone, and something far older looked out of her eyes.
"You had your sons for thirteen years before they were taken away from you.
I had mine for only months before I had to give them away.
And yet, I would have given up the sky to sit beside my mate in a hole in the ground, and that is precisely what I did, back in the harem and then here. "
Silence fell over the room, and it wasn't the kind that could be broken by redirecting the conversation to another topic or cracking a joke.
All the females in this room had suffered similar fates, including the goddess.
Most of them had been forced to give up their sons, but the harem ladies had chosen the men who had fathered their children, and Areana had been loved by a monster, but it was still better than being handed over to strangers.
Still, Sullha wasn't sure any of them could claim that their sum of grievances was worse than that of the others.
It seemed, though, that Areana had managed to make peace with her own ordeal.
She had a truelove mate who was more of a curse than a blessing, and yet she thought of him as the latter and not the former.
From where Sullha was sitting, though, a truelove mate seemed like a ship's anchor, but not the kind that kept a seafaring vessel from drifting away, saving it.
It held it captive. It was a shackle.