Annani hadn’t changed in the slightest. She looked exactly the same as Wonder remembered her.

Except for the eyes.

Now, she understood better what Anandur and Bridget had tried to explain about immortal age tells. There was an ocean of wisdom in Annani’s eyes, which made her gaze seem ancient. It was a flickering effect, because sometimes they reverted to the mischievous gleam of her youth, especially when she laughed. But at other times Wonder could see the weight of the world reflected in those old eyes, and in those moments she felt both proud and sad for her friend.

After breakfast, the others had excused themselves to the backyard, leaving her and Annani alone in the living room to sit on the couch and hold hands like a couple of teenage girls which neither of them was.

“I don’t know where to start,” Wonder said. “I have so many questions, but each of them is going to bring both of us pain.”

Annani smiled sadly and reached for the box of tissues Syssi had left on the coffee table. “We have these to wipe our tears and our noses. The others were kind enough to give us some privacy, so we can cry if we want to. Fates know we have plenty to cry over.”

Wonder nodded. Her biggest sorrow was her little sister Tula, followed by their parents, and then by Esag. She’d cared for him even if she hadn’t been really in love with him. It must’ve been so much more devastating for Annani.

She’d lost Khiann.

How had she survived that?

Wonder still remembered the desolate expression on Areana’s face, even decades after Annani’s sister had lost her truelove mate. There was no recovering from that, and yet Annani somehow had. She’d always been strong. That was why her father had adored her so. Ahn had been so proud of Annani.

“I hate to ask, but how did you recover from losing Khiann?”

“I never did, I still miss him with every fiber of my soul. I cried for years, but at some point, I realized that wallowing in my grief was selfish. I had the fate of humanity to think of. There was no one but me to counteract Mortdh’s legacy of hatred. Navuh was following in his father’s footsteps, and with his influence humanity was regressing instead of progressing. I had to stop that trajectory because I was the only one who had the means to do that.”

“How? You were just one young and inexperienced goddess.”

Annani smiled sheepishly. “Do you remember Ekin’s tablet?”

“What about it?”

“I stole it before I ran off. I thought it would help me establish a new civilization up north, but it ended up helping save humanity at large. We still do not understand all that is stored on it. I certainly do not. But thankfully some of my progeny are smart enough to reverse engineer the information little by little. It is the foundation of all technological progress.”

“Then it’s a good thing that you stole it.”

“I believe the Fates were guiding my actions.”

Wonder frowned. “If the Fates were real, they should’ve stopped Mortdh, and not just saved one goddess and whispered in her ear to steal a tablet.”

Annani sighed. “I pondered the same question many times, and I reached the conclusion that the Fates are not all powerful. There are larger forces at play. They do what they can to salvage the situation.”

“What forces? Like the God humans believe in?”

Annani shrugged her slender shoulders. “I do not know. Call it nature, or call it God, or call it the underlying principles of the universe, or the balance between good and evil. Whatever it is, the Fates cannot counteract this force. They can only work in the periphery, making tiny little changes in the fabric of reality.”

“When did you become so smart?”

Annani laughed, the sound raising goosebumps on Wonder’s arms. It carried an otherworldly beauty Wonder hadn’t heard in a very long time.

“I am not any smarter than I used to be. All of that might be total nonsense. I am just musing out loud.”

“It sounds smart.”

Annani laughed again. “I know. I have to appear smart to justify my title. Clan Mother implies wisdom.”

Wonder looked down at their entwined fingers and sighed. “The hardest part for me is thinking of Tula perishing before she had the chance to live.”

Rearranging the folds of her silk gown, Annani crossed her legs. “I do not want to give you false hope, but there might be a slight chance that Tula survived.”

Despite Annani’s preface, hope leaped in Wonder’s chest. “How?”

“Do you remember my half-sister Areana? The one who was supposed to mate Mortdh in my stead?”

“I meant to ask you about her. When I mentioned Areana, your children didn’t know she existed. How come you didn’t tell them about her?”

“I told them very little about my lost family. First, it was too painful, and second, I always thought that one day I would write down our people’s history. But I never got around to actually doing so.” She looked down. “Whenever I think that it is time, I find an excuse to postpone it. Even after all this time, the memories are still too painful.”

Wonder could empathize. She would have rather not talked about the past either.

“Anyway.” Annani lifted her chin and continued. “Areana convinced Navuh to let her stay for the wedding.”

Which meant that she hadn’t left with Navuh’s caravan and had probably perished with the rest of the gods. “I don’t remember seeing her there.”

“Well, you were distraught over Esag and hardly paid attention to anything.”

“That is true.”

“Navuh headed out without Areana, but he left some of his warriors behind to escort her to Mortdh’s stronghold after the wedding. Then you ran away, and we assumed that you headed that way as well.”

“Why would I?”

“Because it was the only other settlement of immortals outside of Sumer.”

“I wasn’t looking for other immortals. I wanted to get away from them.”

“Well, we could not have known that. Khiann sent Esag to look for you on that route, and Tula begged Areana to take her on as her maid. She wanted to accompany her to Mortdh’s stronghold, believing that she would find you there.”

“So if Areana survived, so did Tula.”

“Right. But I have no way of knowing whether they did or not. Shortly after that, Mortdh murdered my Khiann. The big assembly sentenced him to entombment, but they could not figure out how to bring him to justice, and there were rumors of him amassing forces and planning an attack.”

Poor Annani. Not only had her beloved been murdered, but she’d feared Mortdh would attack and capture her, which would have been a worse fate than death. “So you decided to run.”

“Exactly. Hiding out in the far north, isolated and living among savages, I did not find out about the disaster until a long time after it happened. It took months for the rumors to start trickling in. And because they were told by humans, who could not comprehend the existence of a weapon so destructive, it all sounded like a myth. It took me a while to realize what they had been talking about.”

“How awful.” As tears started running down her cheeks again, Wonder reached for the tissues, pulled out a few and handed them to Annani before taking some for herself.

Annani dabbed at her eyes and took a deep shuddering breath. “Esag might have survived as well. He had not returned before I escaped.”

“He would not have joined Navuh's camp.”

“Perhaps he had no choice.”