Idol of Blood by Jane Kindred

Author:Jane Kindred
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Shifters;gods;goddesses;reincarnation;repressed memories;magic
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2015-06-22T16:00:00+00:00

Fifteen: Desolation

“Ra is mad,” said Jak flatly.

Geffn swallowed. This was no surprise, and yet to hear Jak say it—something cataclysmic must have happened. He eyed the laceration once more, a single stroke nearly identical to the several that marked Ra’s cheeks.

Jak nodded, fingertips brushing the mark. “She did this. She also tried to kill me.” Geffn expelled a breath of outrage. “She wasn’t herself,” Jak protested. “But you and the others were right. The Meer are mad. She’s mad. But I love her, Geffn.”

Geffn smoothed his hands along the armrests of his chair, maintaining himself against the insult of Jak’s admission. One could not be faulted for whom one loved. It was painful, also, to hear of Ra this way, though his infatuation with her had dissolved in the reality of her being. He wasn’t surprised to hear of her insanity, but the suddenness of it, the totality, that she would turn against Jak—he hadn’t wanted to be right. It was his worst fear, materialized.

“You know I have to tell the others. A council will have to be convened. Though sooth knows how the mounds can defend against a recreant Meer.”

“There won’t be any need for that.” Jak’s voice was emphatic as Geffn raised a doubtful eyebrow. “Ra has gone. I’m alone at Mound Ahr.”

He lowered his eyes from the misery in Jak’s. He was relieved, emphatically unburdened, but he couldn’t convey that to Jak. He breathed as he hadn’t since Rhyman. “How long?”

“A week,” said Jak. “Maybe two. Perhaps less. I’ve been sleeping odd hours. The days run into one another.” The strong, impenetrable Jak had been stripped away. It hurt Geffn’s heart to see his former mate this way.

“Jak, come home. No one blames you. We haven’t removed your name from the moundhold.”

Jak’s head shook, but there was little resolve behind it. “You threw her out,” Jak accused. “Her state was precarious, near starvation, and you threw her out. She wasn’t mad then.”

Geffn tried to take Jak’s hand but met resistance. “Jak, she was.” He hated to say it. “We all saw it. All but you.” He rubbed his eyes, tired at last after a night of insomnia. Jak was silent, wavering between resentment and the inevitability of Geffn’s truth. “She may have always been,” he added, his voice kinder than his words.

Ra climbed hand over hand, un-winded, surmounting the rubble from an ancient rockslide that covered the remainder of the cradle of EldRud—the “Old Road”—beyond the gorge. She would possess Soth AhlZel at last, as Shiva had always feared. Mother’s sun was at an end.

Outwardly, MeerShiva had ignored him after their one communion. He hadn’t been sure what her pronouncement meant: You rose as Meer when I expelled you into this world. Meeric words were not passive, and despite the lack of formal acknowledgment, she had spoken. You rose as Meer. Therefore it must be so. She had also spoken of his inattention to the force of his blood, and he realized it was likewise so. He’d never listened to the current.

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