This scene is taken from the fourth book in Drao's series (unnamed). Marked mature for gore (wounds) and implications of abuse.

Footsteps bounce around me, sharp and multiplied by the thick, leering, stone walls, despite my attempts to soften them. The air, stale and filled with dust, weighs heavily in my lungs as if it was made out of pelts, tinged with the scent of musk, sweat, and blood. It unsettles the balance of my innards, causing them to shrink back and shiver.

I do not like it here, in the Ravan tunnels. They press at me, compressing the light to a small aura before and behind me with thick, dense blankets of darkness, hiding the steps below my feet and the far too narrow twists and turns. Here, darkness reigns. Here, countless Ravans, Leaders, and First Shadows have worn grooves into the stone, guiding the next one's feet in an inevitable march towards the room. The room where the ghosts of screams linger in the corners like cobwebs: the Ravan's room.

A tremor slithers down my arms and back, slowing my steps and adding an undercurrent of unease to the whispers of deep, twisted memories born from within the room's walls. The jigglosackt—resting on top of the basket I cradle in my arms—brightens as my movements jiggle it, stretching its pale, white light a little farther ahead and illuminating a door. It is wooden, made from some tree that had died decades ago, and is deeply grooved from violent encounters and desperate fingers clawing for a way out. A metal bar stretches over it, locking it against the wall and keeping all who are behind it trapped.

Here is the threshold of the room. Here is the entrance to a place of fear and blood and suffering. Here is where one chooses to enter or to flee, and I am not one who can make the choice. There is no question to whether I will open this door and tend to the wounded Weft confined to the room until he heals enough to be broken again; the Leader has given me an order, and I must obey.

And yet, I hesitate. How could I not? Behind this door is where my voice was ripped from my throat and my words stripped of their melodies. Behind this door invisible shackles were snapped over my wrists and my freedom snuffed out like a candle. Behind this door was where my heritage was crushed into dust and the Leader's brand pressed into my skin, condemning me to be the First Shadow. To serve the Leader until I die. To keep the secrets of the tunnels behind the walls, and the Leader's greatest strength.

I straighten my shoulders and tighten my fingers around the basket of bandages, rags, a jar of water, and salves of the highest grade, drawing stability from the familiarity of the rough, woven strands of green zvet sprigs. I have an order. The Leader has spoken. I must fulfil his will.

Forcing my muscles to loosen, I reach out, heave the bar aside and shove the door open. The stench of dried blood, sweat, and tarnished metal slaps my face, reaching slimy fingers into the crevices of my airways. Phantoms of pain ages past waver in my throat, a pitiful representation of the agony I went through.

In the blackness beyond the reaches of the jigglosakt's light, one omire-blue slit gleams like a star made from the depths of the ocean. It widens as I peel the squishy beetle off the basket, slap it onto the wall, and approach the ledge carved into the other side of the room.

The ledge is long—taking up half of the wall—with a high ceiling, and is just deep enough to comfortably hold the Weft's body. On the head and foot of the ledge, two holes poke diagonally through the stone so that the chains clasping around the Weft's wrists and ankles pull his arms above his head and his feet flat against the ledge's floor.

At first, his eye remains dulled and unseeing, only tracking my movement out of instinct. But as I draw closer, the film over it clears and I am seized by the frigid, unfathomably intelligent eye of the Weft.

He— sees me. He is awake, and lucid, unlike the other times I have come. I freeze, the basket hovering over the ground. I should tip my chin up and bare my neck. I should stare at the ceiling and never meet his gaze directly. I should intone his title and ask his permission to start tending to the wounds that have kept him in feverish stupor for so long.

I should, but I do not. Cannot.

Cannot, because he pins me in place with his unwavering stare. Cannot, because fear trembles my heart and fills my throat. Cannot, because despite all that, despite all my years of training, despite being the First Shadow for decades, a sliver of relief slides under my ribs and takes residence in the crevice where forbidden thoughts lie.

The Weft is awake. He will not die from his wounds. I will not be left alone in this dark room, tasked to drag the cold, stiff body of the only person to see me as something else than a Shadow away and off a cliff.

The Weft blinks, and I wrench my gaze away, baring my throat and opening my mouth. Words form on my tongue, breath building in my throat to give them life, but I do not let them out. They are not the right ones, made of empty steel and formality, but made of the things from the heart—the crevice of thoughts I must never release. They are words like, "I am sorry," and "I am glad you did not die." And not, "Weft. The Leader has sent me to change your bandages," or "The Leader wishes to speak to you now that you are awake."

Carefully, I fold them back into the crevice and set about preparing a mixture to ease the Weft's pain and speed his healing. Placing the basket down, I run my fingers over the tops of the bottles and containers of various powders, oils, herbs, and minerals, selecting a few and tapping their contents into the bowl. The familiar movements ease my nerves and, after saturating the mixture with water, I straighten and dare to face the Weft again.

He lies still—save for the slow rise and fall of his chest—face turned towards the light and eye closed. Bandages engulf half of his face, brown spots outlining the three long scars crossing his face staining the white fabric. I will have to change them. With a soft, inward sigh, I shuffle over and lift the bowl towards his face as I slip my other hand behind his head.

His eye snaps open, fierce and dangerous as a hawk's. "D-on't touch me," he hisses as he jerks away.

I wince, a tang of fear shuddering through my stomach, but do not pull away. He needs to drink the mixture. It will help him and it is my duty—my order—to help him. To patch him up. To piece the fragments of what is left of the Weft and aid the Leader in making the deadly, bloodthirsty monster that is the Ravan. I must push on. I must make him drink. Even— even if it hurts me to do so.

Slowly, I edge my hand behind his head, taking great care to brush against the bandages wrapping around his skull as little as possible. He stiffens, jaw muscles tightening, but he doesn't pull away, and I am able to tip his head up and put the bowl to his lips. At first, he presses them together and refuses to drink. But when I do not pull away, he relents and opens his mouth, allowing the thin, acrid mixture to slide down his throat.

Coughing, he turns his face away, chains clinking against the stone as his shoulders shake. The thick pelt covering his torso slides down, revealing pale skin peeking through lines of bandages that keep his wounds closed. The Leader has not been kind to him. He has never been, but after...after his escape, the Leader's wrath rained down on him with its full strength.

I pull the pelt back up and reach for his face, fingers brushing the ends of the bandages. As I begin to unwrap them, he pulls his lips back from his teeth and growls low in his throat, a warning of his dislike. He hates it when I change the bandages on his face, even in his feverish stupor, and I hope now that he is lucid he will not fight it as much. It has to be done—a necessary evil, as the Dregonites would say—but yet...I wish I could make the process easier. Distract him from it, perhaps.

My voice has been stripped from me, but I still have breath to give sound to my words. That is all I can offer. Taking a deep breath, I whisper a question into the air, meaning for it to be simple and unassuming, but it comes out too raw and direct. "Where did you go when you escaped?"

The Weft's breathing hitches, and he slides his gaze to mine, lips twitching with an unreadable expression. He stares at me, that one eye gleaming with cold, unyielding steel, piercing through my guard and straight into the crevice of my heart with the ease of a noren sword slicing through stone. It is as if his eye is a star, bright and burning with unimaginable power that knows no boundaries.

Some say that the Weft's eyes burn with light because he does have power. Power that sets him above emotion. Power that sets him above temptation. Power that sets him above weakness. They lie, of course. I know the truth; it is the secret I lost my voice to. The Weft is just a man, like me, able to weep and cower. Able to be manipulated and controlled. Able to be imprisoned and injured. Able to long for freedom not found within the walls of the spires.

"The...mountains."

The Weft's raspy voice startles me from my thoughts, and my fingers tighten on the bandages, an all too familiar shiver racing down my spine. I had— I had not expected him to answer. I am the First Shadow, and he is the Weft. We do not talk to each other. I am only here to serve, to bind his wounds. And yet...he answered my misplaced question.

Though I feel his gaze on me, I keep my eyes on my hands as I carefully peel each layer of bandages off. I have never seen mountains before, save for the one Kentytii has carved its city out of. What must it be like? Is it covered in dark, orange stone, like this one, or grass and trees? "What are they like?"

"Beautiful," The Weft flicks his gaze to the ceiling, seeming to see past the burnt-orange stone, "and wild."

The last of the bandages comes free, revealing three thick, twisted black strips of flesh outlined in red running across his face from the top of his forehead to his cheek. The scars skip his eye—thankfully—and it is uninjured, though it remains closed, discharge from the wounds crusting his eyelashes and sealing it shut. I take a cloth and dip it into the jar of water and start to clean the crust away, pushing my thoughts to picture a place that can be beautiful and wild at the same time.

All that comes is a bleak, dusky mountain with a heart of fire and swathes of orange minerals glittering in the sides, towering over me like the Leader about to strike. It is not beautiful, but it is wild. Wild and dangerous and violent. My stomach twists within me and I tighten my grip on the cloth.

As if he knows my thoughts, the Weft elaborates. "They...are clothed in green and white, peaks scraping the sky as they dip and fall like a bird on the wind. When one stands on their tops, all one can see is mountains stretching around from horizon to horizon. The tallest ones are covered in snow, even when it is summer, and their feet are covered in grass and trees."

A painting starts to form in my mind, grey and watery, with splashes of vibrant green covering the feet of the mountains. Gradually, the greys shift and shed their dullness for vibrance as the Weft continues to describe the place and details start to form.

My fingers still as I picture it: streams so cold they seem to be made from starlight flow down the slopes and carve paths through canyons and rocks, passing bowing trees that cling to cliff sides, branches spreading in outward swirls with pale pink leaves shaped like crescents.

Little clusters of blooms wade into the streams, followed by floating PurpleGlory, so that it looks like twilight gathers at the edges of the water. Stretching on either side of the streams are vast blankets of rich green grass that murmurs in the high, clear wind that blows from the mountain tops, interspersed with flowers and bushes of all kinds.

The Weft falls silent, and I am plunged back into the room with dull orange stone, musty, metallic-smelling air, and strange, gloominous shapes wavering on the walls keeping back the shadows and phantom echoes into the corners, only the memory of the mountains lingering in my chest. The mountains— they are wild and beautiful and home, like the night sky is to our souls, and the stark, ugly difference of the room from that place lumps in my throat and hitches my breath.

Oh, how I long to go there! How I long to stand amongst the wind-swept grass or drink from streams made from melted snow, or lift my face to the breeze and smile as I smell the flowers. How I long to gaze up at snowy peaks and perfect blue sky, not a sign of stone walls surrounding me. How I long—how my soul keens for such a place!

But I will never be able to go there. I will never set foot in those mountains, or catch the scent of flowers on the breeze. I will never be free to go wherever I please. I am the First Shadow, and I will serve at the Leader's side until I die.

The pounding of my heart slows and fades like the memory of the mountains, turning dark and grey once more. The mountains are no hope for me. But... My gaze drops to the Weft, the healing wounds on his face, and the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. He— he is not the First Shadow. He is not trapped here, no matter how hard the Leader tries to wrap him in chains and snuff out the stars shining behind his eyes. He can escape. He has escaped.

And he can do it again.

A spark catches in my chest, guiding my hands with a new energy. I reach out and take his face in my hands, turning it towards me so that I can look him in the eye. "Weft," I whisper.

He opens both eyes—the left one does not open all the way—darkness flickering across his features.

The Weft had everything taken from him, every choice forged with the threat of pain, and went through everything I suffered and worse, yet he still remembers his home. He still has stars shining behind his eyes. He still has life untainted left inside of him.

I do not hope in things anymore, or spend my energy longing for a brighter dawn, but for the Weft—for the one who never died to this forsaken place—for his sake, I hope that he will return to the mountains he so dearly loves. For his sake, I hope he will escape like I can never do. For his sake, I hope he will be free.

I meet his star-blue gaze. "You will return to the mountains."

He blinks slowly at me, expression shifting like the shades of shadows, and pulls his face away from my hands—but not before I see a flash of hope hardened in the core of a star break free from his carefully constructed mask. The light reaches into my chest and delivers a whisper to hide inside the crevice in my heart: the Weft knows he will be free, and he has a plan to make sure of it.

After a moment's pause, I take some cream and gently spread it over the scars on his face, then wrap it back up, hiding the hope gleaming from his eye. A silence that comes from shared knowing hovers between us, staying the need for more words as I begin to tend to his other wounds, and filling the ragged emptiness held within my ribs.

There will always be darkness in this room, where the floor is stained with blood and the walls reverberate with screams that will never reach another soul's ears, but perhaps not all who were harmed here will stay in the darkness forever. Perhaps the Weft will escape it, like I can not. Perhaps he will be free. And for that, I hope.