The Shattered City (12 page)

‘Nothing has been right about this damned Court for as long as I can remember,' Ashiol growled. ‘We're crazy and we make each other bleed. What else is there to know?'

Velody looked at Crane. ‘What are you thinking?'

The young man looked serious. ‘For a start — since when does a Lord cut open someone else's courtesi, and not stick around long enough to quench them? I'm used to the Lords and Court making no sense at all, but … it's just not selfish enough.'

Velody glanced back at Ashiol, who had calmed down enough to take a seat at the table. He didn't seem to notice that Rhian had put a bowl of soup in front of him the second he sat down. ‘He has a point,' he grunted.

‘If it wasn't Warlord, then where is he?' Velody asked. ‘Doesn't he live with Livilla? Finding him shouldn't be that hard.'

Ashiol shrugged, glancing at Crane. ‘He has his own territory down there. Doesn't he? Can't imagine Garnet welcomed him to break bread with him and Livilla that often.'

‘Warlord took over the Museion,' said Crane. ‘After Garnet took it away from you.'

There was something cold and horrible about Ashiol's face in that moment. ‘Makes sense,' he said, and lifted the spoon to his mouth, eating without thinking. ‘What's in this?' he asked after a moment.

‘Vegetables,' said Rhian quietly. ‘Herbs. Salt.'

Ashiol stared at it, as if wondering where the food was. Velody understood that much. Her craving for meat had intensified since she came into her powers. Pulses and nuts didn't cut it any more.

‘He's not at the Museion,' Macready announced, appearing in the kitchen doorway. He took one look at Ashiol and relieved him of the confusing bowl of soup, slurping it standing up as if it was a mug of tea. ‘Priest and Poet have taken the place apart down there. No sign of him anywhere in the Arches.'

‘How is Livilla doing?' Ashiol asked.

Macready just looked at him. ‘You really gave a frig, you'd not have fled the second you prised her talons from around your neck.'

‘You go too far, sentinel,' Ashiol said in a dangerous voice.

‘So sorry, my King. Did I forget to show you proper respect? I'm mortified, so I am.' More slurps. ‘Is there anything you need from us, Majesty?'

‘Where did Dhynar live?' Velody asked. If it was true that Warlord had taken over Dhynar's courtesi, might he not have taken over other things of his?

‘He wouldn't be there,' Crane blurted. ‘Lords don't move into the territory of a fallen Lord straightaway, it's not …'

‘Not the done thing?' Velody said lightly. ‘You may not have noticed, seigneurs, but your world has changed quite a bit lately. I don't think the old rules necessarily apply.'

‘You're telling me,' Ashiol muttered. ‘So, you intend to return to the Arches and hunt down our murderer?'

‘Apparently I have nothing else to do, since the Duchessa cancelled a month's worth of Sacred Games and half my commissions will no longer be needed.' Velody stood up. ‘You don't have to come with me.'

Ashiol just looked at her, and she smiled. He would follow her, of course. They all would. She was the Power and Majesty.

M
acready walked through the Arches, following closely behind the two Kings with Kelpie at his side. It had been a job and a half to get Crane to nest instead of coming along, but the lad was sleep deprived enough that they were able to bully him into resting.

‘The Museion was mine,' Ashiol said in a low voice to Velody. ‘Garnet kept Tasha's den after she died and he became a Lord. Lysandor and I went to Priest for a while. Then, when I became a Lord, I took the Museion as my territory. It stayed mine until … much later. Garnet took it from me towards the end. He must have given it to Mars as a reward for something, to keep him sweet.'

Macready and Kelpie exchanged glances. Oh, aye, they remembered those times. Dark days indeed.

‘Couldn't you have taken it back when you returned to Aufleur?' Velody asked. ‘You're a King, Warlord is only …' She swallowed whatever she had been going to say, but they all knew she had thought it. Ha.
Getting the hang of
the hierarchy now, aren't you, my lovely? Kings beat Lords, Lords beat Court, everyone beats the sentinels, tralala.

‘I never even thought of taking territory again,' Ashiol said, bristling up like a broom head. ‘I just wanted to run away from this fucking city. Still do.'

‘Should I have territory?' she asked him, still keeping her voice low. ‘Does it — make me look less powerful, to live only above ground?'

‘It makes you unpredictable,' he said. ‘Don't lose that, Velody. Once they figure you out, they will own you. All of them.'

It was a while since Macready had been down this end of the Arches. There were more collapsed tunnels around here, and steps crumbling away. They emerged into the covered courtyard where the Museion stood — a half-broken building shaped like a temple, surrounded with marble statues and smashed columns. Ashiol looked as if he was being pulled in a dozen different directions at once.

‘It's beautiful,' Velody said, displaying a certain amount of tact.

‘Plenty of beauty in the Creature Court,' Ashiol grunted. ‘Doesn't mean much.'

‘He's not here,' Macready felt the need to point out yet again as they stepped inside the temple.

‘There's something of him,' Ashiol said, his dark head moving back and forth like an animal on alert. He darted forward, around heavy shelves that had once been piled up with fancy books. There were still some vases and other sculptures here and there — most of them chipped or broken. Forgotten antiquities. Rubbish, basically, though Ashiol had never thrown any of it away, and it looked as if Warlord had made few changes.

The Kings both went very still. Macready could smell what they did, if he concentrated. Blood. It was almost a subtle tang after the massacre in Livilla's rooms. But once you knew it was there, it could be nothing else.

Kelpie made a noise, just a small one, which was odd for her. Ashiol dragged aside a heavy statue of an ancient warrior to reveal a splash of blood, not fresh enough to be wet, on the pale flagstones. He licked a finger and rubbed it roughly against the surface, inhaling the scent. ‘Mars,' he agreed. His eyes went distant.

‘What is it?' Velody asked.

‘That scent,' Ashiol said, his head moving back and forth as he tried to work out the puzzle. ‘There's something …' Then his eyes fell on Kelpie, and his lips curled back in the hiss of a displeased cat.

Macready tensed, ready to stand between them if he had to. What the hells was going on?

Kelpie folded her arms, looking unsurprised at his reaction. ‘None of your business, Ash.'

‘Oh, isn't it?' Ashiol advanced on her. ‘What do you know, Kelpie? What have you been keeping from us? Where is he?'

‘I don't know that,' she flung back. ‘Why would I know?'

‘Because,' he said, teeth bared, ‘I know who your lover is now.'

‘You're slipping if it took you this long,' she said defensively.

Macready stared at Kelpie, as shocked as if she had turned up to battle in a frilly frock. ‘Oh, lass,' he said, and he wasn't careful enough to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

‘Don't you dare judge me,' she flung at him. ‘We don't always have a choice.'

Ashiol prowled around her, nostrils flaring. ‘Are you saying he forced you?'

‘No, I'm not saying that,' muttered Kelpie. ‘I'm saying I didn't have a choice. And I don't know where he is. Warlord doesn't share secrets with me.'

‘You might know something without realising it,' Velody suggested. ‘Any hint of where he might have gone to hide if he was hurt …'

‘Don't you think I would tell you if I knew?' Kelpie demanded.

‘I have no idea,' said Velody, which was a fair enough call.

Ashiol turned away with a sound of disgust and shaped himself into his swarm of black cats, slithering out of his fallen pile of clothes and converging on the patch of blood again. He started licking at the stain, little rough tongues taking it in.

‘How did I not know this?' Macready asked Kelpie in a low voice, but she silenced him with a quick shake of her head.

Ashiol lifted his many small black heads and sniffed the air, then took off in a rush.

Velody sighed, unbuttoning her dress to follow. ‘Bring the clothes?' she pleaded to Macready before she shaped into her army of little brown mice, ready to chase after Ashiol wherever he went.

 

They clambered around tunnels and pipes, and emerged in a part of the upper city Velody did not know, though the tilt of the narrow alley suggested they were on the side of a hill. She shaped herself into Lord form, the glowing whiteness of her skin making her feel better about her nakedness. ‘Where are we?'

Ashiol, casually human and unconscious of his own nudity, placed his hands against the stonework. ‘The Silver Captain had a nest here. But he's dead.'

‘Does that mean anyone can get in?' Velody asked.

‘It should mean that no one can. But a lot of rules have been broken lately … damn him.' He punched the stone with brute strength, not caring what it did to his knuckles.

‘Are you angrier at Warlord for getting hurt, for going into hiding, or for sleeping with Kelpie?' Velody asked dryly.

Ashiol gave her a look that reminded her he was every inch an aristocrat. ‘There's the small matter of him slaughtering two of the Creature Court's children.'

Oh, no. Velody was not going to let him get away with that. ‘You don't believe he did that.'

‘I don't want to believe it. But I was gone five years, and people change. Besides, it doesn't matter if he is guilty or not — the others believe it. They will tear him apart.'

‘And we'll never know the truth,' Velody said, frustrated beyond all belief. ‘What is your plan? For us to stand between half the Court and Warlord, to fight them? No. It will not be like this. However you have dealt with things in the past, it changes now. We are not going to lash out like frightened animals. When we find Warlord, we will discover the truth like humans. A fair trial.'

Ashiol stood in front of her, getting in her face, so she could feel nothing but his anger and his animor. ‘And who will be the judge?'

‘I'm the Power and Majesty,' she said coldly. ‘Who do you think?'

‘One way or another, this will tear the Court apart.'

‘No,' Velody said decisively. ‘If Warlord is innocent …'

‘None of us are innocent.'

‘Then someone else did this, and we need to know who, as fast as we can.'

‘We're in agreement.'

‘Yes, we are.'

They were both still tense, facing off against each other. Violently in agreement, it seemed. ‘I don't believe anything in the Creature Court is as it appears to be.'

Ashiol's hands clenched and unclenched against the stonework. ‘Send one of your mice to let the sentinels know where we are. I want to see if any of them can get into the nest of one of their fallen comrades.'

Velody ignored the fact that he had not said ‘please'. ‘Couldn't you just knock?'

Ashiol gave her a bloodthirsty look.

Velody took her place next to him, pressing her hands against the stones. ‘Warlord,' she said, infusing her words with animor. ‘
WARLORD.
'

‘Send the mouse,' Ashiol said harshly, behind her.

There was a long grinding sound and then the stones parted, opening up to reveal a small narrow space. A courtesa stood there, eyes bruised and wary. ‘You don't have to shout,' she said. ‘We heard you coming.'

Ashiol made a noise in the back of his throat and lunged forward. Velody caught his arm, fingers digging into his skin. ‘Wait,' she said sharply. Possibly there was a layer of animor reinforcing those words too, or maybe she just getting better at being authoritative.

He snarled. ‘Clara, where is he?'

The courtesa looked to Velody, and then stepped back, letting them pass. Ashiol held back enough to let Velody walk ahead of him. It was an odd space, like a room cobbled together from leftover boards and bricks. The
ceiling had a deep slope to it, making the nest somewhat triangular. A courteso, the one whose creature was the brock, knelt beside a narrow bed, and Warlord lay upon it. There was no blood visible, but the room stank of it.

‘What happened to him?' Velody asked.

Warlord turned his head weakly towards her. ‘Your hands,' he said in a soft croak.

‘He doesn't make much sense,' Clara said. ‘He almost died. Lost a lot of blood. We brought him back …'

A slender young man, Warlord's third courteso, stood beside her. ‘Maybe we shouldn't have,' he said gruffly. ‘He'd gone so far. Not sure all of him came back.'

‘Your hands,' Warlord said again, more forcefully. ‘Yours. Velody —' He winced and closed his eyes.

‘How did you get in here?' Ashiol asked.

‘My master taught us,' said another voice.

Velody's senses prickled and she turned her head to see another two young courtesi in the entrance behind them. Grago and Farrier. Dhynar's men. The stripecats and slashcats. Blocking the only way out of the nest.

‘Your master never listened to the sentinels,' Ashiol scoffed. ‘How did Dhynar learn such a skill?'

Grago, the one who had spoken before, gave Ashiol an unfriendly look. ‘Warlord is my master now. My secrets are his secrets.'

‘Hands,' Warlord said again, getting agitated.

Velody went to him, sitting on the side of his bed. There was something very wrong about his eyes. It reminded her of something, and she fought through her collection of broken memories to the grandfather who had built the family bakery. A strong, grey-eyed man who suffered foolishness in no one, and drove Velody's mam, papa and older siblings to distraction, working
them all harder than they thought capable. He never did less than that himself. She would always remember him kneading with those powerful arms, barking orders at the rest of them. One morning he woke up with his arm hanging limp at his side, and after that there was something wrong about his eyes, and he would go whole days without speaking at all, just staring at the wall.

Velody had gone half her life without that memory, and now here it was. This was happening more and more, as her animor tried to repair the part of her mind that had lost memory of the city of Tierce when it was swallowed by the sky. ‘My hands,' she said, and held them out to Warlord. Would he recover? He was so young to be struck down thus. Surely the Court would kill him rather than let a warrior live with all that animor, unable to use it against the city. No wonder his courtesi had hidden him. Should she be angry at them for that disloyalty against the Court? All she could feel was sympathy.

‘You did this,' said Warlord, his dark eyes holding hers, his hands squeezing her fingers for a moment and then going slack. He took a shaky breath and fell still.

‘Sleep,' said Clara. ‘Just sleep. He keeps doing that — we've been giving him poppy juice for the pain.'

‘He doesn't need poppy juice,' Ashiol snarled. ‘He needs blood.'

‘We gave him blood,' said the brock courteso. ‘We're not stupid. It didn't help. Only the poppy juice helps his pain.'

‘Who did this?' Velody asked. A reasonable question, especially with the imprint of Warlord's grip tingling on her hands.

‘We don't know,' said Clara. ‘He was broken and bleeding when he came to us at the Museion, and the
bleeding didn't stop. I've never seen anything like it.' The bat courteso put an arm around her, and she leaned into him.

‘He told us who did it,' said Farrier, turning a glare on Velody. ‘Her hands. He said so.'

Ashiol opened his mouth but Velody cut him off, sending animor in a sharp stab directly into Farrier's stomach. He fell to his knees in a gasp of pain. ‘Don't waste my time,' she said. ‘If I had done this, I would
not have asked the question
. Your former master may not have valued intelligence, but don't tell me Warlord is the same.'

‘The scents are mingled,' said Ashiol. ‘Mars's blood smells wrong, but I still don't know how. The poppy juice could be masking something.'

Grago, still at the sealed entrance, tilted his head. ‘The sentinels are here.'

‘Let them in,' said Velody, her eyes returning to the stricken figure of Warlord.

‘You are not my Lord,' Grago bristled.

Ashiol flashed his teeth. ‘She is the fucking Power and Majesty, stripecat. Show some respect.'

Velody sighed. ‘You can't just tell him to respect me, Ashiol. What are you, five years old? Grago,' she said helpfully. ‘Respect me or I'll sew your balls to my tapestry.'

Grago made a disgusted noise and opened the wall.

‘Nice,' Ashiol said in an undertone.

‘You think I was bluffing? I've put great thought into the necessary technique.'