Shadows Return

cover of the trees again. “So this is what you did, you and Seregil, when you were out on the road for Nysander?”
    “In part.”
    “And the parts that gave you all those scars?”
    “This was an easy night, Thero. You were quick-witted back there, by the way. Not bad, for a wet-behind-the-ears tower wizard.”
    Pleased, Thero took that for the compliment it was.

CHAPTER 40
    Silver Eyes

    JUST BEFORE SUNRISE , Seregil and the others found shelter in the ruins of an abandoned stone barn. The house it had served had fallen into the foundation hole and there were no signs of life about the place, just ruined fences and a dry well.
    The barn had been struck by lightning and half the roof had burned and fallen in. Rats and bats had taken over, and seemed none too pleased to entertain unexpected guests. A rodent half the size of Ruetha leaped from the shadows and snapped at the little bundle of food Alec had brought.
    Ilar let out a startled cry and tried to run, but Seregil dragged him into the shadows by the back wall. “Behave yourself, or this can be your permanent resting place. It’s your choice.”
    Ilar went sulky and made a great show of scraping the ground with his foot to clear away the various droppings before he sat down.
    Alec kept the rhekaro with him as he and Seregil made a survey of the place. A brightening sky showed through the large holes in the roof.
    “Yhakobin is bound to come looking for us,” Alec murmured, peering out through the broken doorway.
    “Us, or you and that?” Seregil asked, pointing at the rhekaro. “Ilar told me it was you that he was after when we were ambushed. Because you’re from the Hâzadriëlfaie line.”
    Alec nodded slowly. “He needed my kind of blood to make the rhekaro. He even tried to treat me well, sometimes, because of it.”
    “Only sometimes?”
    “I didn’t like him or the things he did to me.”
    “Like what?”
    “No, nothing like that. It was just—Can we talk about this later? I’m so tired.”
    “Of course!” Seregil embraced him as best he could and felt Alec go limp against him for a moment, resting his head on Seregil’s shoulder. It was the first proper embrace they’d been able to share, and he didn’t want to let him go. “After the ambush, for the longest time, I was so afraid you might be dead.”
    Alec’s arms tightened around him. “I thought the same, until I saw you on the deck of that ship at Riga. I knew then that I had to stay alive and find you again.”
    “I’m not sure who found who, in the end, but here we are.” He kissed Alec and reluctantly released him.
    Turning his attention to the landscape outside, he saw no sign of pursuit but doubted that would last. Who knew what sort of powers an alchemist had for finding lost slaves? Or the slave takers, for that matter.
    Ilar was waiting sullenly for them, curled up in a ruined stall now and shivering in his stolen cloak.
    Alec sat down some distance from him and fed the rhekaro again. Seregil made himself watch, figuring he might as well get used to it, though it still struck him as obscene.
    Doing his best to hide his revulsion, he sat down beside Alec and opened the bundle. “Let’s see what you stole for food. My belly thinks my throat’s been cut.”
    The three of them ate sparingly, sharing a bit of bread around and paring hard cheese thin on slices of apples taken from the orchard the night before. As always, the rhekaro ate nothing and didn’t seem interested in the water, either. According to Alec, the rhekaro had been given only a few drops of Alec’s blood each morning to live on, and nothing more.
             
    Seregil took the first watch, sitting in shadows of the barn door with his back to a beam and a good view of the western barrens. Alec stretched out beside him with his head on Seregil’s thigh. Ilar remained in his corner, snoring softly.
    The rhekaro seemed to have no more need of sleep than it did of food, but it curled up beside Alec, as if seeking the warmth of another body like a cat would.
Or a serpent,
Seregil thought, eyeing it warily as he stroked Alec’s hair.
    The rhekaro stared back at him. Those unnerving silver eyes weren’t blank, but the kind of intelligence they might hold eluded him.
    After a moment it turned away and looked down at Alec’s sleeping form. Then it lay down beside him in a similar position, and closed its eyes.
    It’s trying to act like a real being,
thought Seregil, surprised. He waited a few