The Shattered City

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  She shut her mouth on the last word, but he knew what she had been about to say.

  ‘When the sky swallows Aufleur,’ said Ashiol, lips shaping the words with great deliberation. ‘Believe me, I’m looking forward to it. It will be like a family reunion.’

  Delphine set her glass down so sharply that her drink splashed against the smooth wood of the bar. ‘Why don’t you stop acting like such a spoiled brat? All you lost is a chance to escape responsibility. I lost my friend.’ The thought of Velody, the fact that she was gone, the hurting space she had left behind, was enough to make Delphine fall apart all over again. But she couldn’t. Didn’t. Everyone needed her to be strong, and she hated them for it.

  Ashiol was watching her like she was something he wanted to eat. He slid a small velvet bag out of his shirt and lay it on the bar between them, letting the contents spill a little on to the polished surface.

  Delphine stared. She knew what that was. The tiny glittering crystals, like crushed moonstone and sugar. They called it surrender. She’d only tried it once or twice, when a seigneur with more money than sense was trying to impress her. It was worth a small fortune, and she could practically taste it on her tongue.

  Ashiol smiled that cat’s smile of his. ‘Want to share?’

  Delphine was going to retort that the last thing he needed — they needed — was to get high. She had been good for so long. She found herself saying, ‘Why not?’

  Ashiol had never had much of a taste for potions and powders when he was young. Animor was his drug of choice in those days. He had needed nothing but that burst of blood under the teeth, that fierce light inside the chest when he swarmed over the rooftops as cats.

  It was Garnet who needed more.

  Tasha had encouraged it, using the prettier potions to reward her lions for good behaviour. Garnet, taking to the life of indulgent power with glee, had lapped up everything that came his way.

  Ashiol remembered shouting at him, furious, more than once. The sky would be ablaze, their lives were on the line, and Garnet would be high on surrender, or bliss, laughing like a madman as he threw himself into the fray.

  I don’t understand why you need it, Ashiol had spat in disgust one nox when they were what, seventeen years old? We have everything.

  Garnet had looked at him as if he was a special kind of stupid. You have everything, he said. The rest us cluster at your feet to lick at the scraps.

  Livilla had liked the powders too. It was something she and Garnet shared, even when she went through phases of preferring Ashiol as her bedmate. Sometimes she would come to Ashiol smelling of gin and mint and something else he couldn’t recognise, eyes shining with a metallic glow. Sometimes she would make him taste fragments on her tongue, or a fingertip, and he would do it because … she was Livilla.

  Garnet never seemed to mind that Livilla had that power over Ashiol. He would watch them with a sly smile. He had his own power over Ashiol, and he did not waste it on potions and powders. He used it to make them love him, hold true to him; to give complete loyalty even when they were Lords of separate households, building their own power bases, and should no longer be friends, nor anything else.

  Breaking the rules was what Garnet did best.

  Ashiol arched his neck back now, letting the surrender crystals melt on his tongue. He lay on the rough tiles of the roof of the Pretty Princel, with a lithe demme beside him, her own lips reddened and wet as she sucked another pinch from her fingers.

  It didn’t matter that this was Delphine, who hated him, and not Livilla. The type was the same. She giggled now, shifting awkwardly, not used to dealing with the angles and planes of roofs in her knee-high silk sheath dress. Her cloak and sword-harness — still so new they squeaked — lay abandoned near a chimney stack. ‘The sky is so sharp,’ Delphine said, eyes wide and fixed upon the aimless stars. ‘Like someone stabbed it. Over and over and over …’

  Ashiol stretched his whole body out, wanting to be in cat shape. ‘Makes it all better, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Mmm,’ Delphine breathed, wriggling her shoulders, breasts half-spilling out of her low neckline. ‘I’d forgotten what it was like to just be.’

  Must be nice.

  There was one day, five years ago, when Ashiol had awoken on the floor of the Palazzo, completely drained. Garnet had taken everything from him. Ashiol didn’t know how to function without animor, without his cats, without the thrum of power that came with being a King.

  (The sentinels had shared their blood with him sometimes, given him a taste of mortality to allow respite from Garnet’s tortures, and he had resented it every time.)

  Ashiol’s skin had hurt, everything hurt: he could feel scars burning into him for so long, and then he hadn’t been able to feel the scars at all which was worse, because it meant his animor was gone. He had nothing. He was nothing. He closed himself in his Palazzo rooms for three days, speaking to no one, not eating, barely sleeping. Eventually he climbed out a window and took to the streets, looking for something that would take the edge off. Crumbs and scraps.

  Powders and potions had helped, then. Until they didn’t, and the rope or the sword became more appealing.

  ‘Velody would be so cranky about this,’ Delphine said sleepily, her voice breaking into his thoughts. He had almost forgotten about her presence.

  ‘Don’t say her name,’ Ashiol snapped, but too late. Everything he was trying to push away came crowding back. Heliora, grabbing at him. I can’t see past Saturnalia. I’m not going to live … He had ignored her, because he had lost enough and he didn’t want to think about it, didn’t even want to consider the possibility. He had entirely failed to give her any kind of comfort, and had instead devoted all his attention to sniffing around Velody, selling her on how to be a hero. He hadn’t saved either of them. He deserved to be alone, left holding the pieces of the Creature Court.

  He still had Heliora’s ashes. It was supposed to be bad luck, to hold on to them. Ashiol should have cast them from a hill, interred them in one of the city walls, or hurled them into the fires of any one of several dozen saints or angels. He couldn’t decide, though. Couldn’t let her go.

  Neither had he checked on Livilla recently, no matter that she had suffered her own losses. He hadn’t bothered to ask how well Mars had recovered, if Priest was hanging on to sanity, if Poet had killed them all in their sleep. He had let Velody sacrifice herself, and he couldn’t even pull himself together long enough to take her place. What was the sodding point? He couldn’t be her. He couldn’t even be Garnet.

  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 an
d 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.

  24.

  Macready 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.

&nb
sp; ‘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?’