Shadows and Light by Cari Z. Page B

of his other apprentice, the one Rafael had killed only…two nights ago? Three? How long had it been? Rafael wasn’t sure, although from the feel of his arms he hadn’t been hanging for more than an hour. His shoulders hadn’t separated from the sockets yet, despite barely being able to touch the ground with his toes. So, not long. Two nights then. Why was he alive?
    Politics. The answer came to Rafael in a rush and he released his breath with a tired, strained sigh. Of course. He had insulted the ruling council of Clare with his last kill, a high-ranking human servant of theirs. They wanted him taken alive so they could make his punishment last, so they could make an example out of him to any others who might have delusions of stealing their grandeur. His end would be neither fast nor clean. Rafael remembered from his own years in the Upper City the punishment for those who threatened the High Ones’ sovereignty. No merciful end for an audacious mouse.
    The footsteps circled closer, a spiral path of pain closing on Rafael’s position. He kept his eyes resolutely shut. He wouldn’t look. It might be cowardly, but cowardice was better than the other emotions he felt hammering behind his eyelids. At least he could be a silent coward.
    “Awake at last.” Xian’s smooth, warm voice flowed into the empty spaces of the room, filling it instantly with his presence. The words were like a caress and Rafael couldn’t stop from turning toward them as a flower turned its face toward the sun. As soon as he realized what he was doing, he snapped back to neutral, raging at himself internally but keeping his expression blank. “Ah, pet. Still so responsive. I missed that.”
    Missed it? He’d missed it? Fury at Xian drowned out his anger at himself. He let it build, let it block out all the other emotions striving for supremacy. Fury felt good. Right. It blossomed and filled his chest, purifying his mind and easing the tension in his throat with its perfect simplicity.
    “Very good, Rafael. You’ve remembered a great deal of what I taught you.” He was close now, very close. He moved behind Rafael and stopped for a long moment. Rafael felt the cold metal handle of one of Xian’s instruments touch the nape of his neck then slide slowly down the length of his spine. He almost cried with relief. He couldn’t have taken the touch of skin. Metal allowed him to maintain his rage, to hold his edge. Just metal. Just a whip or a quirt of some kind. It could have been anyone’s hands on it.
    “Skin and bones,” Xian murmured. “Your new master runs you ragged, pet.”
    What a hideous misconception. Even knowing it might be a ploy on Xian’s part, Rafael felt compelled to answer. It was all right, his rage still protected him. “I have no master.” His voice sounded like ground glass, almost as rough as it had been when he’d tried to kill himself after being banished from the Upper City.
    “Perhaps not,” Xian said after a moment. “Perhaps not even yourself.” He tapped the base of Rafael’s spine with the handle, then began to move again. “A pet without a master is dangerous.”
    “I’m no one’s pet.”
    “But you are certainly dangerous. Wild, unpredictable. They told me I should have gotten rid of you years ago.”
    “You did.” That familiar shuddering pain lanced through his chest again, but Rafael buried it under his white-hot fury, fed the blaze so that it wouldn’t go out and desert him when he most needed to maintain his composure. “You abandoned me before I could be tested.”
    “The council judged you unfit for ascension, Rafael, not I.”
    That knowledge didn’t make it any better. It just made his master a servant, a weakling, another one of the council’s mindless underlings. It lessened him, and that lessening made Rafael even madder. He didn’t speak, unsure what would pour out of his mouth if he opened it now.
    “You would have failed their test,” Xian went on. His voice was casual,