The Shattered City (27 page)

Don't let him touch you
, Heliora hissed.
He would do anything to stop you.

‘How can you doubt me?' Velody flung at him, stepping back, keeping a distance between them. ‘I did this. I was supposed to protect you all, lead you all as Power and Majesty, and I brought us here. To a dead Seer and a new vision of the futures.' She reached out to Rhian, who was close enough for Velody to catch one of her hands in hers. She felt only a slight flinch. ‘Rhian, you've seen it. The sacrifice of the Queen will send the devils back where they came from.'

‘I can't see all the futures, not yet,' Rhian said, eyes bright. ‘But the sacrifice is necessary …' Her voice broke a little. ‘I didn't see you at all.'

Velody nodded, and squeezed Rhian's hands before letting go. ‘It's all right. I did. And so did Heliora.'

It was a relief, really. She felt so very calm.

‘Velody,' Ashiol said warningly, and he took another step towards her.

‘Sentinels,' Velody cried out, already moving. ‘Rhian, if you love me, don't let him stop me!' She shaped herself into chimaera form and flew, as hard and fast as she could, into the sky.

 

Macready had been guarding Kelpie's body, his eyes on the sky as the Lords and Court fought the dust devils. They were so fecking strong, relentless, and they were only getting stronger. One by one, the Lords and Court fell back, or were struck down, and returned weaker to the fight.

The dust kept pouring in through that damned crack in the sky.

‘Mac,' Kelpie said finally in a whisper, stirring.

‘Aye, lass, I'm here,' he said, taking her hand.

She lay on her back, not moving, eyes on the sky. ‘I don't see Ash, or Velody.'

‘Me neither.' Her hand was so cold. Was she shivering? ‘Wait, there's Velody. I see her.'

Their Power and Majesty burst up out of the streets below, glowing black in her chimaera form, all speed and heat and claws, and then she wasn't black at all but the intangible colour of skysilver, blindingly bright.

Kelpie lifted herself a little on her elbows. ‘What is she doing?'

‘I don't know,' Macready said in a low voice.

The devils were following Velody as she plunged furiously towards the rift in the sky, and kept going.

Macready realised a few seconds before the rest of the Lords and Court exactly what it was she was doing. There was no way he could reach her. No way any of them could reach her.

 

The sky became hotter, the faster she flew. Velody soared past the Lords and Court as they battled with the relentless devils of light and sand. As she passed, each devil peeled away from the battle and followed her. Oh, yes. It was true.

Poet yelled something after her, a question, a demand, and she ignored him. For once, being the Power and Majesty did not mean listening to anything the Creature Court had to say.

This is how it was always supposed to be.

Fire and moonlight crashed into Velody's vision as she approached the tearing wound in the sky. Hands grabbed her, the dust devils dragging her back.

If there are devils, why not saints and angels?
she thought, mildly hysterical.
Help me now, saints and angels. Let me fly.

She was closer to the light, the burning cold of it. She could stop now. She could turn back. They could hold on until dawn, use the day to plan for the next battle … If the city survived this nox at all.

The closer Velody got to the sky wound, the more it burned. The dust was still pouring out of it, filling the world, and she choked on it, coughed at the hot dryness as it scattered through the air. The devils hung on harder, trying to drag her back, but they were no match for chimaera strength.

This was something the Creature Court had always fought against. The sky had no idea how to deal with a Power and Majesty who wanted to be swallowed. Velody seized the lip of the wound and tore at it. Not so bad. She could do this.

There was a relief in it. She could stop fighting, finally. She could make a difference. She could leave it all behind.

Are you there?
she asked, suddenly not wanting to be alone.

Barely. Take us through, Velody. Time to go.

The heat scorched her fur and claws, made her teeth ache. Velody forced herself into Lord shape, glowing and floating but undeniably herself. ‘Take me,' she said between cracked and blistered lips. ‘Take us.'

The wound in the sky opened up, and she found herself falling forward, into its depth. Darkness would have been a blessing, but there was light, only light.

N
o, this wasn't happening, not again. He couldn't stand it. Ashiol roared and let the animor inside him burst free. Rhian smacked into him first, her whole body reverberating as she hit his chest. Crane brought them both down, slamming Ashiol hard to the ground. He was shaking, eyes wet. Delphine threw herself on top of all of them, openly crying.

‘She's going to kill herself, you fucking morons,' Ashiol raged. ‘You can't let her. We can't lose her.'

Rhian lifted her head, and he saw such fury in her face that even he was taken aback. ‘You think we want this?' she demanded. ‘Shut the hells up, Seigneur Ducomte. You have no idea what we have lost.'

Ashiol changed to Lord form and then chimaera, struggling and growling. He could destroy them all with a flick of his hand (burn them, freeze them, hurt them, cut them).

‘You have to kill us to be free of us,' Delphine said in a low, trembling voice. ‘She wants you to save us. Which will it be?'

What the hells made them think he gave a damn about any of them? He had already lost Heliora, and now Velody was abandoning him to the fucking Creature Court?

Ashiol growled between his teeth and threw animor at them, hot enough to scald the stupid sentinels away. They gasped and gritted their teeth but hung on, all three of them.

Cool hands touched his forehead, holding him down. Isangell looked at him, face composed. ‘Are you a subject, or a ruler?' she asked him calmly.

Ashiol closed his eyes. ‘Subject,' he muttered.

‘Then you don't get to make this decision,' she told him, and kept her hands there, soothing on his skin, until he stopped struggling against the rest of them.

 

The sky went calm. One moment it was raging with fire and battle and blood, and then it was a quiet nox. The moon was clear and creamy. The stars were twinkling, the little fuckers, like everything was fine. Ashiol lay in a pile of idiots, the cobbles cool under his back. ‘Get. The. Hells. Off. Me,' he snarled.

Isangell moved first, drawing her hands away from him, stepping back. Rhian took in a shuddering breath and Delphine shifted quickly, helping Rhian to stand up and move away from them all.

Crane rolled off Ashiol, expressionless.

‘Do you have any idea what you have done?' Ashiol accused them all, sitting up. He buried his head in his hands, because that way, he didn't have to look at any
of them. Might reduce the number of unnecessary deaths.

‘What happened?' Poet demanded a few moments later, the first of the Lords to touch down near them. ‘Where did the battle go?'

Ashiol got to his feet. ‘Velody took it,' he said in a quiet, furious voice. ‘The sky swallowed her. She let the fucking sky swallow her and every one of these bastards helped her.'

The sky was silent. Quiet. Taunting him.

Mars descended, one arm looped around Kelpie's waist. His courtesa Clara carried Macready. Both sentinels were in bad shape, and barely stayed on their feet. The rest of the Lords and Court drifted down around them all.

Priest was the first to speak. ‘What do we do now?'

‘Velody's gone,' said Macready in a low voice. ‘Swallowed — she sealed the rift in the sky.'

They were all looking at Ashiol for the answers, and he hated them for it. He walked away, heading for the fragile, broken body of Heliora. His brave bright demme. He crouched down, taking her hand. Cold. Of course she was cold. Her cool blood came away on his fingertips.

‘Ashiol.'

If it had been anyone else, he would have snapped, or hit them, but it was Isangell standing over him, sounding brittle and afraid. He looked up and saw that she was wearing Crane's brown cloak. ‘Can I borrow that?' he asked.

Shaking, Isangell nodded. She let the garment slide from her shoulders, and passed it to him. ‘Will you take me home?' she asked him.

Ashiol carefully wrapped Hel's body in the cloak.
Don't think don't think don't think.
He could fall apart
later. Break things if he had to. Drink and scream and cry. But mostly drink. ‘Of course I will,' he said, and swept the cloak-wrapped body into his arms. ‘Let's go.'

‘Where do you think you're going?' Poet called out, behind them. ‘Ashiol, we need you.' Heliora was dead. Velody was dead. He was the last King of Aufleur, and Ashiol was done with it all. ‘I'm going home,' he said sharply. ‘Any of you follow me, I really will kill you.'

Ashiol started walking, and Isangell wentwith him.

 

Delphine started shivering and couldn't stop. The atmosphere in the street was horrible. Everyone was broken, and miserable. ‘She's really gone,' she said in a small voice.

Velody. She had sacrificed herself, and they let her. They had helped her, and Delphine had no idea why she had done it, except that Rhian for once had seemed so sure, so confident, and Velody had asked, and …

Macready reached out an arm and on this occasion she was prepared to forget how much she hated him. She leaned her body into him, trying not to cry. She never cried. Crying was for stupid little demmes who couldn't look after themselves.

‘She made us different,' the dark scary one called Warlord said in a deep voice. ‘How can we go back to what we were?'

Poet turned without speaking and flew from the rooftop, leaving them all behind. The weasel boy and stripecat man went with him.

‘I'm not different,' Livilla said sharply. ‘She was a bossy little demme who tripped in out of the daylight and did nothing to change us. She wasn't Garnet.'

‘No, she certainly was not,' Priest said gravely.

‘We can rest,' Rhian said, not sounding at all like herself. ‘We can rest and recover. That is what Velody bought us. Time. We should use it.'

‘Sounds ominous,' Macready muttered, and Delphine could hear the vibrations of his voice through his chest. She resisted the urge to snuggle in closer. ‘Is there worse to come, Rhian-my-lass?'

‘Silence and calm,' Rhian said. Was it the confidence that was new in her? Or that odd sense that someone was talking through her. Delphine didn't like it at all. This wasn't the old Rhian, this was something different. ‘There will be further battles,' Rhian continued. ‘But not soon. We have time to mourn, and to grow strong. The sky accepts our sacrifice, and it will be sated for a while.'

‘We can't be strong without her,' Crane said, his voice surprisingly deep and loud.

‘We still have a King,' Macready said heavily.

Delphine wondered if he had meant his voice to sound so very despondent at the thought of Ashiol as their Power and Majesty. ‘It's not fair,' she murmured into Macready's neck. ‘None of you knew her. She was ours, not yours. And now you have Rhian too.'

And me, oh, saints. They have me. It's not going to end.

As if he understood her silent thoughts, Macready held her harder.

 

It was raining. Ordinary rain — no threat in it — beat against the windows of the Duchessa's bedchamber. Ashiol sat in a corner, uncomfortable on one of her spindly demoiselle chairs, waiting for his cousin to wake up.

The city had healed itself, when dawn swept over it. Every broken stone and brick had slowly rolled back
into place. Every shard of glass had replaced itself seamlessly in a window frame.

That farce of a circus had worked. Ashiol couldn't feel anything about that — not glad, not relief. He couldn't feel much of anything.

Isangell was peaceful in her slumber, though she had woken twice with shaky, confused dreams, and he had stroked her hair like a child until she went back to sleep.

He had only left her once, to go to the priestesses of the Noces Gate, to give Heliora over to be cremated. He returned with a small ivory box that he set awkwardly on the Duchessa's ornamental mantel, not knowing what to do with it. It felt like the worst kind of appropriation, to make the decision about Heliora's ashes.

Isangell might know. She was the mistress of etiquette, after all.

No more of this. No more conflict between worlds, and certainly no more crossing between worlds. The daylight was the daylight, and the nox was the nox. Ashiol should never have let this touch Isangell. Should never have let Velody continue to work for her. He should have listened to Hel when she told him she was going to die.

So many things he could have done differently.

‘Ash,' Isangell said in a small voice.

He went to her, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘I'm here, gosling.'

Those blue eyes of hers that saw everything. Isangell was looking at him now, as if he was the one they needed to worry about. ‘Is that what it's always like for you? Fighting and being afraid, and death?'

‘Pretty much,' Ashiol said, surprised into honesty. ‘This was one of the worst we've seen in a long time.'

Isangell smiled weakly. ‘Mama just thought you drank too much and went to brothels.'

That surprised a laugh out of him. ‘Only when there's nothing better to do.'

The loss of Heliora was a raw wound in his stomach. Ashiol couldn't even begin to start thinking about Velody, how he had let her down, how he had made her into a Power and Majesty who thought it was perfectly reasonable to sacrifice herself.

‘I can make you forget,' he blurted. Isangell darted back against the pillows, giving him a startled look. ‘I mean — you're daylight, you weren't supposed to see anything of what you saw. I have the power to wipe it from you, if you want. You needn't ever know about the other world, about devils and sentinels and the Creature Court.'

Isangell gave him a stern look, reminding him that she was the Duchessa and not his baby cousin any more. ‘Don't you dare. I want to know more, not less. This is my city, Ashiol.'

‘You are daylight,' he repeated.

‘You needed me for that wretched circus. What if you need me again? You are all my subjects, every bit as much as the — ribbon-sellers and bakers.'

Oh no, he couldn't afford to have her start thinking like that. ‘We're not,' Ashiol insisted. ‘We're not part of your city, gosling. We follow different rules. You'd be better off not knowing anything about us. Your job is to keep the festivals going. Sacrifice the sheep, read the entrails, walk in circles while the priests sing songs. Follow the traditions, Isangell.'

‘You sound like you're going away,' she said, giving him a searching look. ‘Is that true, Ashiol? Are you leaving me again?'

Power and fucking Majesty
. He couldn't avoid it now.

‘I don't know.' For the first time Ashiol thought he knew how Heliora had always felt, a thousand futures stretching out in all directions, hungry and noisy. ‘I don't know what I'm going to do. Get drunk.'

‘That's nothing new,' Isangell sighed. ‘What then?'

Run away. As far and fast as I can.
Ashiol closed his eyes. He could hear Garnet mocking him, Velody scolding him. He didn't know which was worse.

It was never a good thing, to hear voices of the dead. ‘I don't know, gosling,' he said, and his voice cracked. He didn't realise how hard he was shaking until she sat up in a rush, wrapping her arms around him, as comforting as a mother.

It's my turn to play the King for real. How long before I bow down to be sacrificed?

‘So,' Isangell said quietly. ‘Would now be a bad time to ask how exactly it is that you met my dressmaker?'

Ashiol laughed, a horrible sound that continued far longer than he meant it to. Isangell kept holding on to him.

 

Rhian was asleep and the house was otherwise empty. Not a sentinel in sight. Except, of course, Delphine herself. Ha, hilarious.

The kitchen table required to be stared at a great deal. Delphine was fulfilling a necessary duty.

The door opened. Had she forgotten to latch it? No Velody to remind her. Tears were hot in her eyes when she looked up to see Macready standing there. ‘Lass,' he said, and then stopped.

‘Oh, don't.' There were no words that could fix this. ‘Tomorrow — later today, when we've had some sleep,'
she said, ‘will you take me back to that Smith of yours? See if he'll make me some blades?' Time to surrender.

Macready looked startled. ‘Is that honestly what you want?'

‘Don't ask me that,' she said helplessly. ‘I don't have anything
left
.'

He nodded, and came forward a step.

Delphine sighed, and got to her feet. Standing up straight was an achievement. She would take what she could get. ‘Bolt the door, will you?'

‘Want me to stay down here, lass, keep an eye on things while you get some sleep?' he asked once the bolt was secure.

Men. Worse than thick sometimes. Delphine reached out, taking his hand. The skin of his palm was rough and warm against hers ‘I want you to come upstairs,' she said clearly, so there would be no misunderstanding. ‘So that I can drown in you. Now. Unless you plan to turn me down again?'

She waited, long enough for her pride to sting. How was it that he of all men was able to do that to her, over and over again? Then Macready moved, a hand gentle on either side of her face and saints, he could kiss, at least. Their mouths came together, slow at first, then more frantic and wanting.

When he finally released her, Delphine felt like all the breath had been sucked from her body, heat sparking through her for the first time all day. ‘Good,' she said shakily. ‘That's a good start.'

What else could they do, any of them, but start as they meant to go on?

 

I can hear you, Heliora. Your voice pounds in my ears (not just yours, the others are there too; poor Raoul, he is so very sad) and I can see your story, unfolding behind me.

I don't know if my story will be any better. But for the first time I understand, actually understand something terrible that happened to me a long time ago. I thought I was crazy, flying apart. Thought I was broken forever, that I was damaged somehow, to see such things, feel such things. Now I know. I was waiting for you to make sense of it all.