"It's okay. You found me in the end. Just like when I fell down that well shaft, right? It doesn't matter. You found me in the end."<br/><br/>Karim's eyelids lowered. He had been raped over and over, heavily abused, and yet he didn't flinch from Kiri's touch. He squashed his own unease.<i>It's Kiri,</i>he told himself.<i>It's just Kiri.<br/>
</i><br/>"Good to be back," Karim said, his voice thick with emotion.<br/><br/>"Kiri, I've got to tell you," he said, capturing his hand and trying to look into Kiri's eyes, unaware they couldn't see him. "My mother is dead. She committed suicide a week after I turned fourteen. Our master sold me a few days later. He didn't want me. It was a cruel sale too, to the gladiatorial rings. I didn't stay there too long before they resold me as a pleasure slave."<br/><br/>Karim paused, holding Kiri's hands. "Sometimes I think of it—that he was my father. It seems weird."