Kalugal chuckled. "Don't tell me you are calling children's drawings circumstantial evidence."
Kian let out a breath. "I know that it sounds crazy, but both Cyra and Allegra have the gift. There could be something to it."
Areana's thoughts churned. She knew Navuh better than anyone, and she knew how his mind worked, how he planned, how he played games within games.
He wouldn't worry about people seeing the enclosure and wondering what was inside of it. Who could have ever suspected that it housed five bodies in stasis?
No one other than Navuh had known that Khiann wasn't dead, and Navuh hadn't expected to get caught. Why would he? He never left the island, and he knew the clan would never attack it directly. They were vastly outnumbered, and it would have been suicide.
Fate, it seemed, had other ideas.
"If Khiann is there," Lokan said, keeping his voice low because Darius had finally fallen asleep in Jacki's arms, "how exactly do you plan to extract him? The island is under the Brotherhood's control despite Navuh's absence. You can't just walk in and take him."
"It would be a suicide mission," Kalugal agreed. "There are thousands of warriors there, and it seems that Losham isrunning things. We have to assume that everything on the island is the same as it was with Navuh at the helm."
Areana watched her sons as they spoke, their minds working along similar lines despite having been raised apart, and the family resemblance was clear, not just in their features, but in the way they thought, the way they analyzed problems.
They were Navuh's sons through and through, whether they liked to acknowledge that or not.
Kian raked his fingers through his hair in a gesture she'd learned to read as frustration or exasperation. "With Navuh gone, his compulsion over the army is weakening. He maintained control with daily reinforcements, layering it through the mandatory devotions. Without that, the hold is deteriorating. We have compellers of our own. Toven, Kalugal, and Drova are all powerful compellers, perhaps not as strong as Navuh, but between the three of them, they might be able to assert control over the army without firing a single shot. A bloodless conquest."
Lokan shook his head. "It's not going to work."
"Why not?"
"Because none of our compellers can control thousands of warriors simultaneously. Navuh built his influence over time, conditioning them from birth, layering compulsion upon compulsion until obedience was bred into their genetic code. Even if his control is weakening in his absence, you can't just replace it with commands from compellers with limited reach. None of them can control more than a few hundred minds at a time."
"I can't even do that," Kalugal said. "I can assert my will over a hundred, maybe a little more, but not for a long time."
Kian was quiet for a moment. "I admit that the plan is half-baked. I need to dedicate more thought to it. But before I do, I need to pay a visit to Navuh and confront him about what I know. Tell him that his leverage is gone."
The realization of what Kian intended to do was a sobering experience for Areana. She felt as if she had been kicked in the gut.
Kian was about to strip Navuh of his bargaining chip, and it would devastate him.
Areana looked at Annani, seeing the hope warring with fear in her sister's eyes. Khiann was her truelove mate. The other half of her soul, lost for millennia, possibly recoverable at last. What wouldn't Annani do to get him back?
She would not free Navuh. Not even for Khiann.
The guilt Annani carried was too heavy. She blamed herself for the demise of the gods, even though she had not been the one who had dropped the bomb on their assembly.
She had put in motion the events that had led to it.
All those lives lost, the endless wars that had followed and consumed generations. Annani blamed herself for all of it.
She would never forgive herself if she released him, no matter what he offered in return.
Which meant Navuh would remain a prisoner. Caged and stripped of everything he'd built. Her mate would spend the remainder of his existence in captivity.
25
KIAN
Kian looked up at the camera above the clinic's front door, and as a soft click announced the lock disengaging, the outer door swung open, revealing the small antechamber. It was barely large enough for a gurney and two people standing side by side, but even that had eaten too much of the small waiting room.
The space hadn't been originally designed with prisoners in mind, and even now it was used mainly for civilian purposes, but Kian wasn't taking chances with Navuh.
He was the most valuable prisoner the clan had ever held.
