Free Shadows and Light by Cari Z.

covered every flat surface but the bed, their covers thick with cobwebs. It felt like being in a tomb. “This is…” Rafael looked around again, feeling strangely transported. “My room.”
    “Untouched since your fall,” Xian said. “Why do you think that is?”
    “Perhaps you could not be bothered with it,” Rafael replied acidly.
    “Thick again. Disobedient pets deserve to be punished.” Suddenly a hood covered Rafael’s head, the weave thin enough to breathe through without difficulty but permitting no light to penetrate. Xian turned him around and pushed him out of his old room, then down the hallway again.
    It was much harder to walk this time around, unseeing, still forced into carefulness due to his bonds but worse, forced to rely on Xian to guide him. The High One could easily kill him now, damage him, leave him to wander in a place he wouldn’t be able to escape from. In all honesty, it was what Rafael expected. Therefore he was surprised when he suddenly realized they had reentered the tall, circular chamber they had started from. Their footfalls resonated familiarly, and despite himself he relaxed a bit.
    Xian nudged his feet apart, then clasped each ankle in a cuff. Rafael had barely an inch of movement in any direction. He felt the quirt’s metal handle, no longer cool but warmed from his master’s touch, slide down the back of each thigh. “Are you thinking now, pet? Leaving witlessness behind? You only attempted adorable stupidity as an excuse with me twice as a child, and I don’t expect to receive it more than twice now. Your next deliberate foray into inanity will be treated like the offense it is.” Fingertips brushed the ragged ends of his hair and Rafael jerked forward, away from the touch. “Do you understand?”
    “Why do you bother with this?” Rafael demanded. “Why not simply beat whatever you want from me?”
    “The beatings are for later,” Xian said easily. “And they’ll serve you far more than they will me, pet. I’ve no desire to take instruction from either you or Myrtea. We’re establishing now that your continued existence, however brief it may be, isn’t going to be directed by anyone but me. If I want to dress you in tulle and parade you around the Hall of Ascendance for the next three days, I shall. If I want to hang you by your knees from the ceiling until the joints begin to swell and tear, I shall. If I want to make you stand here in silence for hours on end, I shall.” He tapped one of the cuffs. “If you fall, you’ll wrench your ankles so badly you won’t be able to stand. If you can’t stand I’ll be very unhappy. Keep that in mind, Rafael.”
    Xian moved to Rafael’s front, and he could almost feel the heat of his master’s breath on his face. “Let me give you this much. No matter where I leave you or how you feel about it, I’m watching you. Emptiness is an illusion, solitude a fantasy. No matter what you hear or what you don’t hear, I will shadow you as long as you’re with me.”
    “You’ll spend three dull days then,” Rafael whispered hoarsely.
    “I’ll be the judge of that.” There was a brief murmur of movement, then the quiet click of the door, then…nothing. No sound. No boots tapping across the marble floor, no quiet whishing of moving cloth or the softer sounds of breathing. Just nothingness. Was it an illusion? Rafael strained his senses, trying to hear something other than himself, but there was nothing. Keeping his eyes shut of his own volition was one thing, but being hooded like a prickly, lamed falcon and left to perform feats of obedience for an audience of, perhaps, none… Damn it, where was the fucking torture? Could they get on with the pain yet? No more mind games, no more questions that cut deeper than knives, no more hooded darkness that smelled of stale tears.
    That was what made this familiar. It was an old memory, practically his oldest. Five years old, dressed in a filthy smock like the rest of the