Shadows Return

the rafters overhead, the last of their meat. The little root cellar under the floor was empty, too. It had snowed hard for the past week, stopping at last the night before, and they were out of bread, cheese, and sausage. Both of them had more bones showing than they had in the fall.
    “We’re going to have to make it into town today somehow,” Alec muttered, not relishing the idea of such a long trek on snowshoes over the unpacked expanse of powder, or the same trek back with the weight of supplies on their backs.
    “Mmmmm. Later,” Seregil mumbled sleepily, running a hand down Alec’s chest, then lower.
    Suddenly the food situation didn’t seem so pressing. With a happy sigh, Alec turned over to face him and return the caresses of his lover, his friend.
    This lonely cabin was their haven, their refuge against memory and sadness. Seregil had vowed never to set foot in Rhíminee again, and at moments like these, Alec didn’t regret it. Seregil hadn’t dreamed of Nysander for nearly a week. In fact, he’d slept well for days, and was content and even more passionate than usual.
    So it was now as they made love, and soon the heat of their bodies warmed the room more than the meager fire. Before they were done they’d kicked the blankets back, sweating in the red glow.
    When it was over Alec fell back against the musty pillows, spent and happy. He reached for Seregil, but he wasn’t there.
    He wasn’t there…
    The cabin, the bed, the sound of the wind and the smell of the damp embers—it all faded away, melting like the snow had melted soon after that long-ago morning.
    Instead, he was shivering in a dimly lit room, caught in the grip of Yhakobin’s guards as Ahmol carefully cleaned the cooling white spendings from Alec’s belly with a wooden scraper into a metal bowl.
    Oh hell. The cheese. When will I stop being a fool?
    Alec instinctively tried to jerk free and cover himself, but the men held him fast until Ahmol was finished.
    “Why?” Alec snarled, still struggling. “Why are you doing this?”
    Ahmol gave him a disgusted look. “Ilban say. Need your
bura.
”
    Bura?
    Ahmol moved hastily back as Alec began to retch. Nothing came up, but the others released him, letting him curl into a miserable ball. As he did so, he suddenly noticed that the door of his cell stood open.
    He uncoiled and shot up from the pallet, shoving his startled gaolers aside as he broke for freedom.
    In retrospect, it wasn’t a particularly well thought out escape. He didn’t quite make it to the door before one of them caught his braid and yanked him backward off his feet.
    I’ve really got to cut that off,
he thought as he fell awkwardly, scraping a hip and the heel of one hand painfully on the bricks.
    A guard pinned him to the floor with a boot on his chest while the others went out.
    “Ilban not be so good, you run,” Ahmol warned over his shoulder.
    “Ilban
not
good anyway!” he spat back, but held his hands out at his sides to show the guard that he was done fighting. It was pointless now.
    The guard took his foot away, collected the lantern by the door, and went out, securing the door firmly behind him.
    Alec scrambled to his feet, shuddering with indignity and the cold. He found his discarded robe and pulled it on, ignoring the lingering stickiness on his belly. There was a strange bitterness at the back of his tongue that wasn’t bile.
    He gave me something to make that kind of dream! How else would he have known when to send his men?
    Back on his pallet with the quilts pulled up to his chin, Alec swallowed hard to keep from being sick again.
Ilban
would probably want to save some of that, too, the pervert!
    Another shudder ran up Alec’s back as he thought of the way Yhakobin had collected his tears in a little bottle.
    Nothing wasted.
    He couldn’t even enjoy the memory of the dream, knowing those bastards had been watching. That thought was too much for him. Throwing back the quilts, he barely made it to the bucket in time.
             
    Alec sat awake the rest of the night, waiting for the nauseous effects of the drug to wear off. The night passed slowly, and he watched the tiny window brighten from black to blue to pink, then to yellow as the sun came over the courtyard wall outside. It was easier to think now that he could see, easier to marshal his careening thoughts away from the shame of the night. One thing he was quite certain of: Yhakobin was mad. It was disconcerting to think that