Shadows and Light (21 page)

Rafael felt a surge of intense relief. “So she’s done this before, she’ll know what we need to do for you.”

“She has done it before, but Nailah must appear very old now,” Xian said, staring blankly at the warped wooden floorboards beneath their feet. They’d been lucky to beg space in a barn this far out. “She began aging as normal humans do after she finished the descent. She’s always been clever, and very determined, but there’s only so much she’ll be able to help us with. The heavy work will be left to you, pet.”

“That’s fine with me,” Rafael insisted. “I’ll do anything for you that has to be done, but I might need someone to help me figure out what that is.”

“True,” Xian replied with a hint of a smile. “Our arrival won’t come as a complete surprise to Nailah, although I’m sure she was despairing of me after fifty years of waiting. I sent word ahead just before we left Clare.”

That was news to Rafael. “Sent word how? Magically?”

“By bird, actually. Nailah and I have kept up contact with messenger pigeons. The last one I received was nearly two years ago, but I have the feeling that the lapse was more her letting me know she’s getting impatient with waiting for me than her being unable to write.”

“What were you waiting for?” Rafael asked.

Xian raised his thinning face and looked at Rafael, and the smile that widened his lips was so genuine that Rafael was taken aback for a moment. “For you, pet. I’ve told you before, I needed the right reason to leave Clare. This isn’t just about the end of Erran’s blood, Rafael. I’d long planned to leave. I just needed the right person to come along and make me actually do it.”

“Me.” Rafael couldn’t help the incredulous note that crept into his voice.

“Clearly,” Xian said. He pulled Rafael into his arms and kissed his temple, then his cheek. “At some point I expect you’ll understand why.” Xian’s face felt like ice and his body was almost as cold as the frost-laden floor, but Rafael still turned his face against Xian’s neck and clung to him. His body needed sleep but he was so cold, and there was so much to consider now, and with every tremor that passed from Xian into him, the ache in his chest grew.

The next evening the sky had cleared some, enough that when they reached the saddle of the pass and Xian pointed, Rafael could actually make out the dark smudge of the mountains he was indicating. “The Severed Sisters,” Xian explained, having to yell to be heard over the wind. “Nailah’s home is in a valley at the base of those peaks. We should be there in two days, perhaps three.”

“Good,” Rafael yelled back. “Because this is becoming uncomfortable.”

Rafael couldn’t see the grin but he knew it was there when Xian reached out and flicked the edge of his ear. They pressed on dangerously far that morning, until the dawn light filtered through the trees, casting foreboding shadows on the ground. Setting up camp was a rushed affair, but fortunately the sun never made much of an appearance that day to test the security of their shrouded den. After caring for the horses and finishing with preparing camp, Rafael was worn to the bone. He collapsed onto the ground beside Xian and fell asleep almost immediately, barely registering when his lover shifted him so that his head was lying in his lap.

When Rafael woke up later that day he found Xian sitting completely still, his eyes closed and his mouth tensed in a firm line. There was a furrow of pain evident between his eyebrows, and his hands were clenched into fists.

“What is it?” Rafael asked hoarsely, pushing himself into a sitting position.

“I think…” Xian cleared his throat and tried again. “I think we’d better hurry, pet. And you may want to start restraining me.”

“What?” Rafael exclaimed. “Why now?”

“Because all I can think about right now is the vial of blood that’s stored at the bottom of your left saddlebag, Rafael.” Xian opened his eyes, and Rafael was startled to see that they glowed with a misty silver vapor, as though the magic itself was escaping from their surface. “And about how much I want it.”

“Oh, hell,” Rafael muttered. “Are you sure? It will be hard to manage your horse if I cuff you, and I can’t help you on this narrow trail. We’re so close, Xian, just another day or two…”

“I’m afraid it’s either restraining me now or dealing with me in a much less pleasant way within hours,” Xian said, and there was absolutely no humor in his bearing. “Do it, Rafael.”

“All right.” He slipped outside, cursing the bitter chill under his breath, then searched his bags until he felt the satchel he’d stowed away under the horses’ grain cakes. He pulled it out and shuffled back into the shelter, ignoring the whinny of indignant protest from his horse.

“Give me your hands,” he said as he knelt in front of Xian. Xian didn’t reply, and Rafael looked up into his lover’s silent, glowing orbs and felt a sudden piercing sense of fear. Before he could think twice about it, he slipped two of the silver needles free of their case and jammed them swiftly into Xian’s legs, just above the knees. His lover exhaled with a sudden harsh rush of breath and laughed weakly.

“You noticed, then.”

“The tension in your legs? I’ve been kicked by you enough times to know when to watch myself,” Rafael replied, trying to keep his tone light and failing miserably. This was the first time he’d felt in any sort of danger from Xian, and despite knowing how hard the withdrawal was hitting him, it was hard to reconcile the caring lover with the blood-starved addict he was seeing now.

“Best to get this part over with, pet.” Xian extended his shaking hands and Rafael didn’t hesitate this time, he just opened the cuffs up and closed them firmly over Xian’s wrists. Silver light pooled at the edges of the slender metal bands for a moment, and Rafael saw Xian wince before he managed to stifle it. The glow in his eyes died out though, and after a moment he managed a half-smile.

“That’s that, then,” Xian said. “This will put more of the chores on you, I’m afraid.”

“You’ve been making me do most of them anyway,” Rafael replied, reaching out and carefully removing the silver needles from Xian’s quivering thigh muscles. Getting them out was a relief to both of them. “It’s like being your apprentice again.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to feel unprepared,” Xian said glibly, flexing his legs slightly as if testing the damage.

“I knew there was an explanation.” Rafael’s bravado drained away abruptly and he swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. You did everything right, Rafael.”

“I know it was necessary, but I’m still sorry,” he sighed. “I hate having to hurt you.”

“Ah, pet… You’re going to have to get used to it. Pain is going to become a very big facet of my life, and it’s something I’m going to need if I’m going to get through the withdrawal.”

“Why would hurting you make it easier?”

“Why does hurting you make some things easier for you?” Xian asked rhetorically. “You know why pain helps, Rafael. Pain is potent, it’s primal. Pain focuses the mind on the immediate, not on the thousands of thoughts or feelings that try to distract and destroy you. It will be doubly important for me, since my body is going to be purging itself of centuries’ worth of Erran’s blood. I need a safe way to release it, and open wounds will provide that.”

“Open wounds… Like cutting you?”

“Whipping might be easier,” Xian said with a shrug. “I know it’s a drastic change in our dynamic, Rafael, and I hate to demand it of you, but I doubt Nailah will be in any condition to help me with that part of the process.”

“Oh.” Logically Rafael had known that it could come to this, but he’d managed to avoid thinking about it before. Needles he could do—they barely drew blood—and restraints he could handle, but to actually strike Xian with the intention of breaking his skin… The thought of it sickened him.

It was that same reluctance that had made it impossible for Rafael to successfully fight his former master at close quarters when this all began. He had tried to end it with his crossbow and failed, and once they had closed the distance and began fighting with blades, the moment he’d seen Xian’s face, he’d known it was no use. He couldn’t cut him, not deliberately, not when he wasn’t so filled with rage he was nearly blind. And now he’d have to. “Oh,” he repeated weakly.

“Yes.” Xian trailed his trembling fingertips down the side of Rafael’s face in a gentle apology. “We had better get moving, pet. If we’re lucky, we’ll be there before dawn.”

Chapter Seventeen

Lucky was nowhere near what Rafael would have called their situation a few hours later. The snow was coming down harder than ever, and the wind had picked up enough that he could feel the chill of it straight through to his marrow. He wondered if that was how Xian felt all the time, if the demigod’s blood cooled him all the way through. Perhaps you could get used to that kind of cold after a while. For himself, though, for now, all Rafael could think about was the ice that dotted his eyelashes and the tips of his fingers, and the burn that preceded the numbness creeping up his limbs.

The trail was narrow and slick, one side a rising mountain wall and the other a scree field that descended into a narrow valley. Xian had decided that they were better off on the horses than leading them, and given how cold Rafael’s feet were without being in the actual snow, he couldn’t bring himself to disagree. Still, every time his horse stumbled he found himself glancing ahead at Xian, checking to see that he was still there, still upright. The snow obscured his vision and the wind muffled all sound, so much so that after a particularly strong blast of skin-searing ice crystals, it took several moments of looking for Rafael to realize that it wasn’t that he simply couldn’t make Xian out through the storm. He was actually gone.

“No.” It was the first word out of Rafael’s mouth and the only one he took the time to speak. He forced his horse to speed up, then almost fell as the animal tripped over a deep break in the trail. The snow was dislodged here, the talus disturbed, and Rafael slid off his horse and down the slope in an instant, ignoring the distant pain of shards of rock biting into his flesh. Xian was down here somewhere, and Xian’s hands were still bound.

I should never have let him keep the cuffs on—not now, not like this. Not until we were safe
. But there was no safe right now, not with Xian the way he was.

Fifteen feet down the slope Rafael found the horse. It was buried hip-deep in the scree, and he could tell from how it quivered that something was broken. The animal didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, just trembled and bled. It was bleeding heavily, he could smell that much even though he couldn’t make it out in the dark. He felt around the hapless horse for any sign of Xian, a bit of his clothing, the silk of his hair, but there was nothing. So he must have fallen farther.

Rafael turned from the horse and continued down the slope so fast that he almost fell over Xian five feet later. The man was a mass of darkness against the white, almost a shadow, but when Rafael’s foot hit something soft instead of hard he knew what it was. Falling to his knees beside him, Rafael turned his lover onto his back. “Xian?”

There was no reply. Xian was utterly still, dark streaks against the white blur of his face indicating places where he’d gotten cut. Those would heal soon enough as long as he was still breathing, and after an anguished second with Rafael’s ear pressed to Xian’s chest, feeling it move beneath him was a blessing. Rafael sighed with relief and raised his head, cupping Xian’s face with his hand. He frowned as he felt the wounds in his lover’s skin, and peeled off his gloves to touch ragged edges. They weren’t healing, not at all. That meant something else was going on, something that was using all of his magic.

Rafael began to shift rocks out of the way, unearthing buried limbs. When he felt Xian’s lower right leg he knew that something was wrong. Jagged bone jutted through the cloth, and Rafael could feel the muscles straining beneath his hands, trying to shift the break back into place. Blood, not cold like he’d been thinking but hot, almost scalding, spilled across his fingertips, blood that brought warmth into his frostbitten hands immediately, blood that healed everything it touched. Blood that should have stayed inside Xian, damn it all to fucking hell.

Rafael didn’t take time to consider it, he just pulled down on Xian’s foot, then shoved hard against his broken shin. The bones shifted with a disgusting crunch, but they did disappear back beneath the torn skin, which instantly began to mend. Rafael felt along the line of the break, trying to tell if the ends were aligned or just close, but there was too much swelling to be sure either way.

“Xian?” Rafael left his leg and crawled back up his body, cupping his face again. “Xian?” Still nothing. The gashes on his face remained open and raw, but they weren’t bleeding now. “Fuck.” Rafael glanced back up the slope and saw that Xian’s horse was totally still now—the stillness that came with the final end of pain. “Fuck.” They needed a horse now, more than ever. If his had decided to take off—

Rafael let go of his lover and ran up the rocks. He slipped more than once, but he was on his feet again in moments, forcing himself to run and make sure that his cursed, damned, stubborn-as-shit horse hadn’t gone and bolted. Breathlessly arriving back on the path and seeing the animal standing there was almost anticlimactic, but Rafael didn’t let relief stop him from tying the animal’s reins to the twisted stump of a scrub tree that stuck out of the side of the mountain. Once he knew the horse was secure, he gingerly patted its mane. “Good boy.” The horse quivered but didn’t shy. “Good,” Rafael repeated. “That’s it, that’s good. Just be calm and wait for us. I’ll be back.”

Getting down the slope again was simple. The prospect of getting back up it hauling Xian with him was nearly enough to make him collapse, but Rafael forced himself to move. He couldn’t carry Xian up the hill, but he could drag him. It wasn’t ideal for an injured man but it was the only option he had. He slid his gory hands beneath Xian’s armpits, braced his feet on the slope and heaved. They moved half a foot. He repositioned, took a second, inhaled deeply and heaved again.