Page 26 of Dark Destiny: A New Thread in the Tapestry

"Talk to all of them. Aru will gladly help, and if Aru says the word, Dagor will fall in line."

"Yes, boss."

As he ended the call, the intercom buzzed.

"Turner's here," Shai said.

"Please send him in. And if you can, a fresh pot of coffee would be nice."

"Already brewed."

"You're the best." Kian rose from his chair and walked to the conference table.

Turner joined him, pulling a chair next to him and setting his yellow pad on the table.

"I have updates on the drone delivery," he said. "They're moving through the last leg now and will reach Safe Harbor on Monday. The munitions are already there. They came in with the resupply and were logged as agricultural equipment."

"That's good."

Losham had delivered the target list and the structural data on the building, including the depth of the roof slab, which none of them had expected him to obtain without arousing suspicion. He'd pulled it from the maintenance archive.

"We will tell Losham to summon Bertram when the drones are ready to deploy. I don't want him putting things in motion only to have the drones delayed, which would send the entire operation to hell."

9

SULLHA

"The blue one," Leehy said.

"I already wore blue."

"I doubt Yaaf remembers what you wore or cares. Besides, it's a different shade of blue."

Sullha turned from the mirror, the green dress still on its hanger in one hand and the blue one in the other.

"Which one?"

Leehy tilted her head. "Wear the green. It makes you look fresh."

Sullha chuckled. "That's how I want to look. Fresh. Like a vegetable freshly picked from the garden? Couldn't you think of anything more complimentary to say?"

Her mother frowned. "Fresh is good. It's everything I'm not."

"Mother."

"What?" Leehy walked over to the couch and sat down. "It's true. Whenever I look at myself in the mirror, the word wilted comes to mind. So, fresh is good because it's the opposite of wilted."

Sullha let out a breath, draped the two dresses over the back of the armchair, and sat next to her mother on the couch. Having a living-room area inside her bedroom was an incredible luxury. Her mother's room had the same configuration, and Leehy spent a lot of time there, watching television by herself without understanding anything that was said. It was the novelty of it, seeing a world she had never known existed on the screen.

"The wilting can be reversed," Sullha said.

It had been weeks since she'd learned the truth about the enclosure females and that they could be turned immortal, but she hadn't broached the subject with her mother or the other women yet. Did the harem ladies know?

They had to. They had been turned immortal themselves. They hadn't been born that way.

Her mother smiled. "I don't think makeup and hair coloring can do much to make me look fresh, but I'm willing to experiment."

That was the most upbeat thing Sullha had heard her mother say. "I heard there's a lady in the village who does that. We can book an appointment with her together. It could be fun."