The walk to the office building took about twenty minutes, following the winding paths that connected different parts of the village, and Carol didn't complain about her feet aching even once, probably so he wouldn't offer to carry her in front of the others. Instead, she reminded him of the names of all the ladies and what little she knew about each of them.
The women walked in a loose cluster, their voices low as they speculated about what they might find.
The office building loomed ahead, its glass and steel façade gleaming in the morning light.
Kian was waiting just inside the entrance. "Ladies," he said as they filed through the doors. "Thank you for coming."
"Thank you, Regent," Beulah said formally. The other women echoed the sentiment, though Lokan could see the impatience beneath their polite words.
Kian led them through the lobby and down a corridor to the gallery, which Lokan had visited only once before.
"Take your time," Kian said as he opened the door.
The women filed in, and Lokan followed, watching their faces as they took in the room for the first time.
Navuh's portrait dominated the room, propped against an easel. He looked so commanding, so arrogant, and Lokan wondered if he still looked like that lying in a hospital bed.
His mother had implored him to visit his father, but he refused. Why would he visit the male who had sent assassins after him and Carol? Why should he pretend to care what happened to a father who only saw him as a traitor?
"I wish I could turn this portrait around," he murmured. "I don't want to look at it."
The other portraits lined the walls, his included, each one rendered in Dalhu's distinctive style. The faces that stared out from the frames were hard and angular, marked by the brutal lives they'd led. These were warriors, commanders, males shaped by violence and cruelty into instruments of their adoptive father's will.
Once, a long time ago, these men had been innocent babies, cradled in their mothers' arms, but nothing of that innocence had survived the training camp. The last shreds of decency had been beaten out of them there.
No one spoke. The women drifted apart, each drawn to different portraits, searching for something, anything familiar in those harsh features.
Lokan watched as Sarah stopped before the portrait of Kolhood, studying the general's cold eyes and square jaw. She shook her head slightly and moved on.
Raviki circled the room once, twice, her expression growing more frustrated with each pass. "They all look the same," she muttered. "Hard and angry and nothing like what I remember of my babies."
"What do you remember?" Carol asked gently.
"Soft cheeks. Wide eyes. A tiny hand that grabbed my finger and wouldn't let go." Raviki's voice cracked. "Not this. Not these strangers."
Tamira stood apart from the others, her gaze distant. She knew that her son wasn't in one of these portraits. He'd escaped with Kalugal and was somewhere in the world. She was here for her sisters, not herself.
Liliat and Beulah moved through the gallery together, pausing at each portrait, whispering to each other in voices too low for Lokan to hear. Neither seemed to find what they were looking for.
And then Rolenna stopped.
She was standing before the portrait of Losham. In the drawing, his features were sharp and his eyes calculating, and he just looked smart and knowledgeable, perhaps a little conceited, but not harsh and cruel like the others.
"This one," Rolenna breathed. "This is my son."
The other women gathered around her.
"I mean, he might be mine." Rolenna's hand rose, hovering just above the glass as if she wanted to touch the face but didn't dare. "There's something...I can't explain it. Maybe the shape of his eyes. The set of his jaw. He looks a little like me. Or maybe I'm seeing what I want to see."
Lokan studied her profile, then the portrait, trying to see what she saw. There was a resemblance, maybe. The high cheekbones, the slight tilt to the eyes.
"I think you're right," Sarah said softly. "There is a resemblance."
"I don't see it," Raviki countered, but her voice was gentle rather than harsh. "Though that doesn't mean anything. I don't see resemblances in any of them."
Lokan stood next to Rolenna. "Losham is the oldest of the sons. He's over two thousand years old. Could he be yours? Were you the first to give Navuh a son to adopt?"
She nodded, too choked up to say anything.
