PURGATORY - Chapter 33

Jelph poured more of the gritty mixture into her bowl. A Keshiri pauper's dish, the tasteless cereal became something else in his hands, seasoned with spices from his garden and the tiniest morsels of salted meat.

Ori didn't know what animal it came from, but now she devoured the meal hungrily. Two days of prideful restraint had been enough.

It was still so strange to see him, here, outside the fields. Each of the past two mornings, he had risen before sunrise, beginning his chores early to have more time for her. He washed in the river before she rose.

When it was her turn, he retreated to the corner of the hut that served as his kitchen to preserve her modesty. Ori didn't think she had any, but again, that strange meekness crept in. He was no Keshiri plaything, but a human, even if he was a slave.

As she was.

For some reason, she hadn't told him anything that first night. There was so little he could do, and it was all so far beyond his frame of reference. She'd sat in silence in the doorway of the hut, watching for nothing until she collapsed.

She'd awakened the next morning inside, on the bed of straw he used himself. She had no idea where he'd slept that night, if he'd slept at all.

The second evening, after an untouched dinner, she'd let it all spill out: everything she'd learned in her trip to Tahv. The leaders of the two factions that could never agree on a Grand Lord had indeed fallen to their elderly compromise candidate. The event had given her minions cause to decapitate—literally—the leaderships of the Red and Gold factions.

Ori's mother still lived, her sources assured her, though in the clutches of the vengeful Venn. It was too late for Candra to save her career, but she might yet save her life, if she said the right things about the right people. Like Donellan, Candra had waited too long to choose a side and to put herself forward as a successor.

A year had seemed like so little time to be a High Lord. But for Venn, whose every breath was a miracle, the need to outlive her rivals was paramount.

On learning that she'd been condemned to slavery, Ori had dashed to her hidden uvak and flown immediately to the only safe place she knew. After a long moment's hesitation, Jelph had welcomed her—although he'd been less sure of what to do with Shyn. As slaves, neither of them could own an uvak.

Remembering the composting barn that had once served as a stable, Ori had urged him to hide the creature there, behind the stalls storing manure. Initially uncertain, Jelph had relented under her pressure. Already feeling sick, she'd heaved as soon as the door to the vile place was opened. She did it again the second night, after relating the full tale of her tiny but important family's downfall.

Jelph had been caring and helpful those times, with his cool river water and washrags handy. Now, in the twilight of the third evening, she was really testing the limits of his hospitality.

Feeling better, she'd spent the entire day stamping around the farm, going over the events in her mind and plotting her family's return to power, even if the family now was just her. At supper, she'd tested both his knowledge and his patience.

"I don't understand," Jelph said, scraping the bottom of the orojo-shell bowl.

"I thought the Tribe expected people to want each other's jobs."

"Yes, yes," Ori said, cross-legged on the floor.

"But we don't kill to take them. We kill to keep them."

"There's a distinction?"

Ori dropped her empty bowl to the floor of the hut. Some dining table, she thought.