The Shattered City

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  ‘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.

  ‘Oh what, I forced you to take the powder?’ Delphine snapped defensively. ‘You bought it, Ashiol. You offered it to me!’

  ‘Not the surrender,’ he said, smiling viciously. ‘Velody. All your fault.’

  Delphine felt as if she had been slapped. ‘Don’t you frigging dare.’

  ‘S
he never belonged to us, not really. She was yours. You keep reminding us of that, but have you thought about what it means? She was tied to both of you. She gave up on the idea of defending herself, of being a part of the Creature Court, because she wanted to protect you.’ Ashiol tilted his head, mouth twisting cruelly. ‘Were you worth it?’

  Delphine bit her lip. She would not let him get to her. He was lashing out, trying for some kind of reaction. She would not give it to him.

  Why was it him trying to hurt her, and not Macready? She had given Mac reason enough.

  ‘How does it feel to know that you killed her?’ Ashiol said next, still with that horrible smile of his.

  ‘He doesn’t mean it,’ Macready warned, his hand brushing Delphine’s arm.

  Delphine shook him off, along with any comfort he intended. ‘The hells he doesn’t.’ She stepped forward, facing Ashiol. ‘The only reason you’re trying to pass the blame to me is because you feel guilty!’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he agreed with a snap of his teeth. ‘I killed her too.’

  ‘Delphine, shut up and back off,’ Macready said in a low, worried voice.

  She turned on him. ‘Me? Why am I the one who has to shut up when he’s spewing vile accusations?’

  ‘He’s not himself.’

  ‘I think he’s exactly himself, same old arrogant, spiteful, selfish —’ Delphine gasped as Ashiol grabbed hold of her. She froze for a moment as his arms wrapped around her waist. One hand reached out, tugging lightly at her short blonde hair.

  ‘Pretty colour,’ he crooned.

  Macready’s eyes were on Ashiol like he was dangerous. Saints, of course he was dangerous. He was probably the most dangerous person in the city. ‘Perhaps next time, lass,’ Mac said in a steady voice, ‘when I say someone is not himself, you’ll be listening to me.’

  ‘Let go,’ Delphine said, hating how small her voice sounded.

  ‘She’s not the enemy, my King,’ Macready said in a low voice, edging towards them, a little at a time.

  ‘Oh, but she is,’ said Ashiol directly into Delphine’s ear. ‘Can’t you see how sharp she is? She’ll cut you all to pieces, stitch you up like ribbons. It’s what they do. We trust them, we believe them, and they smash us to pieces.’

  Delphine slid her hand a little lower, and found the hilt of her knife. He was still holding her, too close, too close. Before Macready could call out to stop her, she drew her knife and slammed it hard into Ashiol’s stomach.

  ‘For feck’s sake,’ Macready cried out, diving for them both as Ashiol fell. ‘That’s skysilver, you stupid bint. It could kill him.’

  Ashiol gasped, landing hard on his knees, Delphine’s knife sticking out of his gut.

  ‘I know that,’ Delphine said calmly. ‘Steel wouldn’t have made him let go of me.’

  Macready gave her a horrified look. ‘That’s not what the blades are for!’

  The last month had been full of sentinels telling Delphine how great an honour it was to wear the blades, how much it meant, all the time quietly ignoring the fact that they were still mourning their own swords and daggers lost to the devils of the sky rift.

  Macready’s new swords had grey-wrapped hilts, and the balance had been designed to take his missing finger into account, but he was evidently still uncomfortable with them. He never referred to them as ‘lasses’, though Kelpie had accepted her own new blades as ‘sisters’ all over again. As far as Delphine knew, Mac hadn’t even named his new blades. Maybe that meant something, but she hadn’t pushed. It was none of her business.

  ‘If he doesn’t want to be stabbed he has to learn to keep his hands to himself,’ she said.

  Macready tended the wound, drawing the knife out despite Ashiol’s cry of pain. He tossed it at Delphine without cleaning it first — a sure sign he was hacked off at her — and then drew his own steel knife to cut a vein for Ashiol. ‘Should have done this anyway,’ he said matter-of-factly as Ashiol closed his mouth over his wrist. ‘Some of those potions and powders take them worse when there’s animor in the mix. Mortal blood will quiet him some.’

  Delphine cleaned her own knife and resheathed it. ‘He’s not a child,’ she said bitterly. ‘Why do you treat him like one?’

  ‘Because I’ve seen him like this before,’ Macready said. Still too calm, still not hating her. Obviously she hadn’t tried hard enough to hurt him. ‘I think there’s more going on than the fecking surrender. And I don’t want to be right.’ He drew his wrist back from Ashiol’s mouth, oddly gentle, and lifted the bloodstained shirt to check that Ashiol’s stomach had healed over. ‘How d’ye feel, my King?’

  ‘Lost,’ said Ashiol in a distant voice.

  ‘Well, then. Better be getting you back to the Palazzo, eh? Somewhere quiet to rest your head?’

  Ashiol seemed to think about this, then nodded. ‘Hel’s there. I can talk to her.’ He stood up in that instant and strolled away down the street.

  Delphine stared after him. ‘That’s not right.’

  ‘Aye,’ Macready said grimly.

  ‘It’s not just the powder?’

  ‘Hard to tell. The wanker hasn’t been all the way sober or clean in the last month. But — aye. I think it’s more.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘We, is it? Thought you were having second thoughts all over again.’

  ‘I was weak,’ she said sharply. ‘Don’t be so frigging judgemental. We can’t all be perfect.’

  That at least raised a smile from Macready. ‘Never said I was perfect, lass.’

  ‘It was implied.’ She shook her head. ‘So what do we do — try to sober him up and see if he’s still in one piece underneath it all?’

  Macready patted her arm. ‘Go home, Delphine. I’ll handle this.’

  ‘I can help!’ she insisted without even asking herself if she wanted to. Damn it.

  ‘Can you?’ Macready asked, without judgement in his voice. Not even a little. How did he do that?

  ‘I’m not Velody,’ she said, sharper than she intended.

  ‘I don’t expect you to be.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ She quickened her step until she was only a few steps behind Ashiol. ‘I can help. I can be a bloody sentinel. Just don’t expect me to be anyone other than myself.’

  Macready gave her a sceptical look, but caught up with her so that they were both trailing Ashiol and his steady stride. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re in no danger of being mistaken for her, lass.’

  Ha, and wasn’t that the truth. ‘You’d better do the talking if we run into the Duchessa,’ said Delphine. ‘Last time we crossed paths, I tried to help sacrifice her to the sky.’

  ‘Eh, that was a month ago,’ Macready said lightly. ‘Sure she won’t hold a grudge.’

  She bit her lip, willing herself not to laugh, not now. She didn’t want to laugh. She didn’t want to feel warm all over with gratitude that Macready seemed to have forgiven her.

  It was deeply irritating, the power he had to make her feel good, and safe. Someone should put a stop to it.

  25.

  Isangell, the Duchessa d’Aufleur, had been fighting with dressmakers all evening, a ridiculous pastime. What did it honestly matter what she wore for the Volcanalia (except that she hated every idea they suggested, nothing felt right).

  She was out of sorts with Armand, her mother and her maids as well. How hard was it for them to understand that she needed some minutes of each day to herself? She had taken to walking the corridors or slipping into the gardens to avoid them all; her rooms had long since ceased to be any kind of sanctuary.

  There was so much to think about. Isangell circled her grandfather’s rose atrium, wondering if she could risk hiding herself for a moment or two in the deep green shadows without being captured by one of her many tormentors. She paused when she heard a thump from within, and what sounded like muffled swearing.

  Calling the lictors would be the sensible response, but instead she opened the glass doors and stepped inside the atrium.
>
  Two intruders stopped suddenly, allowing a third to slump on to the ground behind them. Isangell knew these people. The Islandser, and the blonde demoiselle named Delphine. What did he call them? Sentinels. The equivalent of lictors in that strange dreamlike nox world that had hold of Ashiol’s heart.

  These were the people who would have killed her, because one of their friends had a vision of the future. It was somewhat hard to look past that detail. Both sentinels were in a wretched state, flustered and dishevelled, though not as bad as the figure crumpled on the floor. He, of course, was instantly recognisable.

  ‘Your ladyship,’ said the Islandser, looking as if he might be about to do something dreadfully awkward like bow or scrape.

  ‘Seigneur,’ Isangell replied with frosty politeness, and then nodded her head in acknowledgement to Delphine, who looked uncomfortable. ‘I take it you have brought my cousin back to us?’

  ‘Somewhat the worse for wear, I’m afraid,’ said the Islandser with a weak grin. ‘A little under the weather, do you see. He’ll be back to his old self in no time, to be sure.’

  Delphine muttered something like, ‘Don’t bet on it,’ but he ignored her.

  ‘I’m afraid I have forgotten your name,’ Isangell said, eyes fixed on Ashiol. He was pale and muttering and looked far beyond drunk.

  ‘Macready, ladyship,’ the Islandser told her. ‘Just passing through, trying to make sure your man here gets home safely.’

  The atrium wasn’t an obvious thoroughfare. Isangell stared at them both and then looked up, to where sunlight streamed through the open ceiling. ‘Did you come in by the roof?’ Neither of them answered that and she was happy to let the question drop. ‘Has he been drinking?’

  ‘Among other things,’ said Macready.