Page 81 of Dark Chains: First Link
Deep in his gut, in the place where cold calculation lived alongside the remnants of instincts that had kept him alive for millennia, he knew the truth he'd been avoiding.
He was never getting free.
Not through escape. Not through negotiation. Not through the leverage of Khiann's body, which they might have already found another way to access. He had been one of the most powerful beings in the world, and he had been brought down by a fall from a cliff, and now he was a crippled prisoner in a wheelchair, being pushed through a corridor by a nurse while his mate walked beside him wearing clothes bought with Annani's money, or worse, the money of his traitorous sons.
The knowledge was corrosive. It ate at the edges of everything, the way salt air corroded metal on the island, slowly and inexorably.
"I have exciting news," Areana said, as if the silence had become uncomfortable for her. "There's a wedding this Saturday. One of Kalugal's men is getting married. It's such a beautiful love story."
Navuh's jaw tightened.
Kalugal's men.
She'd said it the way someone might reference the employees of a respected businessman. Not traitors. Not deserters. Not the soldiers who had fled the Brotherhood under his son's command.
Kalugal's men.
"The girl's name is Arezoo," Areana continued. "She and her sisters and cousin were captured by a rogue Doomer who was operating his own breeding program separate from the Brotherhood. Can you imagine? One of our own, acting on his own ambitions. The clan rescued them. Arezoo was in terrible shape when she arrived, but she's transformed. She has the most beautiful smile."
Our own,Areana had said, but she'd called him a Doomer, which was the clan's derogatory name for members of the Brotherhood.
The anger rose in his chest like bile.
He clenched his jaw and said nothing because the alternative was to say something that he couldn't take back.
Areana didn't notice his silence, or if she did, she chose to interpret it as interest rather than fury. She kept talking. The words flowed from her with the ease and enthusiasm of a woman who had been starved of social contact for millennia and was now gorging herself on it.
"Ruvon is so patient and kind. The whole family adores him despite his background."
His background. Areana was referring to his service in the Brotherhood as an obstacle the male needed to be ashamed of and had to overcome, a stain on his character that required mitigation through patience and good behavior.
The anger was a living thing now, coiling in his chest, tightening around his ribs.
"I'm told that the cocktail party on Saturday was lovely," Areana said. "Amanda, that's Kian's sister, organized the whole thing. She has a gift for celebrations. The village green was transformed for the occasion, and Arezoo wore the most stunning red dress." She sighed. "I wish I could have been there, but I didn't want to leave for the entire day."
Meaning to leave him, the invalid, so she could enjoy herself.
"The Odus prepared everything, and the meal was served buffet style."
The Odus. Annani's bio-mechanical servants. They were precious relics, technology so advanced that not even the clan had been able to replicate or acquire anything similar.
At least he hoped they hadn't.
If the clan ever managed to manufacture more of those bio-mechanical creatures and turn them into soldiers, they might have a chance against the Brotherhood.
Not that he should care.
The Brotherhood was his past, not his future, and he didn't want any of his so-called sons to enjoy the fruits of his labor. Not his traitorous sons by blood, nor his inadequate adopted ones.
Gertrude kept pushing the wheelchair at the same maddening pace, occasionally checking over her shoulder to look at the Guardian as if to confirm that everything was in order.
Navuh kept cataloging. A fire exit sign. A junction box mounted high on the wall. The number and spacing of the recessed lights.
It was futile, but he did it anyway because the habit of gathering intelligence was too deeply ingrained to abandon even when the intelligence served no purpose.
Areana kept talking about their sons, their grandchild. Darius, his blood, was growing up in Annani's village, surrounded by the clan that had imprisoned his grandfather, and he would learn to walk and talk and eventually learn who Navuh was, and the story he would be told would not be kind.
Navuh's rage intensified, and his fingers curled around the wheelchair's armrests hard enough to whiten his knuckles.
