The Shattered City (29 page)

Every time Ashiol passed a mirror, he had to turn his eyes away from it. There were shadows there, and shapes. If he looked too long, he would see faces of the dead. (He never looked long enough to let that happen.)

‘Where's the bag?' he muttered now, slithering on to his stomach to look at Delphine.

She smiled teasingly at him, withholding it. ‘Mine.'

‘I don't think so.' He pounced, covering her body with his own, searching her for the small scrap of velvet. Delphine wriggled under him, not seeming to mind his possessive touch. Her eyes were glazed and warm, and it would be so easy to just …

‘I don't frig demmes I don't like,' he warned her, slipping his fingers between the small of her back and the hard curves of the roof tiles, giving her arse a squeeze. There the bag was, tucked under her. Little wench.

‘I don't frig men I do like,' she said lightly, eyes fastened on his. ‘Very important rule.'

She was Macready's, Ashiol reminded himself. Not that he had ever given a damn about those kind of rules. The Creature Court was not exactly a haven of monogamy. ‘Are we safe from each other, then?'

Delphine laughed. He really didn't like her laugh. It made her sound like a spoiled child. ‘Saints, I hope so.'

Ashiol poured a measure of glittering surrender from
the bag on to his fingers, and sucked it off, letting it melt sweetly against his tongue and the roof of his mouth, an explosion of light and colour. Delphine was rubbing against him now, or he was rubbing against her, not entirely like a cat. It would be so easy.

‘Share,' she whispered, and he kissed her, tongue sweeping hard against hers.

She was so warm, and then cold, and then warm, and she tasted like skysilver.

The sky above them exploded into shards that stabbed his skin like broken glass.

 

It was such a relief to be free for once of being Good Delphine, responsible and careful and trailing around after the Ducomte d'Aufleur like she gave a damn about anything.

The sky was clear and free and surrender tasted like everything good. Even sharing the glee with Ashiol Xandelian didn't spoil it.

Kissing him had not been in the plan, but this was the Delphine who didn't plan, who answered to no one, who slid home in a giggling heap in the early hours, and woke without remembering exactly what she had been up to.

Saints, she had missed this Delphine. Everything was so much easier in her skin. Ashiol's body was heavy over hers, it felt good, and it didn't matter who he was, or that Macready might …

Don't think about Macready, no no no
. Delphine had been clinging to him for a month or more now, since Velody threw herself into that sky, and it had got comfortable way too fast. Delphine didn't like comfortable. It was too much like belonging to someone,
and she knew Macready had all these expectations that he never spoke aloud.

Ashiol's mouth was wet and hot on hers, and she didn't care any more about who he was, or why this was a bad idea. He didn't want anything from her other than this second right now, and that was good enough for her.

Then he threw himself away from her like she was on fire, hands pressing over his ears, face twisted up in pain. ‘The sky,' he moaned. ‘Broken into pieces, reflecting, bright, too bright …'

Oh, frig. Was it the surrender, or was it — that other thing? Delphine tipped her head back, searching for some sign. The sky was clear. How could it be anything but clear? She had seen things since Dhynar Lord Ferax died, sparks and colours and hints of that other world. All part of being a sentinel, Macready told her, which made her want to smack him every single time.

She could see nothing but the blue sky, fading into evening grey. Which meant that Ashiol was seeing things that weren't there. His eyes rolled in his head and there was a chalky whiteness to them that was most definitely not good.

‘Calm down,' she said, reaching out to him. ‘Breathe. You took too much. You need a drink of water or something.'

Ashiol clambered unevenly to his feet, staggering towards the edge of the roof. Delphine lunged for him, catching the edge of his leather coat and dragging him back. ‘You can't fly, you know,' she snapped before remembering that yes, he could, but maybe not right now, not with that much surrender flooding his system.

Ashiol turned, looking at her with a sneer. No, not at her. Right through her, as if she didn't exist. ‘The sky is
coming for me,' he said in a vicious voice. ‘It wants to cut me into tiny pieces. It doesn't matter if I can fly. One way or another, I'm going to fall.'

Oh, saints. ‘You can't,' Delphine protested. ‘I mean — you can't. They need you.' Macready and the other sentinels had shared enough harried conversations about it, taking up space in Rhian's kitchen, which they now seemed to view as their personal territory (and Rhian never said a word of complaint, damn her). ‘Velody's gone; you're all they have.'

‘Better off without me,' Ashiol said, making each word slow and precise. And then the bastard stepped off the roof.

He was gone so fast Delphine could barely scream, the sound catching in her throat. She leaned dizzily over the edge to see his body explode messily into black, devilish shapes that scattered across the street in all directions. Not devils. Cats. Of course, cats. Everything was hot and cold, and Delphine couldn't breathe. Her hands clutched uselessly at the guttering. She pushed back finally, gasping for air as she felt solid tile under her. She hadn't fallen. Hadn't broken.

Ashiol, on the other hand …

Oh, Macready was going to kill her for this.

M
acready had never been a superstitious lad. His ma believed in horseshoes for luck and bowls of milk for the pictsies, but he'd scoffed at it all until he sailed across the wide blue sea and came to this fair city, full of living saints and devils.

He'd come into his sentinel's gifts later than most, but he liked to think that made him stronger in some ways: quicker, less brittle. He saw it all clearer than the rest of them. The sentinels were used to thinking of themselves as less than the Creature Court, but the Silver Captain had always drilled home that standing between the nox and the daylight gave them a power no one else had. A strength.

They could choose their path, unlike the Lords and Court. They chose to be here, every day. It was loyalty, not blood, that kept them on the leash.

Walking the streets away from Via Silviana, Macready opened himself to Aufleur, letting his senses roam ahead of him. He could see and hear further than any daylight
lad when he had a mind to it. The daylight was fading, but the sky was quiet. In that moment, an odd warning cracked through the air, scraping at his senses like a sound gone wrong. A disturbance, somewhere in the city.

Fecking saints, who was it likely to be but the man himself?
Ashiol Xandelian, the King of us
.
Saints help us all
.

Macready started to run.

 

The sky had never done this before, never blazed so brightly. Even as cats, Ashiol couldn't escape it. Sharp as daylight, worse, it hurt his eyes, shard by shard stabbing into him. He pressed himself into the corners of the street, trying to hide from those colours, the fierce intensity of it. The sharp edges of a million pieces of sky, scattering around him. Pain, pain, pain.

Finally the light faded, and in the blessed dark he crawled back into himself, shaping his various cats into a human body again. He lay there on the cool stones, naked and struggling to breathe.

The sky was empty. Not just quiet. Where were the stars? The pale blueness pressed down over his body, smothering him.

‘Ho there, laddie buck,' said a wry voice above him. Macready threw Ashiol's own crumpled shirt at him. ‘What are you doing to yourself now?'

Ashiol stared at the sentinel. ‘What happened to the sky, Mac?'

To his credit, Macready at least glanced up, but seemed to see nothing unusual. ‘It's quiet, my King. Barely evening yet. Nothing to see.'

‘No,' Ashiol protested. ‘There's something …' His whole body was trembling. Was it cold? ‘Why won't it take me too?'

Macready sighed. ‘Nothing more pathetic than a self-pitying drunk,
Majesty
.'

Oh, he was drunk. That explained a lot, really. Ashiol staggered to his feet, buttoning the shirt. Macready threw his trews at him next. Ashiol managed those somehow, but it wasn't good. The edge of his vision was starting to melt and lose colour. ‘You can't see that?' he said, turning one way and then the other. ‘You can't …'

There were spaces opening up in the sky, where the stars were supposed to be, bleeding out between the broken pieces of blue. This was different to anything that he had ever seen before. Ashiol tipped his head back up, staring at the long spiderweb of cracks. ‘Something is happening,' he said in an urgent voice. ‘We need to call the Creature Court together …' The broken fragments of sky spun and danced above him, and he could feel his heartbeat pulsing loudly inside his head. ‘They're coming for us.' Ashiol tried to run, but Macready got in his face, shoving him back against the wall.

‘For feck's sake, man, what are you on?' he roared.

‘Surrender,' said a tiny voice, far far away. Delphine appeared, bedraggled and barely holding herself together, and beautiful. She wore her swords again, the brown cloak thrown over one shoulder, but she had lost her shoes and her feet were bare.

Ashiol gazed at her. She had never looked like that before. ‘You're glowing,' he said in awe.

‘Am I?' she said uncomfortably. ‘I don't feel glowing. I feel sick.'

‘You really are, aren't you?' he said, turning his head this way and that, examining every inch of her.

‘Really am what?' said Delphine, crossing her arms.

‘One of us.' Ashiol turned to Macready, grinning like a maniac. ‘Look at her. All blazing.'

‘Took you until now to notice, did it?' said Macready. ‘She's been a sentinel a while now, Majesty.'

Ashiol tore his eyes away from Delphine. She was too bright, and Macready was too dull, and there was something very important here that he was missing. Something caught between the sharp edges. He started to walk, back and forth over the cobbled street, feeling the shapes of the stones under his feet. Something missing.

Ashiol kept walking, though Macready shouted out behind him, and Delphine had the rest of the surrender.

Missing something, missing something.

 

Ashiol could count on one hand the number of times he had really gone crazy. The first time was when he was seven years old, and his mother informed him that his father was dead. He didn't understand her words.

They went into mourning, which meant Ashiol wasn't allowed to play in the Palazzo gardens or be seen in the streets. He kept asking where his father was. His mother looked at him in bemusement the first few times. Later, she accused him of cruelty. She beat him once, only once, and stood there with tears running down her face.

He apologised, and never asked her again. He asked the servants, though, when he thought he could get away with it. Mostly they said nothing, and slipped him extra cakes.

Seven years old. Ashiol blinked, and the Palazzo was gone from under his feet. They were living in the country all of a sudden, and six months had passed, and his mother had a new husband who would answer to ‘Baronille' or ‘sir' or ‘Diamagne'.

Ashiol moved from room to room, not understanding how he had apparently lived here for months and none of it was familiar. He made his way outside, and no one stopped him. Apparently they weren't in mourning any more. He ran and breathed the fresh air and lay on his back in the grass for ages, staring at the clouds. A face as small as his leaned over him, a bright-eyed, dirty-faced boy who said, ‘Are you the one they say is mad as a hatter?'

‘Yes,' said Ash in a gasp. ‘I suppose so.'

The boy considered this thoughtfully. ‘Want to catch tadpoles with me?'

Ash nodded. ‘Who are you?'

‘Garnet, of course.' He said it as if he had introduced himself a dozen times. Possibly he had, in that strange black space before now. ‘Race you to the river!'

 

The second time it happened, Ashiol was seventeen, and Tasha was dead. That was not in itself enough to send him crazy. Tasha being dead meant he was finally free to be his own self rather than her plaything. Garnet had risen to Lord and taken Livilla and Poet as his courtesi. Ashiol and Lysandor made a deal with Priest, choosing him as their Lord.

The whole arrangement was remarkably sane.

But then one morning a few months later, Priest was sleeping off a red wine binge and Lysandor was off cuddling his woman, and Ashiol stepped out of the cathedral to find Tasha waiting for him on Mayor's Bridge.

Lithe, wicked, dead Tasha. ‘Miss me, kitten?'

Ashiol stared at her. ‘What happened to you?'

‘I think you know exactly what happened to me,' she said sweetly. ‘Darling Garnet cut me down and sucked me dry. Or did he tell you a different story?'

Ashiol's mouth was dry. Tasha had died twice already. He had seen her body pale and bloodless on the floor of the den, and he had been part of the crew that cleansed the city of her revenant after it dragged a dark plague through the city because she had died forsworn. A third death seemed unimaginable.

‘Why are you here?' he asked. Garnet had never lied to him. If he said that Tasha had attacked him, that it was a necessary kill, then Ashiol was going to believe him.

Tasha had been a cruel mistress. It was not unrealistic that she had finally gone too far, and that Garnet had needed to save himself from her.

‘I'm here for you, kitten,' she said sweetly. ‘Didn't think I was really going to let you go, did you?'

 

‘I am not seeing things!' Ashiol had roared at the sentinels who couldn't mind their own fucking business. Ilsa and Macready had found him talking to himself, not for the first time, as he wandered the Angel Gardens. They had no loyalty to a courteso like him; all they cared about was their Kings.

‘Never said you were, laddie buck,' Macready said in a gentle voice. ‘Put the knife down.'

Ashiol stared at the blade. He hadn't even noticed that he was holding it, let alone moving it back and forth in what could be a threatening manner. ‘You know I could kill you without even touching you, knife or no knife,' he said quietly.

‘That thought had not occurred to us at all,' Ilsa said without inflection.

‘Come away with us now,' said Macready. ‘We'll find you a fine nest to sleep in, so we will.'

‘Stop patronising me, sentinel,' Ashiol growled. ‘I know what you think of me. I am not mindsick.' He tossed the knife to Ilsa, who caught it neatly and stuck it in her pocket. ‘Tasha's back. And she's going to make us all pay.'

‘Aye, renowned for coming back from the dead, so are the Lords and Court,' Macready drawled.

‘Ignore them, kitten,' said Tasha, standing with her hand on one hip. ‘She was always jealous of me, and he's just a hick Islandser. Get rid of them.'

Ashiol tried not to look at her, but Macready had caught the flick of his eyes. ‘Come away,' Mac said again, his voice annoyingly gentle.

‘Don't trust him,' Tasha said fiercely. ‘He's a sentinel, he's not yours. He has no allegiance to a courteso like you. Sentinels only care about the blood and love and protection of Kings and you, my cat, are not a Creature King. You never will be, unless you listen to me.'

Macready tried to use reason again, but Ashiol couldn't even hear his words. Tasha pressed up against his chest, making sure he could see and hear nothing but her. ‘What does he want from you? Why is he pretending to care?'

‘What do you want from me?' Ashiol demanded of her.

Tasha smiled her beautiful smile. ‘What I've always wanted. Your heart. Your soul. And I want you to kill them all.'

Ashiol looked into her eyes. He never had been able to resist doing anything she wanted. He looked back at the sentinels, knowing how easily he could tear them apart without even a touch. ‘Sedate me,' he said between his teeth.

‘Sorry, what was that?' said Ilsa, blinking.

‘Get the Silver Captain if you're not up to the job,' Ashiol snarled. ‘I'm not fucking safe. Nettlebane for a start, something stronger if you can get it. If you can't, you're going to have to chain me up.'

‘Is this you mad, or lucid?' Ilsa asked, still hesitating.

Ashiol turned and caught her by the face, hand squeezing her chin and cheeks together. ‘Restrain me,' he said calmly. ‘Or I will eat you alive.'

‘You can't do this,' Tasha declared, her voice thin behind him. ‘I need you!'

‘I will not be your tool for revenge,' he yelled at her, and gave Ilsa a shove, letting her go. He met Macready's eyes, silently begging the other man to take him seriously. ‘You'll get the potions.'

‘Oh, aye, lad,' said Macready gently. ‘You've made your point.'

‘I can make you kill them,' Tasha said gleefully. ‘Nothing you can do will prevent me from that.'

‘Watch me,' Ashiol said between gritted teeth.

It took three market-nines and a cocktail of potions and powders so strong he could hardly keep his eyes open, to make Tasha disappear. Macready stuck with him every step of the way, guarding him from the others, wiping his sweaty brow. Ashiol never thanked him for it, but he never forgot, either. Macready was the one who had listened to him.

Within months of that, Ashiol was a Creature Lord. Within three years, a King. The sentinels were his then, body and soul. He never stopped needing them, and he had always known that if his mind broke again, Macready would be the one who would catch him.

 

Delphine didn't want to meet Macready's eyes. She was chilly in her thin dress, where before she had felt nothing but numb and blissed out. She couldn't quite bring herself to wrap the brown cloak around herself. He had given it to her when she received her swords; another symbol that she was one of them now. A sentinel.

The colour didn't suit her at all.

She didn't deserve to wear it.

‘Surrender,' Macready repeated, sounding tired. Delphine could probably read ‘disappointed' into it if she wanted to look that hard. She really didn't. ‘Anything else I should know, lass?'

She shook her head. His presence was like a splash of cold water on the skin. Her mind had a haze to it still, but the pleasure of the powder was long gone.

‘Oi, where's he going?' Macready muttered. ‘My King! Get back here!'

Delphine turned and saw that Ashiol was making his barefoot way down the street, mumbling as he paced erratically back and forth. ‘What should we do with him?' she asked.

‘Get him to a nest, sleep it off,' said Macready, taking off after their rogue Ducomte. ‘You too.'

‘I'm fine.'

‘Is that what you are?'

He was being so reasonable. Why didn't he yell, like a normal boyfriend? Why didn't he just give her an excuse to cry and feel bad and run far away from either of them?

Ashiol was still muttering. Delphine kept up with Macready, following him down the street, but she couldn't hear what Ashiol was saying until he swung around and pointed directly at her. ‘This is all your fault,' he said clearly.

‘Come now, none of that,' said Macready in his ‘more reasonable than anyone else' lilt of a voice.