Shadows Return

them, his rage might have carried the day. But naturally, the coward had guards just outside the door, and they’d made short work of Seregil, hard as he’d fought. To his credit, it had taken three strong men to pry him off Ilar. The last of his strength was gone by then, leaving him with no choice but to curl up like a pill bug as they beat and kicked him unconscious. He did, however, have the satisfaction of seeing Ilar hanging back, clutching his throat and looking suitably shaken. Seregil would have much preferred him on the floor dead, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
    It had been early afternoon then. When he’d come to in this cold little cell, the light through the single tiny window was colored with the slanting glow of sunset.
    They’d left him his slave’s robe, at least, but the brick floor under him was damp and cold and his collar was digging into the side of his neck. His abused body felt like it was stuffed with broken glass as he rolled slowly onto his back and tried to take stock of his new surroundings before he lost the light.
    It was a task made more difficult by the fact that there appeared to be two of everything: two windows, somewhat overlapped; two doors, both sadly lacking an inner handle or lock hole; two smelly slop buckets against one wall; and, against the other wall, a weirdly elongated sleeping pallet.
    When he tried to sit up, his head threatened to explode, so he quickly gave that up. Instead, he forced himself back over onto his belly and crawled to the pallet, which drifted frustratingly in and out of focus and insisted on bobbing like a boat on the tide.
    He made it at last and dragged himself onto it. There were a few faded quilts and a dented pillow. As tempting as it was to just collapse on top of them, the room was already too cold for that. Whimpering a little, he used up the last of his strength to crawl under the covers, face crushed into the pillow.
    Suddenly he was surrounded by the scent of Alec, stale, but unmistakable. Alec had slept in this bed, this cell!
    “So this is where you’ve been, talí,” he whispered, sniffing the quilts and finding traces of his lover’s scent there, too—musk and sweat and unwashed hair. He let out a hoarse noise caught between a laugh and a sob and pressed his bruised face to the pillow again. “But where are you now?”
    The double vision warned of a bad head wound. He dragged himself up with his back to the wall and pulled the quilts up to his chin, trying very hard to quell the nausea burning in his throat. He pressed his cheek to the cold wall, hoping it would help. He found if he sat very, very still, he didn’t feel quite so much like dying.
    Stop whining and think!
    But thinking turned to Alec, and those thoughts soon turned to worry. Where in Bilairy’s name was he?
    He’d been struck on the head before, with similar effects, and Micum had gone to great lengths to keep him from sleeping, claiming it was dangerous. Seregil had no one but himself to rely on this time and it was difficult. His body kept trying to betray him. Time and again he caught himself nodding off, and paid for it with pain and nausea when his head snapped up. Would dawn never come?
             
    It was still dark when a faint scratching at the door awoke him from another light doze. He’d been dreaming that he was in bed with Alec back at the Stag and Otter; in his confusion he tried to get up and go to the door, thinking it must be the damned cat wanting to be let in.
    Moving, however, proved a worse idea than ever. His bruised muscles had stiffened while he slept; even this slightest movement was too painful, and his head felt like an inflated bladder on a stick. He gave up. “What do you want?”
    The scratching became a soft tapping, brief and faint.
    “Who is it?” he demanded more loudly, wondering if he was in fact addressing a rat.
    “You are Seregil, of Bôkthersa clan?” a woman whispered in Aurënfaie. “Come to the door.”
    He tried again, but the prospect of dragging himself across the floor was too much right now. He was still seeing double and felt dizzy just raising his head. “I can’t. Who are you?”
    “Zoriel sent me. She fears for you.”
    “Tell her I’m fine.” He waited, but there was no response. “Please, where is the young man who was here before me?”
    Again silence. He waited, but his mysterious visitor was gone. Why hadn’t he asked about Alec first? In the back of his mind lurked the