‘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 Mu
seion, 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.’
‘What the seven hells is this?’ Macready demanded as he and Kelpie marched into the nest.
Velody looked at Kelpie, whose eyes darted to Warlord on the bed, though she did not move from Macready’s side.
‘You speak like that to your betters?’ Grago sneered.
Macready barely gave him a glance. ‘This is a sentinel’s nest,’ he thundered. ‘This belonged to the Silver Captain. It was not designed to be the playground of the Lords and Court. It’s ours.’
‘Macready, stand down,’ Ashiol said sharply. ‘We have other issues to worry about.’
‘More important issues, of course,’ Macready said, folding his arms. ‘Everything is more important than the sentinels, as ever.’
‘Shut up, Mac,’ Kelpie said tightly.
‘You’re just as bad,’ he growled at her. ‘Did you give Warlord access to this nest? Is that how he got in?’
Kelpie looked utterly devastated. ‘Is that what you think of me? That I would dishonour our fallen?’
‘I have no idea what you would fecking do,’ said Macready. ‘Not now.’
‘I’m sure Warlord will be more than happy to fight a duel with you over the matter, sentinel,’ Ashiol said forcefully, his voice reverberating through the room. ‘If he wakes up.’
Her hands. Velody tuned out everyone and everything in the nest, staring at the backs of her hands, then her palms. Her hands. What had Warlord meant? Was he crazed from his illness and wounds?
Her hands. She remembered the cobweb shadow that had pulsed over her skin after the time she and Warlord saved Poet from the sticky black noxcrawl. She had caught flickers of it occasionally, but thought she was imagining it. It appeared when she was angry, or afraid. It had got worse after the battle with Dhynar’s shade. She had thought there was something wrong with her, or with her animor. Was it something else? Had something crossed over from the sky? Was it still inside her?
She had worked on her sewing, and every stitch had calmed her, brought her back to herself. The shadows had vanished.
Her hands.
She couldn’t have done it, couldn’t have killed Livilla’s courtesi, or hurt Warlord, without knowing about it. Could she? Velody already knew that she could not trust her own memory. Between Garnet’s games and the loss of Tierce, her mind had been well and truly jumbled, like a tin of stray buttons.
Her hands. She laid one palm on Warlord’s chest and his eyes flashed open. His gaze held hers for a moment, and then he shuddered and fell still again. It was several moments before she was certain he was still breathing.
She filled her hands with animor, until she could all but see light streaming out of her fingernails, and then laid her hands on him again, using the power to see inside his body. He was full of shadows. Here and here she could see where his own animor had been ripped out of him by force. It was already beginning to heal itself, tiny fragments sparking back into life, but they were struggling. He had drunk the blood of all five of his courtesi, and he still teetered on the precipice. The line between life and death was so very thin.
Velody flexed her fingers and gave him some of her own animor. Just one push at first, and then another, and she could feel it inside him, a slow burn to speed up the healing process. They were going to need him.
When Velody thought she had done enough, she looked around the nest again and saw chaos. The sentinels, courtesi and Ashiol were all arguing fiercely.
‘Quiet, all of you,’ she demanded. ‘What now?’
‘I want them out of here, all of them,’ Macready said hotly. ‘This is a sacred place and naught to do with your Court. Send them back to the Museion.’
‘No,’ Velody said crisply. ‘I’m sorry, Mac, but Warlord is in no state to be moved.’ She looked across at their angry, defensive faces. ‘I have no idea what is going on here, but someone is attacking the Court. Livilla and Warlord are both victims to it. We don’t have time to play factions or argue who is the most aggrieved. All of the Court is in danger, all of us are vulnerable. We need to hold together.’
‘Pretty words,’ growled Ashiol.
‘You can’t just choose to respect me when I agree with you,’ Velody flung at him. ‘Keep your mouth shut. I need you to think for once. If Warlord isn’t behind all this, then who is?’
She looked to her sentinels next. ‘You too, both of you — I need you with clear heads. You know these people better than anyone …’
Ashiol snorted.
Kelpie glared at him. ‘Something to say, my King?’
Ashiol’s eyes were on Velody, anger flooding through every word. ‘What are you suggesting? We all hold hands and vow to cleave to each other and the world will be well?’
‘I know stamping your foot like a child is more tempting right now,’ Velody said, trying to keep herself calm so that her fears did not overwhelm her. Did my hands do this? ‘But you must be able to see that it doesn’t help.’ She looked to Macready and Kelpie. ‘I want one of you to stay here, keep an eye on Warlord and his people …’
‘No,’ said Kelpie.
‘Come now, lass,’ Macready said in a low voice, hand brushing her arm.
She shook him off. ‘No. You’ll stand up for an empty nest but not for us? I’m sick of it, Macready. The world does not live and die for Saint Velody!’
Velody blinked, startled at the sentinel’s venom.
Kelpie turned on her, eyes blazing. ‘No one bothered to explain it, I suppose. Why should they? You have so much to learn about the Lords and Court, and we’ve long realised that we don’t matter, not to any of you. But the sentinels are a sacred order and our duty — our only duty — is to stand at the side of the Kings. We protect you with our blades and our blood. But we are not your servants or your spies or your whores. Warlord has five fucking courtesi right here to defend his body. That is their duty. Ours — saints help us — is to defend you and Ashiol when Warlord or his courtesi or someone just like you tries to rip off your skin and drink you dry.’
Velody had no idea what to say to that.
Ashiol had no such qualms. ‘That’s enough, Kelpie,’ he commanded.
‘Not nearly enough, my King,’ she retorted. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, there aren’t a dozen of us to clean up after you any more. There are three, and we’re doing our best.’
‘You didn’t seem to mind stepping outside your duties to romp in Warlord’s bed,’ he said harshly.
Kelpie’s face froze over. ‘Thank you for reminding me of my place in the Court, my King,’ she said woodenly. ‘A whore aft
er all. Good to know.’ She turned, and walked out of the nest.
Velody watched her leave. ‘Go home, Ashiol,’ she sighed. ‘I don’t have any use for you right now.’ Without waiting to hear Ashiol’s response, she went after Kelpie.
She didn’t have to go far. Kelpie was sitting in a small miserable huddle against a wall, only a street and a half away. Velody joined her, crouching against the cool bricks. ‘What did Garnet do to you?’ she asked after a long pause.
Kelpie almost cracked a smile. ‘That obvious, is it?’
‘I know he used the sentinels — the whole Creature Court — in ways they should not have been used. I don’t know enough of the details.’ There was a long silence from the sentinel. ‘I need to know, Kelpie. You might not like me, but I am trying to be different to Garnet. I am trying to make something of this Court. I need to know what mistakes he made, so I can avoid them myself.’
‘He took our honour from us,’ Kelpie burst out, as if it hurt too much to keep it inside.
‘You mean your blades? Or something more?’
‘That was the start of it. We couldn’t fight, which made us weak. Toys for his amusement. Spies, dolls. He sent me to Warlord’s bed. The joke was that I wasn’t even a spy. How could I be? Warlord knew who had sent me. The only effect it had was to piss off Livilla.’ Kelpie sighed. ‘Garnet took our blood and our dignity — he liked to frig me because he knew Ashiol and I had been something once. But Ash was just as bad, in the old days, even if I did want him. At least Warlord knew he was using me. He was almost nice about it.’
There were no words for this. Velody thought about Crane, about how eagerly he hovered around her, how much he wanted to please her. It was different, she knew it was, but it still made her cringe inside. Power imbalance could so easily turn sinister.
‘It’s not just about the frigging,’ Kelpie said suddenly. ‘We meant something once. Being a sentinel was glorious. Garnet took it away, piece by piece, and we let him do it. There’s something about Kings and sentinels. We can’t help loving them. They treat us like dirt, but it doesn’t matter because we have our honour. We’re warriors, with a place in the Creature Court, a place in the war against the sky. Our deaths count.’ She turned and met Velody’s troubled gaze. ‘Mac was so angry about them taking the Captain’s nest. I barely even registered it. I thought, what does it matter? We’ve lost everything else. But it matters.’
The Shattered City Page 13
