The Shattered City

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  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 n
ecessary 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.

  Waiting for you to make me Seer of the Creature Court. I’ve never received a gift so bitter, or so important.

  I will save them if I can. My turn to put the pieces together. You can lay your burdens down, now. Be free. Sleep.

  Thank you.

  PART II

  Songs from the Bestialia Cabaret

  23.

  Lux Diani; Holiday of Slaves

  Two days before the Ides of Cerialis

  One month later

  It had been a year and a half since Rhian last set foot on the docks, near the Noces Gate, on the far side of the river Verticordia. Little had changed in that time. The same faces were here, the same strong arms and merry grins, and the usual hubbub surrounded the new boats, where the shipments of flowers and fruits from Orcadia and Atulia had just come in.

  She was jostled this way and that as she made her way to the boat where they were unloading crates of fresh clematis, violetti and lilacs, perfect for the holiday of slaves that only the finest of families would be celebrating this nox, in memory of a time when slavery was common in Aufleur.

  The pampered sons and daughters of the Great Families would wear purple garlands on their heads and pretend to serve a fancy meal to their servants, who themselves would have spent all day cooking and preparing the false feast.

  Every time someone bumped against Rhian, she breathed deeply and held herself together. No harm. No harm done. All is well. She was not ready for this, but if she did not start now, when would she be ready?

  Her head was full of so many horrors, but she was learning control finally, and there was a freedom in that.

  All her old friends and workmates were here, many dames and demmes and fellows who had known them in their apprentice days, or when they held a market stall in the Forum. Many of them seemed to know Rhian’s story, or a version Delphine had spilled to them, because there was pity on their faces, and overly bright smiles at seeing her finally having the courage to climb out from her walls and face the world. No one knew about Velody, that she was gone, and it was a pain in her stomach every time one of them called out a greeting, or sent their love.

  Rhian had not mourned. She missed Velody so much, but there was work to be done. Delphine was struggling to hold herself together, to make ribbons and to be a sentinel. Without Velody’s commissions to keep them in grain and cheese, Rhian had to work.

  She could do this. She was stronger now.

  Rhian bought her blooms and walked across the city on steady feet, returning home. The autumn sunshine was bright in her eyes, and her cheeks were warm when she returned to the house with the sign of the rose and needle.

  She took three steps into the kitchen, and the voices filled her head. Rhian staggered, dropping her laden basket. Flowers scattered across the floor as she pressed her hands to her temples, trying to make them stop.

  Heliora’s voice was the loudest. She had been there for market-nines, telling her own story like an old ghost reciting words in an empty room, not knowing whether anyone heard. If it was just Heliora, Rhian could cope, but it was all of them — every Seer who had ever lived — talking all at once, and when it got like that she could make no sense of anything they said; it was just noise threatening to burst through her ears and nose.

  Oh, but this time there were words that she recognised, one in particular, over and over, in dozens of voices.

  Liar liar liar liar liar liar.

  ‘Stop it,’ she commanded, shaken. For a miracle, they stopped. Rhian paused to catch her breath, and then busied herself in collecting all the flowers, straightening their stems, and arranging them in the basket once more.

  Of course the Seers could see into her head. How could they not, if they were stuck in there? They knew her greatest, most awful secret. The thing she had not lied about, not really, and yet she had never told the truth about. She had let them all assume that they knew why it was so hard for her to leave this house, why the anxiety had swallowed her whole, this last year and more, since that awful Lupercalia.

  She had let them weep for her, and imagine the worst. Every time they looked at her as if she might break into a thousand pieces, the lie had burned on her tongue, still unspoken but always there. Thinking back to that day, when it all began, she could no longer remember if there was a time when she could have spoken the truth.

  ‘Rhian, lass, is that you?’

  She jolted in surprise and looked up as Macready sauntered into the kitchen. Of course he was here. ‘I bought flowers,’ she said.

  His face lit up. ‘Look at you,’ he said so proudly. ‘No trouble in the streets? I would have come with you if you’d asked, so I would.’

  Of course he would. He had gone out of his way to make sure Rhian was as easy as she could be about him all but living here now, and he had watched her baby steps into the world as if he were a protective brother.

  Macready was making tea now — they had him well trained — and chattering about how Ashiol had gone missing again, and he had been hoping he might be here, though he knew as well as she did that Ashiol had not set foot in this house since Velody died. No, if Mac was here it was to check on her, for no other reason. Rhian wanted to be glad of his kindness, but instead she had acquired yet another person who would hate her if he knew the truth.

  What would he do if she blurted it out in front of him right now, in the kitchen? I was never raped.

  Rhian had been accosted by drunken men in the street that day, but it had not been rape that drove her to cut the hair from her head, to slice deeply into her skin and watch the blood well up through the wounds. Nothing so mundane.

  Delphine and Velody had told the lie for her in their careful looks and silences. Rhian had jumped at every sound, f
linched at every touch; she had felt the world disappear into blackness, out of fear and panic, and she had been grateful that their assumptions gave her an excuse for that.

  She would have broken entirely, had she been forced to speak the real truth aloud. Later, when she felt stronger, the lie was already well in place. It was too late now to confess to Velody, and Rhian wished more than anything that she had done so. Velody might have understood. Delphine never would, and Rhian curbed her impulse to spill the truth to Macready. He was not hers to unburden herself to.

  She and the many voices of dead Seers in her head would have to keep their secrets to themselves.

  Delphine found him in the Pretty Princel, slouched in the corner of a bar. Of all people, it had to be she who found him. She had no wish to scrape a drunkard out of a bar in the middle of the afternoon, but this was the world she lived in now.

  It was all Macready’s fault.

  She ordered a bitter lime, which would in no way sate her craving for something stronger, and went to sit beside the wreck of a man at the bar. ‘Hello, Ashiol.’

  ‘Delphine,’ he slurred, eyes dangerously bright as he raised his glass to her. ‘A pleasure, as always.’

  She sipped, resenting that she was the one on best behaviour. Falling apart in a sea of booze and potions was her own way of coping with the unimaginable, or even the everyday. Being the good one was just short of abominable. ‘It’s been a month,’ she said finally, her mouth puckering around lime and salt. ‘Don’t you think it’s time you sobered up?’

  Ashiol laughed at her. ‘Look at you, playing the sentinel. Shiny swords on your back, shiny knives tucked into your bodice. I thought you wanted nothing to do with any of us. Or has Macready frigged compliance into you?’

  Oh, this one was a charming drunk. Delphine loved her swords, even if she was still this side of rubbish when it came to training, and she wasn’t taking any of the inebriated Ducomte’s cack. ‘I know that if we don’t get a Power and Majesty who is up to the job, I’ll end up as dead as the rest of you when the sky …’