Free Idol of Blood by Jane Kindred Page B

the connection for himself. “It was because you were ill.”
    â€œYes.” They were both quiet a moment, the air of the temple stifling with the brooding weight of the past, until Merit felt he must try to make Ahr understand. “He trusted no one else. I was unwell for several weeks. At the beginning, near death. I think he blamed himself. When I returned, he wouldn’t let me bring you to him again. It tore at his conscience.”
    â€œThen he didn’t stop…desiring me.”
    â€œNo. Ai , no, dear girl.”
    Ahr reached for the column that anchored the arch beneath the vaults of the dome. He looked as though he would be sick. Merit put a hand on his shoulder, and Ahr pushed it away in horror.
    â€œI murdered him,” Ahr gasped. “I stirred up the hatred of Rhyman against him, because of vanity.” Ahr leaned back against the pillar, his face drained of animation. “He told me— she , the renaissant—he had loved me. That was unbearable, but past tense. Do you see what I mean? I thought he meant he had once , and then had stopped. Or I wanted to think that. I wanted it to make sense. I wanted to believe he’d loved and it had faded—something I’d done—my sin of pregnancy—there was no explanation.” He took a ragged breath, wincing as though it hurt to do so. “I murdered him because he scorned me. Because he hurt me so. And it never happened .”
    â€œHe stole your child,” said Merit softly, as though he could give Ahr some excuse.
    â€œHe loved my child! He loved her as I never did. I barely knew her. And I killed her also out of jealousy.”
    â€œNo, Ahr. It’s not as simple as that. I beg you to stop tormenting yourself. You see why I didn’t want to tell you?” He tried once more to comfort, and Ahr whirled away from him.
    â€œStop protecting me. You can’t protect me from myself. I’m the one who’s unforgivable.”
    â€œNo, Ahr.” Merit shook his head, swallowing against a painful lump. “It was the darkest time of my life. The darkest time the Delta has ever known. But you cannot claim responsibility for it. The winds of Rhyman had changed. Meerrá , the winds of the Delta itself. It was the end of the Meeric Age, and you did not create it. You did not dash his head against the steps.” He choked on the words but he had to go on. “You did not hurl RaNa from the portal. Those were the cancers of Rhyman, and I understood it after time and healing had worked their way. I have never blamed you. For your part, I’ve forgiven you. It is past.”
    Ahr’s face blazed red with outrage. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare forgive me!” The former consort of the Meer of Rhyman staggered from the arch and fled.

Six: Constraint
    No one questioned a man walking a boy, bound and gagged, on a leash through the fog-shrouded streets straggling away from the ruins of Ludtaht Izis. Soth Bessaht, city of possibilities though it might once have been, was replete with slaves and slave owners in the post-Expurgation years. Pearl read this in the faces of those who looked through him without acknowledging his existence as one might a pack animal, and in the faces of others whose gazes slid away from his swiftly with shame, knowing there but for the grace of their masters, went they themselves.
    So he’d gone from being the property of one master to the spoils of another. Had he been less tired and defeated, he might have wept, but there seemed little point in exposing himself for what he was just to indulge his misery.
    Pike the Meerhunter—a vocation Pearl hadn’t known existed until his captor spoke the word—took him to his dank quarters in a rooming house and made him kneel on the floor while he enjoyed a meal of cold lamb and minted potatoes without offering any to Pearl. Of course, he couldn’t without removing the gag and bit, which he