Rami lifted his glass again, slower this time. "To the hardest part being done."
"To the greatest obstacle getting eliminated." Losham clinked his glass to Rami's, and they drank.
The water kept washing against the stone, a night bird called somewhere in the garden, and for the first time in months,Losham felt at peace. The greatest threat to his seat of power had been eliminated. He was not completely relaxed because that would have been stupid given his position as the leader of the Brotherhood, but he felt on top of the world nonetheless.
He was the king of his pond.
Losham had spent his entire life serving his father, never believing that one day he would sit on Navuh's proverbial throne.
Now, finally, there was no Navuh to defer to, no Kolhood to outmaneuver, and no Hocken and Hazok to manage. There were still the junior brothers to handle, but the juniors were so far below Losham's level that their management would be easy.
He was the sole leader of the Brotherhood. He was at the top of an organization that contained over ten thousand warriors and operated on nearly every continent, and all the continents that mattered. The thought was staggering and intoxicating at the same time.
He could remake the Brotherhood. He could redirect its resources. He could end the worst of his father's policies and preserve only what he wished to preserve. With no one to answer to, he could decide what the Brotherhood would become.
Losham sipped the Macallan and let the warmth of it spread through his chest.
Then he remembered the nightly call and grimaced. That was the last obstacle to his rule that he needed to eliminate. For now, the clan was only interested in the bodies in stasis and not the island's internal politics, and they had no problem with him sitting on Navuh's throne, but that might change.
Losham wanted that yoke gone, but he didn't know how to resist their compeller and his commands.
They would be calling later tonight, as they did at the same time every other night. The compeller's voice on the other end of the line would be that same gentle, dry tone that disguised the powerful compulsion threading through every word. It was woven into the cadence and the timbre, and Losham couldn't resist it.
He could, however, work around it.
He would have to find a way not to tell the clan about his brothers' fate, but that might prove impossible.
If they asked about his brothers, he would have to tell them the truth. But only if the question was direct. He could give evasive answers to any other kind of question.
He wouldn't volunteer the information, that was for sure.
The trick was to keep the conversation in a territory where the specific questions did not get asked. To answer evasively but not falsely. To redirect the compeller's attention toward subjects where the truth was acceptable and away from subjects where the truth was inconvenient.
Losham had been doing it for two thousand years with his father. He knew every trick in the book.
The biggest advantage of keeping the deaths of his brothers from the clan was that he could use them as an excuse for not doing exactly what the clan wanted from him. That would require careful maneuvering around the compulsion, and he might not be able to pull it off, but it was worth a try.
Rami was leaning back in his chair, his eyes half-closed, the cigar smoldering in his fingers. The flush in his cheeks had deepened to crimson, and his posture had loosened into a slump.
It would have been nice to share his musings with his assistant. Rami was an excellent sounding board, and Losham would have loved to tell him more about the clan than Rami had deduced so far, but the compulsion prevented him from doing so.
The clan's compeller had been thorough.
Losham couldn't tell anyone that he was being compelled, and he couldn't tell anyone that he was in contact with the clan and what they wanted. He couldn't tell anyone about the calls. The entire relationship with the clan was sealed inside his head, accessible only to him, and any attempt to share even a fragment of it with another person ran into the same closed door.
4
KIAN
Kian stood at the window with his hands tucked in his pockets and looked out at the village below. The sky was clear, the sun was bright, and the café was teeming with people. All the tables were taken, and the line to the serve-out counter was at least twenty bodies long.
Fortunately, Shai no longer needed to stand in that line unless Kian was in the mood for pastries or sandwiches. Nowadays, his assistant brewed fantastic coffee each morning himself, infusing the entire office with the heady aroma. Today, though, there was the additional lingering floral undertone of the perfume Syssi had been wearing when she'd stopped by on her way to work to give him a kiss, while Amanda had waited for her downstairs with the girls.
That small gesture was enough to brighten his day, and he was still smiling because of that kiss, but to be honest, that wasn't the only reason he was in such an exceptionally good mood on this Monday morning.
The three senior leaders of the Brotherhood were dead, and Losham's rule of the island had no other contenders for now.
"Good morning, boss," Onegus said from the doorway.
