Page 88 of Dark Princess: Shadows

Kian lifted his wine glass and took a long sip. "Despite my loving wife's efforts to convince me that I am charming, I know that I'm not, but I agree with those two."

Annani smiled. "You are charming in your own way, my son. Speaking of your lovely wife, though. Has Kalugal's inquiry about the ruins in Syssi's vision uncovered anything?"

"What ruins?" Brandon asked. And what vision, but he didn't add that. If Kian wanted to tell him, he would.

Kian set down his wine glass. "Syssi summoned a vision asking for clues as to Khiann's fate." He turned to his mother. "Can I share more?"

"Of course." She waved a hand. "Ell-rom already knows about it, and while we were waiting for you, I told Morelle about the sad history of our people and what happened to my Khiann. Brandon is a trusted council member, and I can share my latest hopes with him, even if they are based on a very shaky foundation." She sighed. "I realized that my father, who was a powerful compeller, could have compelled those two witnesses who testified that Mortdh murdered Khiann. He needed to get rid of Mortdh, who was threatening his position, and convicting him of murder was an excellent way to do that withoutappearing as the aggressor. I suspect that Khiann and his entire caravan fell victim to the massive earthquake that shook the Arabian Desert, and if so, he might be buried under the sand in stasis the same way Wonder was. The biggest hole in my theory is how my father knew about that. No one survived other than those two witnesses."

"Maybe those witnesses told him," Morelle said. "And after they did, he compelled them to tell a different story."

Kian chuckled. "Amazing. It's such a simple explanation that I don't know how none of us thought of it."

Morelle straightened in her chair, looking smug. "Sometimes it takes someone on the outside who isn't familiar with the story to think of the obvious."

Annani beamed at her sister. "Bravo, Morelle. You have given me renewed hope."

"I'm glad." Morelle reached for Annani's hand. "You deserve happiness."

Brandon had a feeling that the Clan Mother was fighting tears, and decided to help her save face. "That's a fascinating new theory, but I'm eager to hear about Syssi's vision."

"I can take it from here," Kian said. "Syssi saw a woman standing on a dune, with mountain peaks in the distance behind her and some ruins ahead of her. She wore traditional male desert clothing, with a scarf wrapped around her head and another one covering her lower face, but her curvy shape betrayed her as a woman, and she also had very distinctive eyes—brown with gold flakes swirling around the irises." He paused. "Syssi figured that the vision was trying to tell her that Jasmine was instrumental to finding Khiann and that he was buried somewhere in thearea of those ruins. She sketched what she saw, and I gave it to Kalugal, who reached out to his archaeological contacts. So far, no one has seen anything matching the description. So, we are back to square one. Even with Jasmine's scrying talent, we can't start looking for Khiann without a clue to point us in the right direction and where to start."

Something tickled at Brandon's memory. "That reminds me of a movie, but I can't quite place which one."

"Stargate?" Kian suggested.

"No, but similar vibe." Brandon rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Desert, ruins, mysterious figures..."

He caught identical looks of confusion on Ell-rom and Morelle's faces and couldn't help but smile.

The twins might look different in many ways, but that particular expression of puzzlement was mirror perfect. "Your cultural education needs to include some iconic films."

"IsStargatereally iconic?" Kian asked skeptically.

"Absolutely." It was one of Brandon's favorites, and talking about it was a perfect distraction from his hyper-awareness of Morelle's presence beside him. "It perfectly captured that moment in sci-fi when we were transitioning from pure space opera to more grounded, military-focused science fiction. Plus, it spawned multiple successful TV series and influenced countless other works."

Morelle still looked just as confused as she was before, and he realized that he had used industry jargon that Annani and Kian would have no trouble understanding but was probably meaningless to the twins. "The movie is about ancient aliensvisiting Earth sometime in a distant past and leaving behind technology that looked like magic to the primitive humans."

Morelle nodded. "That sounds like an interesting story."

Brandon chuckled. "I suppose that, in your case, that's less fiction and more of a historical documentary."

She tilted her head. "The gods presented themselves as deities to the people they created, but they didn't leave technology behind for the primitives to use or figure out that their gods were just people who came from somewhere else in the universe." She looked at Ell-rom. "Or at least that was what the head priestess told us."

Ell-rom smiled apologetically. "I don't remember much from my old life, so I can't help you there."

For some reason, his statement seemed to please Morelle when it should have upset her, and Brandon wondered what the reason for that was. Did Ell-rom know things about her that she preferred he didn't remember?

What if she was hiding some terrible talent?

"Actually," Kian said, "things were a little different on Earth because the gods brought with them advanced tech for their own use, and we have one such relic in the clan's possession." He looked at Annani. "A tablet that my mother pilfered from her uncle and that helped us propel the development of human technology faster than it would have otherwise happened."

"I did not pilfer," Annani voiced her indignation. "I borrowed, and Ekin was perfectly fine with me doing so. He let me use his tablet whenever I wanted."

Kian cast her a fond smile. "Borrowing without intending to return an item is called stealing. I used the word pilfer to make it sound less egregious."

Annani waved a dismissive hand. "It was for a good cause. I knew that I was going to start a new civilization, and I could not do that without the necessary blueprints. Ekin's tablet had everything I needed and more."