Page 17 of Sins of the Heart

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of him, feed off their energy, their power.

Sutekh liked the dark ones the best. The ones laced

with the greed and malice and hate that they had

brought with them from life. They were the tastiest

meals, the most nourishing.

It was left to Gahiji to arrange for contact with the

mortal left behind in the world of man, to ensure that

all Sutekh had promised was carried out. Sutekh believed in fulfilling his bargain to the soul he had ingested, terminated, robbed of any hope for rebirth or

future life.

Not only a life snuffed, but an immortality taken.

There was no afterlife for that soul, no heaven or hell

or Field of Reeds. No Valhalla or any other version of

a next world. Nothing. There was only Sutekh’s voracious hunger.

In exchange, Sutekh gave their loved one exactly

what he had agreed to, and in doing so, doomed that

loved one to the exact same fate.

After all, a contract was a contract, and at the end

of their lives, they would come to Sutekh when he

called.

EVE SILVER

27

In the corner of the room, Lokan sat and watched

and learned. But it did not escape Gahiji’s notice that

at the moment of the soul’s ingestion, the son’s expression betrayed distaste, perhaps even disgust, suggesting that the human half of him had some remnants of

tender emotion, perhaps empathy, for these pathetic

souls.

Gahiji never dared to point that out to his master. He

liked his role as a soul reaper and Sutekh’s trusted second far too much to open his mouth unwisely in criticism of his master’s son, and find himself the meal

rather than the meal provider.

But he planned to continue to keep an eye on Lokan.

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