Idol of Blood

by Jane Kindred

  The price of revenge may be her sanity…and the lives of those she loves.

  Looking Glass Gods, Book 2

  No longer haunted by memories of her life—and death—as the Meer of Rhyman, Ra looks forward to a quiet existence with her lover Jak in the Haethfalt highlands. Having made peace with Ahr, her consort from her former life, Ra can finally explore her new relationship, free of the ghosts of the past—until she unwittingly unearths Jak’s own.

  Out of instinct, she uses her Meeric power to heal the pain of Jak’s childhood trauma. But all magic has a price, and Ra’s bill has come due.

  Succumbing to the affliction inherent in her race, Ra flees to the mountain ruins where her mother’s temple once stood. As the madness takes hold, she resurrects the ancient city of AhlZel in a tremendous act of magic that seals her fate—and threatens to destroy those who would give up everything to save her from herself.

  Warning: Contains dark themes, violence, gender-bending sex, and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse.

  Idol of Blood

  Jane Kindred

  Dedication

  For the ones who are told to keep quiet.

  One: Inanition

  White dunes rolled and swayed into the distance like banks of snow. Counterfeits. Snow would be cold. That was the first thing she remembered. The first thing she’d seen and felt. Snow. The brisk insistence of it like the emphatic intake of air into a newborn’s lungs.

  The second thing she remembered was Jak—startled eyes of steel gray, freckled cheeks, birch-bark hair tied practically back; stubborn, reserved, and as different from anyone in Ra’s limited experience as the snow was from the lush valley of the Anamnesis Delta where Ra belonged. As different from Ahr as anyone she could possibly have stumbled into on that first day of her new life. Jak had been a safe port in the storm of memory from which Ra fled.

  Foolishly or not, Ra had returned, stealing a life from the ashes of her unstrung elements, her renaissance rashly effected. She’d returned either to punish Ahr or to beg forgiveness. Or both. She couldn’t remember. Ahr had killed her. Or rather killed him, the Ra that had been, the Meer of Rhyman.

  She stumbled on the powdery sand and sat abruptly. It seemed the thing to do.

  “Ra.” Jak was at her side in an instant, crouching with a look of concern. “Are you all right?” The bright Deltan sun glinted off the fair hair in a silvery halo.

  “I just need to rest a moment.”

  Sweet Jak. Ra had finally worn down the defenses, the wall of stone that kept others at a safe distance and allowed Jak to maintain control. Jak had let her in as she was sure no one else had been. Ra had touched Jak in intimate places—but not every place. No inner sanctum for Ra. Not yet.

  Jak uncorked a water skin and offered it to her before rising and drawing their companion aside. Ra supposed she oughtn’t eavesdrop, but tuning out the Meeric flow was more difficult than tuning in to it after nearly four hundred years of meditative practice.

  Ra’s eyes followed Jak, black sapphires in a white marble face peering through ebony tresses damp with sweat.

  Jak nodded in her direction, voice low. “She can’t make this trip, Geffn. This is absurd.”

  They’d traveled barely half a day from Rhyman, the place Ra had once ruled as divine Meer, but this Ra bore little resemblance to the majestic breed who’d occupied the altar-thrones and temples of the Deltan city-states before the Expurgation had overthrown them. Weak from the hunger strike she’d embarked upon, intent upon ending her new life after the memories of the former one returned to her, it had taken the last of Ra’s strength to destroy the templar priests who’d betrayed the Meer. Jak tried not to think of the minute bits of red matter to which the prelate of Rhyman had been reduced.

  “No.” Geffn’s expression was vague, as though Jak’s words didn’t quite register. He’d been perhaps the mostly deeply affected by witnessing what Ra was capable of with a word. To Geffn, Ra had been a foundling in need of protection. Following her to Rhyman when she’d fled the snow-blanketed mounds of Haethfalt after remembering the violent end of her past life, Geffn had convinced himself Ra was incapable of protecting herself. Of course, Jak had thought the same.

  “Geffn.” Jak spoke sharply to snap him out of his narcosis. “You have to pull yourself together and put what you’ve seen out of your head. I need you.”

  Geffn’s eyes came into focus. “Need me? You most certainly don’t need me, Jak. You don’t need anyone.”

  Jak ignored this. At least it was more like his usual self. “What do we do with her, Geff? It’s not safe to take her back to Rhyman. Not in this condition.”

  “No, not Rhyman.” Geffn considered. “Better In’La. At least there we could barter for one of those two-wheeled motorized contraptions.”

  “What contraptions?”

  “A motorcycle.” Ra’s voice startled them. She’d come up behind them while they spoke. “Did you want one, Geffn?” She took his hands and placed his palms together, wrapping her hands around them. “One only has to ask.” There was a sound behind them, and when they turned to look, a sculpture of molded metal alloy on two wide rubber wheels sat in the center of the path.

  Geffn gaped, unable to speak.

  “Vetmaaimeerra,” Ra murmured with a wry smile. “It’s yours. Is it what you meant?”

  Geffn walked about the polished machine, touching it hesitantly. It was solid and complete, and excellently made, as though crafted itself of conjured memory. On its right was a sidecar for an extra passenger, and protective shields for the eyes hung over one of the handlebars.

  “I don’t know how it works.” He crouched and studied its pipes and engine in fascination. “Or what propels it. I think they burn some kind of fuel.”

  “It will have all it needs,” said Ra. “Try it.”

  Jak watched her closely. There was no point now in trying to tell Ra she mustn’t conjure. She wasn’t some child. She was a conjurer, intrinsically, and had paid a dear price for her nature. Who she was, as surely as who Jak was and fought for the right to be, would have to be accepted. Coexistence without judgment was the credo of the Haethfalt settlements.

  Still, the exertion was disconcerting. It had seemed before, when Ra’s origins had been a mystery, that conjuring took something from her—which, of course, it must by some law of nature. Scrutinizing her now after this latest expenditure, Jak wondered what it might be. She was mildly flushed, but apparently not physically tired, as mere walking had made her. Jak feared the invisible toll.

  Geffn carefully seated himself over the machine after releasing its brace from the ground, testing his weight and balance against it, testing the feel of the thing as though it were an animal beneath him. He put his foot on the pedal at the side, and the machine shuddered for a second and then died down. Geffn tried this once more, gripping the handlebars tightly in concentration, and the creature sprang to life, humming and sputtering, and idly panting in anticipation.

  His first attempt at operating the vehicle was like an inexperienced ranch hand trying to break a wild horse, and he was similarly thrown. Geffn dusted himself off and tried again. Through trial and error and a fair amount of scrapes and bruises, he discovered what motivated it, and more importantly, what made it stop. It took the better part of the afternoon for him to come to an understanding with it, and since the light was beginning to lower, they set up camp, only a dozen leagues from the green riverbanks of Rhyman.

  Jak and Geffn lay on either side of Ra, a peculiar triad of necessity, and Geffn, fatigued, was asleep almost instantly.

  Ra curled away from him toward Jak beneath her blanket, eyes seemi
ng to glint like a cat’s, though nothing else was visible in the darkness. “We haven’t really had a moment alone since…” The soft murmur trailed off. Jak knew precisely what moment Ra meant. Before they’d left Rhyman; before Ra had disappeared in the night to rescue little Pearl—a Meerchild bred in captivity and kept in a cage by the prelate of In’La; before Ra had set fire to the temple there, and the prelate with it, Jak had thrown caution to the wind and climbed into bed with a goddess. The commitment to celibacy Jak had tried to maintain since before Ra’s arrival in Haethfalt had been tossed aside like a cheap shirt.

  After returning to Rhyman with Pearl, Ra had made no further overtures toward Jak, and Jak hadn’t presumed to make any toward Ra.

  “It’s all right. We don’t need to—” The weak protest died on Jak’s lips as Ra’s descended on them. Her kisses had a tendency to take one’s breath away, as if she gathered it all into herself, holding it, holding time, before giving it back.

  When she finally let them both breathe, Ra slid beneath the blanket and rested her head on Jak’s breast. “I could deepen Geffn’s sleep.”

  Jak considered it for a rash moment before squelching the thought. “No. That wouldn’t be fair to him.” That was an understatement. Screwing one’s new lover while asleep next to the jilted lover whose heart one had recently broken would be in bad form, to say the least. And it would add more to that invisible price Ra must be paying if she were to expend magical energy when she had so little physical energy to spare. “We’ll have time enough when we get home.”

  “Home.” Ra snuggled closer. “That sounds very nice. I’ve never had a home before. Just a temple.” She said the word as if it meant “jail”. While she spoke, however, her hand moved down Jak’s arm with feathery strokes, dipped over Jak’s hip and across Jak’s belly, and played at the loose drawstring waistband, fingers just inside it.

  Jak placed a hand over Ra’s, meaning to stop her, but Ra entwined their fingers and slid them lower. As if it were an act of self-pleasuring, Ra used Jak’s fingers to delve into the soft hair and press against the supple flesh, tentative, leisurely motions encouraging Jak to show her how to proceed.

  “When we return to Mound RemPetaJakGeffnMelKeirenRa—” She murmured the absurdly long name of their Haethfalt household as if they were only having a quiet conversation—“I’d like to make a quilt by hand.” She drew Jak’s fingers in a complex pattern, up and down, over and across, doubling back in infinity symbols that ended in sharp, insistent points, like the edges of rings bisecting each other. “Do you like this pattern?”

  Jak shivered and breathed ascent as Ra pressed Jak’s fingers into the center point of the bisection. Her motions became smaller, tighter and more definitive.

  “Some little rosettes where the squares join,” Ra whispered. “One. Two. Three. Four…” She demonstrated. “With a diamond in the center. Right…there.”

  Jak had to grab the blanket and bite down on it to keep the sweet little crooning howl Ra had inspired from escaping audibly.

  “And another, there.”

  Jak struggled not to thrash, rationing sharp rhythmic breaths into the fabric of the blanket.

  “And there.”

  Oh gods.

  “And then just there.”

  In the grip of a wave of pleasure so intense it was almost unbearable, Jak clutched Ra’s hand so she could no longer effect her blissful torment, the other hand digging into the bedroll as pantomimed moans were buried in the crook of an elbow.

  “Perhaps in peacock blue with threads of gold,” Ra continued as if she hadn’t just destroyed Jak utterly, her other hand casually stroking once more up Jak’s arm. “The colors of Ludtaht Ra. Though it may be time for new colors. I’ve always liked indigo.” She nestled against the hollow of Jak’s neck, putting a little kiss there before relaxing with a sigh to match Jak’s heaving breath. “Does that work for you?”

  It took a moment to remember how to swallow and speak. “Work for me?” Jak let out a nervous, whispered laugh. “Just about killed me. I’m crazy about it.”

  Eyes closed only for an instant, Jak looked up in bewilderment at the song of an eastern sparrow. The sky was less dark than it had seemed, and around them the ground was fragrant with the sweet scent of dew.

  When they broke camp an hour later, Geffn raised an eyebrow at Jak’s damp hair and rumpled clothing. “Have you caught a fever?”

  Jak tried to control the blush that threatened, but perhaps flushed skin would strengthen the appearance of illness. “I had a restless night,” Jak conceded. “I feel a little fatigued this morning.”

  Ra looked at Jak, evincing true concern, and pressed the back of her hand to Jak’s forehead. “I hope you haven’t come down with Deltan ague. Is anything sore or tender?”

  Jak tied off the rope about the bedroll with a jerk, unable to look at Ra for fear of giving all away. “I am a bit achy, now you mention it.”

  “Poor Jak.” Ra bent to give Jak’s cheek a kiss, her fingers trailing over the back of one hand reminding Jak mercilessly of how they’d directed that very hand’s motions during the night. “Perhaps Jak can ride in the side seat, Geffn, to have a chance to recover.”

  Geffn hesitated, tying the supplies onto the cycle’s sides like saddlebags. “You’ll sit behind me, then.” It was almost a question. He looked somewhat unwell himself at the idea, but he shrugged after a moment. “All right. It won’t be long,” he added, as though reassuring himself. “With this machine, we might make Haethfalt in just a few days.”

  Ra climbed on after Geffn mounted the bike, putting her arms around his waist for purchase and causing him to flinch. Jak watched her from the undignified position of the little sidecar as Geffn coaxed the machine into movement. A long reed behind Geffn, Ra turned her head toward the sidecar and leaned against him. She smiled at Jak, her hair streaming out behind her like a banner as they got under way. They were a Meeric procession, Ra the glorious center. She had her litter once again.

  The weather changed abruptly as they left the Delta flats and began to ascend through the sparse desert toward the hills. Compared to the highlands, Rhyman existed in a state of nearly perpetual spring, its temperament shifting only mildly to cool, brisk winds in winter. The desert was colder, and the wind battered them with sand so that they had to stop and armor themselves in cloaks and scarves, faces covered like three virgins of the Delta.

  By dusk, they’d reached the hill country, far sooner than expected. They might be home in only a day, two at the most. They stopped to set up camp, debating over a meal of bread and cheese whether Geffn’s machine would be able to make the climb, and whether it could handle snow. There was none on the ground here yet, but they were low enough that it might only have thawed close to the desert floor.

  It had been almost two months, Jak realized with a start, since they’d left the mounds—Jak and Geffn…and Ahr. A small murmur of pain fluttered through Jak’s chest. Would he come? Jak had been consumed by the presence and problem of Ra since they’d arrived in Rhyman, and had put dormant the part of the brain where Ahr was lodged, abandoning him first emotionally, and now physically. But there would be time to think of this later. It would do no good to worry about it now. Jak was used to keeping things compartmentalized in little mental boxes.

  An old road from the Delta had wound them here—not so much a road as a vague stone marker, but still a discernible path. It appeared to climb into the hills as well, but with less certainty. In traveling to Rhyman, they had kept to the Filial River, a cousin once-removed of the great Anamnesis, but the river route was too soft and dense with scrub to accommodate the motorcycle. Who knew whether this road persisted as the horizon climbed?

  “It’s all right,” said Ra, against their doubtful speculations. “The road will be passable.” Jak gave her a worried look, and Ra laughed. “I’ve done nothing, mené Jak. Merely looked.” She was, after all
, a soothsayer.

  The prediction proved true as they set off again at dawn, Jak trading places this time with Ra. Geffn was relieved at the more predictable presence—having Ra behind him was like riding with a catamount at his back—but he found it peculiar to feel the familiar hands upon him after such an absence. Jak didn’t embrace him as Ra had, but held him at the hips, allowing more distance between them.

  He remembered a time when Jak had sat behind him in a similar position, only on that occasion he’d been lying on his stomach in his father’s hayloft, with Jak perched above him.

  Jak had been wrestling with him, having stolen Geffn away from the homemound and the convalescence of which he’d become unbearably bored, and had him pinned. He’d cried “uncle”, laughing, and Jak, softly curved hips and long-fingered hands behind him, leaned close and said, “No, dear Geff, I’m more like an aunt.” He often forgot Jak was a girl and not a boy. In the enthusiasm of youth, he became instantly hard, acutely aware of the body against him. But an aunt, of course, was not someone about whom one had such feelings.

  When Geffn stayed where he was, staring at the dusty floor in keen discomfort after Jak rolled off and flopped in the hay beside him, Jak had figured out what his problem was, and his friend had been furious. Their wrestling match had turned into a no-holds-barred, down-and-dirty fistfight, and Jak had blackened his eye—and then unexpectedly kissed him, suddenly contrite, and the whole altercation had become very confusing. Jak had recognized the inherent flaw in the gesture as soon as it was offered. They’d laughed at each other, and then gotten shy. And Jak had kissed him again with full awareness on both their parts that something had changed between them.

  The hayloft had become the setting of many scenes in Geffn’s subsequent coming of age, and the place where he would eventually be admitted into the mysteries of Jak’s body once and for all—the pale breasts the size of teacups, peaked with a nearly indiscernible pink; the soft, yielding place where—