Shadows Return

blood, just torn white flesh, like that of a fish, and a little white fluid. Alec’s stomach turned over as he noted the neat row of covered jars arrayed on a small table beside the alchemist.
    “Why are you doing this?” he whispered, unable to look away from the ravaged little body. And it was gazing back at him with its single remaining eye. Alec thought he saw a sort of hopeless beseeching there, though otherwise the rest of the face was a masklike as before. But that eye! It was so much like that of a real child’s that it broke his heart.
    “How can you do this?” Alec demanded, glaring up at Yhakobin now. “Why did you make it, just to kill it?”
    Yhakobin shook his head as he wiped his hands on a cloth. “I must admit, I did not expect it to have a voice. The writings indicated quite the opposite. I can only assume that your purification was not as successful as I’d thought.”
    “This—” Alec swallowed hard. “This is
my
fault? I’m not the one cutting it to pieces!”
    “The rhekaro is not a pet, or a plaything, Alec,” Yhakobin remonstrated gently, as if speaking to a stupid child. “They are created to be used.”
    “You cut off its fingers. And its eye!”
    “And I may accomplish great healings with them, and strong spells. Or I might have, if it was better made. I won’t know until I test them. But for now, I must ask you to give it another few drops of your blood.”
    Alec stepped back, but Ahmol was there, keeping him in place and reaching for his wrist.
    “You’re so concerned with its pain. Are you saying that you begrudge it a healing? I must know if that much is true. Give me your hand.”
    “A healing?” Alec clung to the only thing he’d understood so far and let Yhakobin prick his finger. As before, the alchemist guided the hand to the rhekaro’s lips, and this time Alec did not resist as they closed around his fingertip.
    It suckled harder this time, and Alec felt a strange twinge run up his arm. He’d have pulled away instinctively, but for the change that happened almost instantaneously.
    The raw wounds on its limbs closed as he watched, leaving only the thinnest of scars. Where the three fingers had been severed, tiny white buds were already taking form, growing back like a lizard’s severed tail.
    The grey skin took on its former pale glow and, strangest of all, the fine hair also seemed to be growing; within a few minutes, it lay like a silvery white cloud around the thing’s head.
    The duke, whom Alec had quite forgotten about, suddenly appeared at his elbow, saying something to Yhakobin in hushed, awed tones.
    “It is not human, for all that it may appear so,” Yhakobin warned, studying Alec’s face carefully. “It would be a great mistake for you to think otherwise.”
    “It screamed when you hurt it.”
    “Metals ring under the smith’s hammer. It’s nothing more than that.” He pulled Alec’s hand away.
    Two blue eyes fluttered open as the rhekaro tried to follow the finger with questing lips. The hair was down to its shoulders now. Alec couldn’t resist testing the feel of it between his fingers. It was silky soft, like Gherin’s.
    “If you’re done with it, it can stay with me,” he offered, remembering this time to add, “Ilban.”
    The alchemist raised an eyebrow at him, then chuckled softly. “Good night, Alec.” He gave an order to his men and they escorted Alec back to his new cell. The smell of the cellar wafted up from below, damp earth, old blood, and the sweet stink of the “birth.” It was almost a relief when they slammed the door and shut out the stench of it.
    Alec curled up on the bed and stared at his pricked fingertip. His blood had helped create that thing, and now it healed it. How was that possible?
    Not just his blood, but
Hâzadriëlfaie
blood. That must be why they’d left Aurënen and disappeared into the north, all those centuries ago. They must have known what could be done with their blood, and they fled, far out of reach of Zengat and Plenimar. But what was the rhekaro used for, that the Hazâd would go to such lengths to keep such things from being made? And was it really going to be used to make medicine for the Overlord’s child? And how? Would they cook it or boil it or drain its blood?
    Oh Illior, why didn’t you warn me? What’s the use of an oracle, if not to keep something like this from happening?
    There’d been no warning, though. He’d gone over the rhui’auros’s words endlessly,