The Shattered City

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  ‘How considerate of us to keep you company,’ Delphine said bitterly. ‘What do you mean, this is how it happened at Tierce? What do you know about Tierce?’

  It was still just a name to her. Velody had tried to explain how her memories were coming back, the more time she spent among the Court, but Delphine’s own were hidden, and she was quite content for them to stay that way. There was nothing wrong with having a blank spot where your childhood was supposed to be. Not when it was what you were used to — how things had always been. Rhian hungered for any stories of Tierce that Velody could share. Delphine did not. When Macready had tried to bribe her with her lost memories she had felt nothing but rage that he thought her price was so damned cheap. But the idea of this little wench knowing more about their city than she did herself was unbearable.

  ‘I saw it all,’ said Heliora, hugging herself. ‘I knew Tierce would fall before it did. Usually it’s the futures that come upon me. But when it happened, I saw the now in a way I never had before. I saw every blow of the final battle. They turned against each other, and the city didn’t work any more, didn’t heal, couldn’t hold it together. One by one, the Shadow Court was swallowed by the sky, and when the last of them was gone, the sky ate the city whole.’

  ‘The Shadow Court?’ said Rhian. ‘They weren’t creatures then, the Court of Tierce?’

  ‘Oh, they were creatures,’ said Heliora with an unpleasant smile. ‘Greater, darker, more fierce creatures than anything you’ve seen here in Aufleur.’

  ‘So,’ said Delphine, her voice strangely loud in the kitchen. ‘What you’re saying here, basically, is that we’re doomed.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Heliora with a firm nod. ‘That was never in question.’ This was the last time Delphine would allow Rhian to feed soup to these wretched warriors and ragamuffins. Seriously, it was time they started making use of the sturdy bolts on the kitchen door.

  ‘I have to go,’ Heliora said, on her feet all of a sudden.

  ‘Don’t,’ Rhian said in alarm. ‘Wait for Ashiol …’

  ‘I can’t wait, I have to — oh, I can hear him laughing!’ And the crazy Seer was making for the door.

  ‘Let her go!’ Delphine said impatiently to Rhian. ‘She doesn’t belong here. We’re not part of this!’

  Rhian put her hand out to grasp Heliora’s arm, but the Seer shook her off and ran outside. Delphine was shocked to see something — anger, fear, something quite feral — shining out of Rhian’s eyes. ‘We have always been part of this,’ Rhian said fiercely. Then she swept out of the kitchen and up the staircase, half-running to get away from Delphine.

  Delphine heard the back gate creak and went to the threshold, expecting to see the Seer again, but it was Macready, looking all rumpled and bloodstained.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked with a catch in her throat, wondering whose blood it was.

  ‘Eh, nothing like that, lass,’ he said. ‘We’ve had word that Priest is hunting Heliora. He shouldn’t come here, but I wanted to warn you two to keep your heads down and your door barred … what is it?’

  Obviously her dismay was all over her face. ‘She was just here,’ Delphine confessed.

  ‘Oh, lass,’ Macready said in a sigh and made for the gate, then out into the alley at a fair lick.

  Delphine ran after him. ‘I told you I wouldn’t make a good sentinel.’

  ‘Aye, well I believe you now,’ he said, hurrying to the corner and looking in all directions. ‘No sign of her. What frame of mind was she in?’

  ‘Raving.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ he said heavily. ‘You may as well get back to your ribbons.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she snapped. ‘Our whole city is falling apart — in a real way, not a “building gets broken, building fixes itself” kind of way. Your precious Ducomte doesn’t give a damn about anything that’s real. None of you do. My garlands pay for the food that you all help yourselves to when you breeze in and out of our lives. It’s not all about mad Seers and exploding skies, you know!’

  ‘Aye, well you might have a point if it were not for the Pigeon Lord who is trying to kill off our people one by one,’ Macready snapped. ‘I don’t think we’ve exactly got our priorities in the wrong order, worrying about that. In any case, you’re part of our world now.’

  ‘Because I picked up a sword?’ Delphine scoffed. ‘It was a fluke. I am not a sentinel. I don’t even know what that means.’

  He held his hand out to her, looking all battle-worn and adorable. No, not adorable. Scruffy. ‘Come with me. There’s a fight to be won this nox, and Velody needs all the sentinels she can get.’

  Delphine just stared at him, furious enough to explode and take the sky with her. Why was it so hard to walk away from him? He was smiling his stupid smile, and his hair was all curled up at the ends, and she didn’t care. Not at all.

  She wasn’t going to take his hand. Delphine folded her arms. ‘I’d rather die.’

  A scream cut through the streets around them. ‘Heliora!’ said Macready, and ran towards the sound.

  Only later, Delphine realised that she had not hesitated to go after him.

  Macready found Heliora at the mouth of an alley that led out on to Via Camellie. She was shaking wildly, foam flecking her lips, and as he took hold of her he could feel her bones jutting through her skin. When had she last eaten a meal? She was all but vanishing under his hands.

  ‘Hel,’ he said urgently. ‘Come back to us, my lovely.’

  ‘Everything’s breaking,’ she forced out through a throat that barely seemed functional. ‘It won’t mend.’

  ‘We have to get you inside, sweetling. Away from Priest. The sky wants your blood.’

  She laughed horribly, clinging to him. ‘Not sure there’s enough left to tempt it.’

  Macready scooped her up in his arms and carried her back towards the house. Delphine was there at his side, watching him, though making no move to help. She stepped forward to open the gate for him, which was something. ‘Can’t help yourself, can you?’ she said. ‘You just love rescuing people.’

  Macready carried Heliora into the kitchen and sat her down. She seemed able to support herself, though she stared uselessly into the distance, not reacting to him. ‘Nothing wrong with that, is there?’

  ‘That depends on how you look at it.’ It was obvious that she very much did think there was something wrong with it.

  Macready left Heliora in the chair and drew Delphine into the workroom, speaking in a low voice. ‘How do you feel when you finish one of your garlanding commissions?’

  She gave him a hard look, her narrow sapphire eyes cutting into him. ‘Tired.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Satisfied,’ she said grudgingly. ‘I love being busy, I hate having nothing to do with my hands, and it is killing me that our bitch of a Duchessa has screwed with my business.’

  Macready nodded. ‘Imagine that same satisfaction, only the work you have done was for the good of the whole city. You’ve been a part of something that saves lives and sanity and the very bricks holding us up. Something so important that it makes you glow to have been part of it.’

  ‘And then they pat you on the head, the Kings, and say good dog. Only they don’t,’ Delphine scoffed. ‘I’ve seen — they hardly ever notice you except when they need something. You all walk around with this air of vitality, like your work is so much more essential than that of the rest of us.’

  Macready couldn’t believe her. ‘It is more essential.’

  ‘I don’t think it is.’

  ‘Delphine, you braid silk and flowers for a living.’

  She stared razors at him. ‘You’re a frigging maidservant, Macready, and that’s worse. You’re not going to turn me into a servant too!’

  ‘You had the right of it all along,’ he said angrily. ‘You’re not one of us, not if you think that way.’ Delphine made an irritated gesture at him, as if he was speaking the obvious aloud. Macready went back to the kitchen a
nd found it empty. ‘Shit!’ The Seer had not been as helpless as she seemed. So much for keeping her safe while Priest was forging his bloody path across the city.

  ‘Some sentinel,’ Delphine observed.

  14.

  ‘Ashiol, wait!’ Velody hurried along the main thoroughfare that was Via Alysaundre, a step behind Ashiol and some way ahead of the rest of their group. It was late enough that there were few people around, and those that were here paid no attention at all to a bloodstained mob with bared swords, a wolf and several hounds at their heels. Even the boy had shaped himself into animal form — a small gang of weasels.

  ‘I’m going to tear that bastard limb from limb,’ snarled Ashiol.

  ‘Priest or Poet?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘You know Poet,’ she chided him. ‘He wouldn’t have seriously meant to put Heliora in harm’s way.’

  ‘Would he not?’ Ashiol raged. ‘You don’t know the first thing about the Creature Court, Velody. Don’t start pretending that you do.’

  ‘I am the Power and Majesty,’ she said furiously.

  Ashiol just snorted.

  ‘You never said we were going to kill Priest,’ she tried, only just keeping up with his long strides.

  ‘I thought that was implied.’

  ‘This isn’t his fault. Are we going to be murdering the Duchessa, too? Just so I’m clear on the order of events.’

  ‘I’m not enjoying this,’ he snapped at her. ‘Isangell isn’t responsible for a bloodbath. Priest, or whatever the hell is walking around inside his body, is killing us.’

  ‘So we create our own bloodbath. Lovely.’

  ‘Did you think being Power and Majesty was going to be easy? That there would be no hard choices to make?’

  ‘You’re not giving me a choice!’

  ‘No one forced you to be part of this world, Velody. You chose us. You stepped up to be our Power and Majesty. Maybe it’s time you started behaving like it. Sky falls, we fight it. Danger comes, we fight it. Something tries to destroy us, we destroy it first. What the hells else can we do?’

  He stopped suddenly. They were at the arched entrance to the Forum. The Basilica was lit up from within — the only public building which was open all nox.

  ‘He won’t be in there,’ said Velody. ‘Too many witnesses.’

  ‘Heliora might be. If she’s not, we have to find her before he does. She doesn’t even have a fucking sword any more.’

  The sentinels and the others were close to catching up with them.

  ‘I’m not going to kill anybody,’ Velody said quickly. ‘You can’t make me do that.’

  ‘So your battle with Dhynar Lord Ferax was a onetime deal? Good to know.’

  ‘He was already dead,’ she said, stung by his words.

  ‘Dhynar was trailing pollution from the sky. He was tainted. He broke the rules. Any of this sounding familiar?’

  ‘I won’t kill anyone,’ Velody said again. ‘Not in cold blood.’

  ‘But you’re happy for us to kill on your behalf — for your sentinels to kill on your behalf.’ He raised his eyebrows, looking scornful. ‘Not even sentinels.’

  Anger flared through her. ‘You put me here because you thought I could be something different. Something better than what you had before. Stop being angry at me for not being Garnet, or Tasha, or whatever standard it is you are holding me to. Help me be Velody!’

  There had to be a solution to all this. Some way of bringing everyone through it alive.

  ‘We’ve gone as far as we can with you being Velody. You can’t handle this world. You never could.’

  She was furious and tired and hungry and beaten down, and this was the last thing she needed. ‘You’re wrong.’

  Ashiol was gazing across the Forum to the lights of the Basilica. ‘I was wrong before. You should go back to your seams and hems. I’m taking over the fucking Creature Court. Follow me or get out of my way.’ He stepped down into the darkness, and a figure rose up out of the Forum to confront him.

  ‘That’s hardly the way for a King to speak to his Power and Majesty,’ said a familiar voice, rich and deep. Warlord.

  Priest was a murderer. Poet was a fool. Livilla was a basket-case. Velody would not. Stop. Yapping. Ashiol wanted to burn the lot of them. Where the hells was Garnet when you needed him? Garnet would have killed Priest already and be looking around for a celebratory fuck.

  Now here was Warlord, on his own two feet, dressed every inch like the Zafiran Prince he was, in gleaming red silk robes with gold embroidery. He still looked like death warmed up, and his courtesi stood nearby, as if ready to lunge forward and catch him when he fell, but it was an improvement.

  ‘Cats,’ Mars said in his deep voice, looking over Ashiol’s shoulder to Velody. ‘They’re little fiends for lashing out when you kick them. And their scratches last a long time.’

  ‘I am sick of talking in metaphors,’ said Velody.

  Mars smiled with bright white teeth. ‘Aren’t we all?’

  ‘Let me pass,’ Ashiol advised. ‘Or I’ll push you over with my little finger.’

  ‘Not yet. It’s rude to turn your back on a lady.’

  ‘Ashiol is right,’ said Velody, sounding defeated. ‘I don’t know how to find Priest, or stop him. I don’t know how to fix this whole unholy mess. Thanks to the Duchessa, in her infinite wisdom, I don’t even have any hems to sew. Maybe he should be the Power and Majesty.’

  Ashiol turned and looked at her. He could take her, in a fight, if he had to. She had more animor, more raw power, but he had years of dirty tricks behind him. He had been a match for Garnet, most days. He could just take it from her. He could make her whimper.

  ‘I will say this,’ said Mars, pretending that he was only speaking for Velody’s benefit. ‘Ashiol is a better leader than he thinks he is. But no one can match him when it comes to being stupidly loyal. He has never broken an oath in his life. He swore to serve you as Power and Majesty, and if he says otherwise now, it’s just words. That’s how he’s made.’

  Ashiol turned and glared at him. ‘I can break an oath any time I like.’

  Mars shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t see it.’

  ‘How is he following me by walking away?’ Velody demanded.

  Mars chuckled. ‘I didn’t say he wasn’t complex.’

  ‘Giving away all my secrets,’ Ashiol said in a low voice.

  Mars met his gaze. ‘You came for me, when I was hurt and in hiding. You brought Velody to me, so she could heal me. We were friends once. I hope we can be again someday.’

  Friends. Yes. Ashiol had missed that. Silently, he reached out one arm, and Mars clasped it. The Panther Lord’s animor felt weak still, but it was returning.

  ‘The time for playing mind games, for pitting Lord against Lord, is over,’ said Mars. ‘We need you both. Power and Majesty, Kings. We are fighting for our survival now.’

  ‘Some of us were always fighting for our survival,’ remarked Ashiol.

  Velody didn’t look uncertain any more. She looked strong, and ready. Like someone you could count on. ‘Let’s find Priest,’ she said. ‘We can discuss what to do with him after that.’

  ‘Oh good,’ muttered Ashiol. ‘More talking.’

  Velody could not quite believe that it had taken Warlord to broker a peace between the two Kings. She was glad of it though, not wanting to expend more energy in fighting Ash. Then screams rang out across the Forum, and there was more reason to be glad of it.

  ‘Hate to interrupt this touching scene,’ said Kelpie. ‘But I reckon we’ve found Priest.’

  Ashiol moved the fastest, all but flying to the wide doors of the Basilica. He couldn’t get through, for the crowd of people flooding their way out of the building. ‘Round the back!’ he yelled to the others, but that door was full of merchants and customers scrabbling their way out as well. Some of them were wounded, or streaked with blood. All of them looked terrified.

  Ashiol really did fly this time, up to the dom
ed roof, and broke one of the high glass skylights to get inside. The other Lords and Court, some in animal form and others glowing bright as day, followed him in. Velody shaped herself into Lord form and lifted Crane and Kelpie up into the air and through the skylights.

  Inside, the Basilica was a wreck. Stalls and tents had been overturned, hot food bars lay cracked open, and most of the vendors and customers had fled the scene. Bodies lay dead or bleeding on the ground. Priest had been here. Priest and whatever dreadful monster the sky had put inside his skin.

  ‘Saints and devils,’ breathed Crane. ‘What has he done?’

  Velody couldn’t answer. There were no words for this. The Creature Court were supposed to be above and beyond the daylight folk. They didn’t slaughter them for their own entertainment. They didn’t play these games with anyone but each other. True, the message that they were supposed to protect the daylight folk often got lost along the way, but this … This was more than neglect. It was sport.

  ‘Priest!’ thundered out an angry voice.

  ‘There’s our boy,’ said Kelpie, her blades bared as she headed towards the sound of Ashiol’s voice, ignoring the wreckage and the death around her.

  They found the rest of the Creature Court in a cleared space, where several tents had been torn up and cast aside.

  ‘Have you been looking for me, king of cats?’ boomed the voice of Priest. He appeared in his usual stately glory of velvets and silks, the new waistcoat gleaming over his portly stomach. It made Velody sick to look at it. Her hands, as Mars had told her, over and over. Her fault.

  Priest was surrounded by birds — the gulls, plovers and sparrows of his retinue.

  How could they go along with this? Courtesi served Lords, yes, but surely it was blatantly obvious that their master was not the one driving this cabriolet?

  ‘What the hells do you think you are doing?’ Ashiol raged.