The Shattered City (18 page)

The sentinels and Poet ran for cover as Ashiol was thrown in their direction. His body made a crunching sound as he hit the floor.

‘Your turn now,' said Priest with a polite smile, turning his attentions to Velody.

 

Pain, the pain was everywhere and then it stopped, Ashiol could not even scream now, his raw throat had nothing left, and he could feel nothing but numbness in his limbs. He managed one choking breath, but it would be far easier to float away and leave the rest of it behind.

He heard the scrape of a knife and smelled blood. Kelpie's blood. Automatically, he opened his mouth to suck, but there was nothing brushing against his lips.

‘I wouldn't,' said Poet's voice nearby. Fucking Poet. What did he know? ‘Making him mortal while there are bits missing? Not the best plan.'

‘Then what?' cried Kelpie. ‘What can we do?'

Ashiol felt a gentle touch against his forehead. Poet's hands. ‘Let him die?' said the rat. Then he caught his breath in a sound like a gasp. ‘Can you hear that? Whose voice is that?'

‘Believe me,' Crane said in a low mutter; ‘it surprises none of us that you are hearing voices.'

Ashiol was not only numb now, but cold. How could he be cold, if he could not feel his body?

Poet was giggling maniacally now. ‘Oh, I've changed my mind!' he howled. ‘Let him live. He's going to get such a kick out of what comes next.'

There was a wet sound, and Ashiol felt a pressure against his side as if Poet was lying near him. He could feel the vibrations as the little rat breathed exhaustedly.

Ashiol breathed, one more time, and the familiar scent of Livilla flooded through him. He opened his eyes and saw her stunning naked body fill his vision. ‘This is what we are, now,' she said in a soft voice, crawling over his broken chimaera body. ‘Apparently. Who'd have thought?' She leaned down to press one kiss on his bruised mouth, then arched and twisted her neck. She already had one bite mark raw against the pale white skin. Ashiol growled quietly. He could smell her blood and he wanted it, but she was still too far away.

‘It won't be enough,' said Crane. ‘Not for this. Maybe if she was a King …'

‘I think,' said the voice of Mars, surprisingly close, ‘you should never be surprised at what Livilla can do, when she puts her mind to it.'

The blood came, after that. Ashiol closed his eyes and opened his mouth and let it drip inside him. He tasted Livilla and Mars first, then each of Mars's courtesi in turn. Then Livilla again, so fucking sweet he wanted to drink her dry.

It felt as if an eternity had passed, and then Ashiol was breathing without difficulty, his body still wrecked and sore all over again, but human and in one piece. Livilla and Mars were on top of him, kissing messily; blood was
smeared everywhere and her legs were tangled around his waist. It seemed rude to interrupt.

Ashiol moved eventually, his palms touching his own torso. There were jagged, barely healed lines across his body, puckered new skin and scar tissue where there had recently been smooth lines, but the animor of the two Lords had done its work.

He turned and saw Poet lying beside him, wet with Ashiol's blood, paying attention to none of them. He had a stupid grin on his face.

‘Where's Velody?' Ashiol asked, though his throat was still too damaged to produce more than a sound or two.

‘Up there,' said Crane, sounding broken.

Poet laughed weakly. ‘Of course she is.'

 

In chimaera shape, Velody was invincible. Power coursed through her muscles, bolder and brighter than anything she felt when she was in human form, no matter who she was kissing. Chimaera was strength and spirit and there was nothing the sky could do against her when she wore that skin.

She could not move. Slowly, invisible hands lifted her high in the air, above the thing that wore Priest like a cheap suit.

‘One King down,' the creature said with a friendly smile. ‘Only you left.'

But it wasn't true, she knew it wasn't true; she hadn't felt the burst of Ashiol's animor demanding to be quenched, and as long as he was alive, there was hope for everything else. ‘I won't let you do this,' she said, the words pouring off her unfamiliar chimaera tongue. She wasn't sure what language she was even speaking, but he understood her well enough.

‘Do you really think you have a choice? Power and Majesty. Such important words you people use, to make yourselves sound grand. You are nothing compared to sky and dust.'

From here, so high up into the domed roof of the Basilica, Velody could see Ashiol's fallen body. Could see the sentinels, and the Lords …

Could see that Livilla and Warlord were giving their blood to save his life. Though no one had compelled them to do so.

‘Oh, you have no idea,' she said, relief and pride filling every inch of her chimaera skin until she was ready to burst. ‘I got it right. This is my Creature Court, the way it's supposed to be.'

‘You have taught the creatures to be weak like humans,' the thing inside Priest said dismissively. ‘It is of no matter.'

‘You think humans are weak?' Velody demanded, and then gasped because his invisible hands were squeezing her so hard that there was no air in her lungs, and it might not be pride she burst of after all. ‘You have no idea what we can do.' She thought of Crane, of his sweet face and the look in his eyes when he kissed her. The way her animor had responded to him. She thought of Ashiol; of how close they had come once to frigging on the kitchen table; those dark eyes of his, and clever fingers, and the sleek hard lines of muscle in his body. He was not dead. Livilla and Warlord had saved him. There was hope for everything now.

Finally she thought of another young man, a lifetime ago, clumsy and earnest and, oh, long-dead. He had fallen when Tierce was swallowed by the sky, but she still remembered how alive he had been once, the most human person that she had ever known.

No matter how powerful you think you are, there is always more inside, untapped.

All she had to do was let herself lose control.

Velody's animor exploded out of her, shining fiercely in all directions. The invisible hands fell away, burned by the brightness, and then she had Priest flattened to the floor, her teeth bared, claws ready to kill. ‘No more,' she snarled through her beast's throat. ‘No more blood, sky creature. Just this.'

She was dark rage and blinding hate, and she could take him to pieces as easily as breathing.

Priest had a distant expression on his face as he regarded her. A thick black web of noxcrawl crept up his neck, patterning over his chin. ‘Be my guest. My message has been delivered. Your Court is broken, and ripe for our conquest. I have done my work.'

‘Not quite,' Velody said, and tore handfuls of animor out of his chest. She had meant to save him. She hadn't wanted to believe that it could be this simple, that it boiled down to blood and death and sacrificing one Lord to save the rest of them.

But her claws dragged more than animor out of his chest, and there was no way to separate out what belonged to Poet or Warlord, let alone Seonard or Janvier. Velody dug deeper, and blood sprayed out with the animor.

Priest laughed, and it was worse somehow than the time that a blood-drenched Poet had been laughing hysterically, on the brink of death … and there was no reason for her to be thinking about Poet, surely.

Except that he was there. White rats poured all around her, covering Priest's twitching and bleeding body, and when he shaped back into a Lord it was unmistakeably Poet, a thinner and paler Poet, his hair
spiky with Ashiol's blood, now pressing his hands hard against the wound in Priest's chest.

‘Where have you been?' Velody gasped, shaken back into her own Lord form, glowing but human-shaped.

‘It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter what he did to me. I'll heal.' His eyes were intense and bright without those odd round spectacles he usually wore. ‘Priest was my Lord once, and he was a good one; he is one of the good ones. He gave me a safe place to hide when I needed it. Velody. If you are really the Power and Majesty, the one we swore our oaths to, the one who was going to change everything, if any of that was true and the bright happy future is going to happen, then you have to save him.'

‘I don't know how,' she said.

‘Then start figuring it out, little mouse,' Poet said, his voice light but meaningful. ‘None of us have faced this before. You get to be exactly as ignorant as the rest of us! But I've seen the future, and he's in it, so think
fast
.'

‘Blood,' Velody said a beat later. It always came down to blood, didn't it? ‘Crane!'

‘I'm here,' said a voice. Crane came to kneel next to Poet and drew his knife to make a neat slice in his arm. Barely even wincing, he let a few drops fall into Priest's mouth.

Priest bucked and made awful sounds. The noxcrawl web glowed fiercely on his skin and then faded from black to grey.

‘He's bleeding more,' Poet said, squeezing his hands harder into Priest's chest. ‘Velody.'

‘I know,' she said. ‘We have to wait.'

‘He can't wait.' Poet gave her a stern look. ‘You're supposed to be saving him. What good are you if you can't save all of us?'

Velody held her hand out to Crane, who gave her his skysilver dagger. She sliced her own arm and splashed a few drops of her King's blood — Power and Majesty's blood — against Priest's lips.

‘Don't let him touch you,' Crane warned, but Priest had already grabbed Velody's arm, dragging it down to his sucking mouth. Velody let him have two sucks and swallows before she drove the heel of her hand hard against his forehead, pushing him back and disentangling herself. Her wound burned where he had touched her.

Poet kept holding Priest together for minutes afterward, then finally drew his hands away from his chest. The skin sealed over, pink and raw. ‘Well, that went well,' he said brightly.

Velody rocked back on the floor, so tired she could barely form words.

‘Don't fret,' said Poet, patting her on the shoulder. ‘The future was better than anything that doom-laden Seer has ever come up with. Everything's going to be all right now.'

Velody stared at him. He was different. More peaceful, almost happy, for all that he looked as if he had rolled around in Ashiol's blood. ‘We thought he had killed you. Or that you had joined him.'

‘So sweet. You were worried.' Nothing could wipe the smile off Poet's face. He stepped back, still in his own strangely cheerful world.

‘Oh, a fine happy ending,' Kelpie said, nodding towards the group of courtesi who had been Priest's birds. The three of them clung together, miserable and hurt. Damson, the gull courtesa, was bleeding from one arm, and another courtesa was missing part of her foot. ‘Tell them how bright the future is, Poet.'

‘Where's Ashiol?' Velody asked.

‘He's alive,' said Crane gently. ‘Not moving so much right now.'

‘My Power,' murmured Priest from the ground, sounding his own self. ‘Please …'

‘I know I'm just a sentinel, and my opinions are worth so much hogshit,' said Kelpie, ‘but can I suggest we get that garment off him?'

Velody swapped knives with Crane and used his steel dagger to slice the seams of the waistcoat, already torn open by the chimaera claws. For a moment it felt as if the threads were crying out in pain, and then they were silent. The rich tapestry fabric fell away from Priest in pieces. The shirt underneath had rotted away, as if he had been buried in it for months. The skin of his belly was bloodstained but there were no scars or marks where the wounds had laid open.

Priest seemed normal, but how could she be sure he was free of the darkness? Velody wasn't even certain that she was. Something still roiled and burned inside her.

‘I appear to have missed some events of great import, my dears,' Priest said now, surveying the trashed Basilica, the bloodstained floor and the many wary faces.

‘Murders and mayhem,' said Warlord, who stood holding Livilla's hand. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary.'

Priest saw his courtesi clinging together and extended one hand to them. ‘My sweet birds.' They did not come to him, and his face shifted into displeasure. ‘Have you stolen my demoiselles from me, Power and Majesty?'

‘You may have done that yourself,' said Velody. If it was true that he did not remember, she did not want to be the one to explain to him what he had done.

Priest looked at each of their faces, and settled finally on Poet. ‘You, my boy. You will not spare me the truth.'

Poet sat on the rough ground of the Basilica floor, leaning back on his elbows. ‘No, old man,' he said in a voice that had fondness in it, oddly enough. ‘Nothing will be spared. Not today.'

Velody left them to it, and walked on shaking legs to where Ashiol lay still in a pool of his own blood. He met her gaze and then sighed, and closed his eyes.

‘Will he be all right?' she asked.

‘It's Ashiol,' said Kelpie. ‘He's never been all right. I don't see why he'd start now.'

D
elphine searched up and down the side of the Balisquine hill, finally spotting the overgrown ruined tower among a clump of scratchy bushes. She scrambled down the slope towards it, almost losing a shoe in the process. Damn that Ashiol Xandelian to the seven hells and back.

‘What are you doing here?' demanded a sharp female voice, and the sentinel Kelpie stepped into view.

‘What are you doing here?' Delphine countered, teetering on the broken steps that led into the tower.

‘I asked you first.'

‘I'm doing a favour for the Ducomte,' Delphine said, folding her arms.

Kelpie scoffed. ‘Since when do you play nice with Ashiol?'

‘You may not have noticed in your little Creature Court bubble, but the Duchessa took away my livelihood,'
Delphine said firmly. ‘The sooner she gets better, the sooner she can bring back the festivals.'

‘So you plan to blackmail her while she's possessed by a devil from the sky? Excellent plan.'

Delphine made a face. ‘I felt bad, okay? He's all banged up and he said you sentinels have refused all duties that don't involve bodyguard duty.'

‘You're still not a sentinel, then? Good to know.'

They stood there for a few moments, sort of staring each other down. ‘So why are you here?' Delphine asked finally.

Kelpie blew out a breath. ‘Same reason as you. He cares about the damned Duchessa, and I'm a soft touch.'

This was Delphine's chance to ditch the chore she had never wanted to take on in the first place, but somehow she wasn't willing to relinquish it to Kelpie and have the ratty sentinel be all bitchy and smug about it.

‘I guess we're going in together,' she said finally.

‘Looks like.'

It was dark and clammy and smelled bad inside the tower. Delphine stepped gingerly around the muck on the floor. Kelpie made a snorting sound and pushed past her. The door to the cell swung open.

‘Oh, frig,' Kelpie said with feeling.

The door swung further back, and the words TOOK THE LADY HOME were visible in bright red lip-paint. ‘Livilla's got the Duchessa.'

 

Ashiol slept until past noon, and even then there was a ghastly pallor to his skin. Velody went to him the second his eyes opened. ‘How do you feel?'

‘Like I was hit by a nox cab,' he muttered. ‘Or possibly a train.'

‘Can you sit up?' She was worried about the damage he had taken. He had received enough blood to recover, but his arms and chest still bore the marks.

He tried, grunted with pain, and then tried again. This time, he managed to get into a seated position. ‘I'm fine.'

‘You're not,' she chided. ‘You should have healed faster than this.'

‘Sorry about that.'

‘Don't be a thimblehead.'

He looked around. ‘Am I in your bed?'

Velody had been hoping he wouldn't notice. ‘The workroom is full of sentinels. I made them bring you up here.'

‘Nice.' There was a different tone in his voice now, all dark and promising, and Velody found herself backing away out of reach.

Possibly she should have backed all the way down the stairs and out of the house. Instead, she asked, ‘Would you like soup?' in what she hoped was a matronly way.

‘I'd rather have a measure of imperium,' he replied.

‘I think there's an inch left in the brandy bottle,' she said, but didn't move. ‘How much does it hurt?'

‘On a scale of one to having your wings ripped off? Call it a seven.' He glowered at her. ‘If you're not going to fetch the brandy, you could at least give me blood.'

She shuddered, remembering how much of him had leaked out on to the floor of the Basilica. ‘I'm not sure I have any left.'

‘Come here,' he said, with a certain light in his eyes. ‘I'm sure I can find it.'

Velody very clearly imagined herself climbing on to the bed and kissing him until neither of them could
breathe. A very, very bad idea. ‘I'll fetch the brandy,' she said, and ran.

 

When Velody returned with the brandy bottle, Ashiol was asleep again. His breathing was less troubled than before, and she could see the way that the sunlight played on his eyelashes as it patterned across the bed. It was so rare to get a chance to observe him without being observed in turn — watched, and judged. She sat beside him, loosely cradling the neck of the bottle in one hand, and straightened the top quilt.

Strong hands wrapped around her wrists, and she realised too late that he was not asleep at all. His dark eyes held hers as he drew forward the hand that held the bottle, and uncapped it with his teeth. She tipped the bottle up and he drank, all without letting go of her wrists. They both released the bottle at the same time and it rolled to the floor with a thunk.

There was a wet smear of brandy near his mouth, where it had dripped. Velody was not going to lick it off. That would be an entirely misleading thing to do.

‘My animor is weak,' he said. ‘I need to heal.'

She opened her mouth to ask what he needed, and then stopped because it was a stupid question. He needed Court blood, or he needed someone to wake up his animor. Just as Mars and Livilla had done for him last nox.

Velody didn't want to give him blood. Or rather, she did. The thought of it made her pulse race, and she wasn't ready to question that particular desire. Instead, she gave in to a different one. They were already close enough to kiss. She moved further on to the bed, letting him draw her in by his hold on her wrists. ‘Heal yourself,' she told him, and brushed her mouth against his.

A kiss should be enough. A kiss, mixed with a healthy dose of the craving they had for each other, and she could already feel his animor burning more fiercely than before. As long as they stopped at kissing, it would all be fine.

Ashiol groaned and buried his mouth in her neck, his slow sucking kisses moving down towards her collarbone. His hands moved from her wrists to her waist, and then to her breasts. Velody pressed her fingertips against his chest, and ran her nails around to the muscled curve of his shoulders. She slid her hands up his naked back, relishing his human shape and the heat of his skin.

His breath caught as if she was hurting him, but he found her mouth again before she could ask if it was too much, and his hands were busily working on ridding her of her dress.

Velody could not stop thinking about his chimaera form, ripped so badly, of the sight of blood pouring from his wing sockets. If he could survive that, he could survive anything. She felt his animor strengthen with every touch, and it made her slide forward to press her body against his chest so they could be touching in as many places as possible.

The raw scars on his chest flared hot, and then cold. Velody ran her tongue along them, tasting his blood and skin and animor as Ashiol dug his hands into her hair. Power passed between them, until it was no longer possible to tell what was hers and what was his except that they were both so much stronger than they had been moments ago.

He managed to unlace her dress and pushed up the chemise she wore underneath, giving himself access to her stomach, trailing kisses across the warm curve of her
skin. Oh, they had gone so far beyond kissing now. She fell on her back and he pressed his body over her, like a cat worrying at his prey.

It would be so easy to just part her legs and let him in, but this wasn't healing now, it was foreplay, and they could not do that. Worst of all, he did not know why.

Velody grasped his hair, pulling his head up and away from her. ‘Stop. We can't do this.' The weight of his body was still a reminder of everything they had been doing. He was so very, very naked. No one had ever in all their life been as naked as he was now.

Ashiol gazed at her, his eyes nox-dark and scorching. ‘You still think I'm going to use this to steal your animor?'

‘No,' she breathed.
Hells, yes you would, in a hot second
. ‘But I made a blood oath to Livilla she could … watch us, if we ever. And she's not here.' For one horrible moment she imagined Livilla leaping out of the wardrobe with a pair of opera glasses. Ashiol just stared at her. Velody wanted him to kiss her again. How weak was that? If she was this desperate for a warm body, she should pounce on Crane, who was both desirable and safe. There was nothing safe about Ashiol.

He rolled off her suddenly, head in his hands. ‘A blood oath,' he repeated. ‘You swore a blood oath to Livilla.' A blood oath could not be broken without dire consequences. Dhynor's death had taught Velody the import of her oath to Livilla, too late.

‘A while ago. It made some sort of sense at the time.'

Ashiol stared at her through his fingers. ‘Do you know how rare it is for two members of the Creature Court to not have sex, sooner or later?'

Velody started relacing her dress, wanting very much
to be covered up while they had this conversation. ‘To be fair, you never actually mentioned that aspect of the Creature Court when you dragged me in. It was a notable omission.'

‘I take it you haven't become an exhibitionist since you became our Power and Majesty?'

Velody stared at him, aghast. Was he seriously suggesting that they invite Livilla in to watch them? ‘No, actually,' she said sharply.

‘Well then,' he said, shaking his head at her, ‘I suppose we have to behave.'

Yes. That was most definitely what they were going to do. She was not going to become an oathbreaker on his behalf. No matter how good his hands and mouth felt upon her skin.

Velody could still taste him, and he knew it. He smiled slowly, and she felt his animor spark hard against her own. Oh, saints. She wanted him so badly that it scared her.

One moment Velody genuinely cared about Livilla and the oath, and the next she did not. What did it matter if tainted shades trailed polluted animor through the streets of the city? She couldn't think, couldn't breathe. She wanted to feel his hands on her breasts again, to feel him slick and hot inside her, and it wasn't enough that she could feel his strength returning and she knew that he was as healed as he needed to be.

Ashiol spotted her insanity a mile off. He caught her closer, mouth ravaging hers, hands tugging at her dress to get her naked all over again, and there was no way that her human body could resist him. With a cry of frustration, Velody shaped herself into a horde of
mice, scattering her bodies over the quilt and the floorboards.

He started to laugh, his whole body shaking.
That bad
?

Shut up
, she sent at him.
Get out of my bed
.

Ashiol threw back the covers, stretching his devastating body. He pulsed with strength, animor rolling off him as if he had it to spare. The faintest of scars ran over his chest in a pattern that had seemed so ugly before. ‘You might want to stay in mouse form until I've gone,' he advised her. ‘For both our sakes.'

It would be undignified to bite him on the ankle. Velody gathered her many mouse bodies and scampered out to the landing, where she waited until he was gone.

 

‘Act like you're meant to be here,' Delphine hissed. Head up, casual smile, relaxed shoulders, snooty expression.

‘I've been here before,' Kelpie insisted. She wasn't doing too well at the ‘look like you're supposed to be in a Palazzo' routine. Her cloak smelled like it hadn't been washed — ever.

‘With your master, you mean? The Ducomte isn't here to wave you past the lictors this time. Maybe you should be my maidservant.' Delphine was already taking on a posher accent, as she usually did when she was hanging out with Villiers and Teddy and that set. It felt as natural as breathing.

Kelpie gave her a disgusted look.

They made their way to the Duchessa's rooms without incident. Delphine had the bright idea of seizing some hat boxes they had found in a foyer, and no one gave them a second glance after that. She had thought it would be obvious that Kelpie wasn't a milliner's assistant, but no one seemed to notice the
leather coat or the swords on her back. Perhaps that was part of being a sentinel. People didn't see you any more.

Another reason to avoid it at all costs.

Kelpie motioned Delphine into a pretty sitting room. Livilla, thin and bitchy as ever, glanced up at them as she ashed out a cigarette in a tulip bowl. ‘Oh,' she said, amused. ‘You're here. Excellent. It's been so dull.'

‘What have you done with the Duchessa?' Kelpie demanded.

‘I haven't done anything,' Livilla said, arching both her eyebrows. ‘Don't speak to me like that, sentinel.'

Delphine eyed the other woman. Oh, she thought she was so special. ‘Why did you bring her home?'

‘Just trying to help. Velody has taught me the error of my ways. I healed Ash, didn't I? I'm on the side of the saints and angels now.'

‘I don't believe that for a second,' snapped Kelpie.

‘Believe what you like.' Livilla lit another cigarette, and this time Delphine noticed that her hands were shaking. ‘Maybe I'm just trying to do my bit to prevent further tragedies.'

‘Where is the Duchessa?' Delphine asked. ‘Since you're keeping such a close eye on her.'

Livilla shrugged carelessly. ‘She's in her bedchamber. Apparently I'm not welcome in there.'

‘Imagine that,' Kelpie said sarcastically, only a beat before Delphine said, ‘Hard to believe,' in the same tone of voice. They looked at each other, startled to have been thinking the same way.

Possibly it wasn't a huge achievement to agree with another woman that a third was something of a bitch.

Kelpie went to the adjoining door and knocked lightly on it. ‘High and brightness?'

‘Oh, she's not answering,' Livilla said dismissively. ‘She didn't like my interrogation at all well.'

‘Interrogation?' Kelpie tried the door, which didn't budge. ‘What have you done, Livilla?'