Kian's face was drawn, and he moved like a man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. This was not the expression of someone who had just delivered devastating news to his enemy. This was the expression of a man who had been on the receiving end of bad news.
"What happened?" she asked.
Kian ran a hand through his hair. "Navuh confirmed that Khiann is in the glass enclosure as we suspected."
"Then why do you look like someone has died?" Kalugal asked.
"Because knowing that doesn't help us." Kian walked over to the armchair Kalugal had vacated moments ago and sat down. "The enclosure is booby-trapped. It's designed to destroy everything inside if anyone tries to breach it without inputting the codes that only Navuh knows."
Annani felt as if she had been hit in the chest and all the air had been expelled from her lungs. "What do you mean by destroy?"
"The glass is specially treated. It resists cutting, drilling, extreme heat, and direct impact. Any attempt to open it without the disarmament codes triggers a failsafe. Khiann and the others would be reduced to dust."
"That's convenient." Kalugal transferred Darius back to Jacki. "Navuh is creating a false sense of urgency to spur us into action. Classic manipulation to make us agree to his terms quickly before we have time to think it through or find another way."
Kian shook his head. "That doesn't make sense given the bargain he offered. He specifically said he would be freed only after we recover Khiann. If we don't get Khiann, Navuh doesn't get his freedom. It's in his best interest that we get Khiann. He has no reason to lie."
"He has every reason to lie," Kalugal countered. "He wants to control the timeline. Wants us scrambling and desperate instead of methodical and careful."
"There's more." Kian's expression grew grimmer. "Losham, or whoever is running things on the island now, has most likely noticed the enclosure in Navuh's basement and has probably been trying to get into it since shortly after Navuh's capture."
Annani's hands gripped the arms of her chair. "If Losham breaches it without the codes?—"
"The failsafe triggers, and Khiann is gone forever." Kian met her eyes. "Time is of the essence. We don't know how long the glass will hold against whatever methods Losham is using. Could be weeks. Could be days. Could be that we're already too late."
As panic rose in Annani's throat, cold and suffocating, she forced it down. She could not afford to fall apart, not now, not when so much depended on her making the right decision.
"That still doesn't make sense," Lokan said. "Losham wouldn't tamper with Navuh's possessions unless he knew for sure that Navuh wasn't coming back. No one on the island knows for sure what happened. The human guards in the harem have been thralled to forget what they saw, and there were no surveillance cameras in that area of the harem."
"How would they explain the ladies and Navuh disappearing?" Jacki asked.
"Navuh believes that Losham assumes he's dead," Areana said. "And he's covering it up somehow, pretending that Navuh has either left the island or is refusing to see anyone. That's the only explanation for why chaos hasn't erupted yet. He's not expecting Navuh to return."
"Even so," Kalugal pressed, "I don't believe Navuh would rig the enclosure to destroy Khiann. It's not how he thinks. Khiann is his leverage, his insurance policy. He would have designed the trap to expose whoever tampered with it, maybe even collapse the entire mansion, but he would have made sure his treasures remained intact."
Areana shook her head. "When Navuh designed that enclosure, he couldn't have predicted the situation he's in now. He would have assumed that no one would touch it unless he was dead.And if he was dead..." Areana's voice caught slightly. "He wouldn't care what happened to Khiann and the others. They would be useless to him at that point."
The logic was sound, and it chilled Annani to her core. Navuh's mind worked in layers of contingencies, but those contingencies were designed to serve Navuh's interests. If Navuh were dead, he had no interests left to serve. The failsafe made perfect sense from that perspective.
Kian turned to Annani. "What do you want to do? We need to act quickly, and we need Navuh's help. We can't extract Khiann without it."
"What does he suggest we do?" she asked.
"I didn't get that far." Kian grimaced. "I needed to find out what you wanted to do first. Navuh won't help us unless you vow to give him his freedom. He made that very clear."
It was an impossible decision, and yet she had to make it.
Free Navuh, the Brotherhood's leader, who had waged war against her clan and the humans the clan supported for five thousand years. He had built an empire on cruelty and conquest and had caused immense suffering, plunging the world into darkness time and again.
Free him to get Khiann back.
Refuse and lose Khiann forever.
How could she make such a choice? How could anyone?
"I need to pray," she murmured. "I need to beseech the Fates for guidance."
"Mother, we may not have time?—"
