Reign of Beasts

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  Rhian. That was what was important now. The politics could come later. It could wait, couldn’t it?

  ‘Who do you choose?’ Velody said impatiently. ‘Or is this you hanging around in the hope of another gift?’

  Warlord’s eyes flashed. ‘Your blood saved my life a few months ago. But Garnet was our Power and Majesty first. I will follow the King who shows the greatest strength. Sentiment has no place in these decisions.’

  ‘Forget sentiment,’ Velody said. ‘And to hells with strength — as if strength is the most important thing a leader offers. Tell me which King you would prefer to have in charge.’

  He smiled suddenly, the warrior facade cracking just a little. ‘You. But I won’t follow you if you plan to lose to Garnet.’

  ‘I don’t plan to lose to anyone,’ Velody said, and continued walking up the hill.

  ‘Do you love him?’ Warlord called out behind her.

  Velody spun around. ‘What did you say?’

  He seemed to be searching for something in her eyes. ‘The way you returned, both of you. It shows in your animor. You and Garnet taste of each other.’

  ‘That’s … disturbing.’ Velody realised why he was asking. ‘Livilla was Garnet’s lover, wasn’t she? Are you hoping that I’ll take him off her hands?’

  The thought of it alarmed her. Sex with Garnet had been … of the moment, about building up their powers and giving them both the strength to escape. Velody hadn’t had any time to think about whether it meant more than that, but the fact that he had bedded half the Court (that she knew about) made him an unlikely boyfriend. Besides, things with Ashiol were complicated enough without them sharing a lover.

  Warlord’s smile was thin. ‘Loving Livilla is like loving the wind. She is impossible to grasp, to possess. Garnet is the same you will find.’

  ‘And Ashiol?’ Velody asked without thinking.

  Ashiol. Why hadn’t he taken the leadership of the city? She had been relying on him. What had he been doing with himself? He had been so pleased to see her alive. Her mouth still felt bruised by the kiss he had greeted her with on her return. Once he realised she had returned with Garnet, though, he looked as if he hated her.

  ‘You have a fight on your hands, Lady,’ said Warlord. ‘Unless you plan to frig them both into submission. A valid leadership method, it could be said, but you’re mistaken if you think they won’t try the same thing on you.’

  ‘I have to find the Seer,’ said Velody. ‘Garnet and Ashiol can take care of themselves.’

  She was suddenly assaulted by a memory — not her own — of Garnet and Ashiol together, when they had been lovers: red hair, black hair, bodies hot to the touch, arms and stomachs, skin against skin.

  ‘I’m sure they can,’ said Warlord, and he stepped back into the shadows, leaving her alone in the street.

  Macready made it as far as the Gardens of Trajus Alysaundre before he needed to rest. He was dizzy with adrenalin and lack of sleep. Delphine had been right, though he would never admit it to the lass’s face. He leaned against one of the crumbling stone walls, breathing hard. Rhian was lost in the city, maybe hurt, maybe under siege from the futures. Vulnerable.

  (Vulnerable, eh? Then what had that tryst with Ashiol been about? Not such a shy and retiring little camellia, was she now?)

  Since Rhian had become the Seer, Macready had a new awareness of her, his sentinel’s senses able to pick her presence before she entered a room. Sometimes when they practised her fighting skills, he could almost catch a glimpse of her thoughts. It had been like that with Heliora too, when they crossed swords.

  It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, to be able to track her. Velody had a much better chance. Didn’t stop him looking. He blamed himself for taking Rhian to that damned theatre (he had no right to be angry at her, time he acknowledged that) and that meant he had to be the one to find her.

  Crane was approaching, through the park. They nodded at each other.

  ‘No sign?’ Macready asked.

  Crane shook his head. ‘Some of the injured from the theatre were taken to a hospice near the Palazzo. The Duchessa asked her own dottores to treat them. But no one there has seen anyone who looks like Rhian.’

  ‘Feck,’ Macready said, too tired to even put emphasis on the word.

  ‘Have you seen her yet?’ Crane asked.

  There could be only one ‘her’ Crane was referring to. As far as the lad was concerned, all the light of the sun and moon shone out of the arse of their former Power and Majesty.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Is she the same?’

  Apart from the fact that she came back hand in hand with Garnet?

  ‘She seems no different,’ Macready said shortly.

  Crane shivered, and it might have been the chill nox with winter just around the corner, or it might have been something else. ‘Three of them. It’s a long time since we’ve had three Kings.’

  ‘Aye. The sentinels are practically outnumbered, so we are.’

  ‘Will there be a challenge all over again?’

  ‘How the feck should I know?’ Macready dashed his hand over his forehead, noting the lad’s hurt look but not saying a word of apology. ‘Depends, does it not? On who gives way. On who’s weaker.’

  ‘Or who is stronger.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Macready. ‘Let’s sweep the Arches.’

  ‘Do you really think Rhian would go there alone?’

  ‘We don’t know what the feck she’d do. But if she’s down there, I sure as hells hope she’s alone.’

  Topaz was thinking. She hadn’t been doing much but think since the Orphan Princel and his Garnet friend had taken their leave. She was surrounded by noise and chaos as the lambs practised their new stage trick, changing back and forth into creature form.

  The Lady Livilla lounged on a fancy couch, watching the lambs play. Topaz got up her nerve finally and crossed the room to her, ignoring the dirty look from Bree. She went down on one knee, having seen enough aristo plays to know the sort of thing that would go down well. ‘Lady?’ she asked quietly.

  Livilla reached out a hand, brushing over the close-cropped fuzz of Topaz’s hair. ‘Yes, dearling?’

  Topaz could still feel the lizard shapes hot and wild inside her skin, wanting to come out. ‘Did you do this to me?’ She deliberately kept accusation out of her voice, allowing the curiosity to take rein instead. She wanted to know.

  ‘Not to you,’ said Livilla, and there was something almost human in her voice. Less false and brittle. A moment between all the stagecraft.

  ‘But to them?’ Topaz pressed, looking across to the other lambs. Belinny was turning her hand back and forth from a bear’s paw, looking delighted with herself.

  ‘It would have happened sooner or later,’ said Livilla. ‘I pushed it along, that’s all.’

  ‘Cos you wanted us with you and none of those others?’

  ‘Do you want to leave me for your Orphan Princel, Topaz?’

  ‘Not now. Not ever. But I don’t know as how you’re any better than him. How can I know?’

  ‘All you can do is serve,’ said Livilla. ‘And hope. If I am a bad mistress, Topaz, you can leave at any time. I hope you know that.’

  ‘Really?’ said Topaz, grazing her lip with her teeth out of nervousness.

  Livilla’s fingers locked around her wrist and she smiled a wolfish smile at her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not really.’

  Ashiol circled the Circus Verdigris. It was close enough to the river that he could hear the sounds of the docks. The nox would end in a few hours and what did he have to show for it? Priest had set him an impossible task, and would leave if Ashiol didn’t get the support of the others. Poet was already wrapped up in Garnet. Ashiol hadn’t been able to find Warlord, and didn’t have the balls to ask Livilla to make her choice. She had always taken Garnet’s side.

  In human form, not even bothering to play Lord, he dropped onto one of the tiered benches of the Circus.

  Two sleek brigh
thounds ran the length of the green arena and back again, yapping at each other, play-fighting.

  ‘How did you find me?’ said a soft voice.

  Ashiol glanced up and saw Rhian perched on a bench a little above him. He should have felt her from a mile away, but he always had trouble reading animor when his thoughts were muddled. It was an excuse for how he had thought Rhian was Heliora only a few days ago, how he had gone so far as to fuck her without realising who it was in his arms. The madness of the last few months had left him now, he was sure of it. But he now had to deal with the results.

  He had been hallucinating, but what was her excuse? What had he been thinking? Or had he just not heard her protests, just as he hadn’t seen that she was Rhian and not his dead lover? Had he taken her against her will? He had no frigging idea.

  ‘Believe it or not, I wasn’t looking for you,’ he said. ‘I was looking for him.’ He nodded in the direction of the brighthounds: Lennoc, the newest Lord of the Court. ‘Lief used to run here at nox. I was hoping his hounds followed the same tradition.’

  ‘It’s no good, you know,’ she said, sounding far away. ‘You’ll never get them all to choose you. The battle won’t be won that way.’

  ‘But it will be won?’

  Ashiol had a lot of practice with these conversations, though Rhian was not, would never be, Heliora. He concentrated on remembering who she was, on not letting the hallucinations get a foothold again. This was Rhian. She had been a background presence in Velody’s household, an annoyance more than anything. Velody had been near obsessed with keeping Rhian and Delphine safe, and it had held her back from the greatest obstacle in accepting her place in the Creature Court.

  Later, once Velody was dead, Rhian had joined the sentinels in guarding Ashiol as his madness ran its course. He remembered once she had even left him escape for a few precious hours in the sky.

  She was the new Seer. It was perhaps understandable that he had hallucinated that she was Hel, his friend and bedmate, former Seer of the Court. But Ashiol could not for the life of him imagine why Rhian let him think it was true.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ She took a deep breath and exhaled. It wasn’t yet cold enough at nox for them to be able to see her breath in clouds, but it wouldn’t be long now.

  ‘What are they planning?’ Ashiol asked, though he knew the futility of the question. ‘Poet and Garnet. They have something planned for Saturnalia. What is it?’

  Rhian looked at him, her eyes glazed. ‘You have to get on the train.’

  He stared back. ‘That’s your advice? Time for me to run away? Back to my mother’s estate with my tail between my legs?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, either. You don’t listen very well to people, do you?’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said sullenly. ‘Priest is the one packing up his courtesi and linens and turning tail in the hope that Bazeppe might be shinier than what we have here. I’m not catching a train this or any other nox.’

  No matter how much he might want to.

  The brighthounds had stopped prancing and were looking up at them both. They blurred together, shaping into a stocky man with a shock of white hair. He nodded warily at Ashiol and said nothing.

  ‘Lennoc, Lord Brighthound,’ said Ashiol. ‘Will you swear allegiance to me as Power and Majesty?’

  ‘You’ll do a better job, will you?’ Lennoc crossed his arms belligerently. ‘Why you? Why not Velody or Garnet?’

  ‘Because I’ll bite your throat out right now if you don’t,’ said Ashiol, not even bothering to sound like he meant it.

  Lennoc paused, considering. ‘Works for me.’

  He shaped himself back into hound form and bowed his heads before scampering off into the darkness. Ashiol couldn’t resist shooting a look of triumph at Rhian.

  ‘Try that on Livilla, see how far you get,’ she said cynically, sounding so like Hel that for a moment he thought he had lost it all over again.

  ‘Why did you do it?” he asked on impulse. ‘Why did you let me believe you were her?’

  Rhian looked sad. He had viewed her simply as a weakness, Velody’s weakness. It had never occurred to him that she might also be his.

  ‘You were safe,’ she said finally. ‘I knew I couldn’t damage you. But I did, didn’t I?’ She stood up. ‘Get on the train, before Saturnalia. The answers are there, not here.’

  He watched as she walked away, and made no move to stop her.

  ‘Ash,’ interrupted a new voice. He looked up and saw Kelpie glaring at him. ‘Tell me that wasn’t Rhian.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it was.’

  ‘We’ve been combing this bloody city for that wench. Velody’s been climbing the walls, Macready’s been biting pieces out of the furniture, and you just let her wander off again!’

  ‘I’m not the Seer’s keeper, Kelpie.’

  ‘That’s not what I hear.’

  Ashiol rolled his eyes at her. ‘Shut it.’

  If he couldn’t get all of the Lords on his side, he could at least try for a majority. Livilla or Warlord? Rhian had a fair point about Livilla.

  ‘Where can I find Mars at this time of nox?’

  Kelpie raised her eyebrows. ‘That depends on whether he wants to be found.’

  ‘He’d be found for you, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Kelpie —’

  ‘No, seriously, Ashiol. Fuck you. I won’t be used. I’ve been loyal as all hells, but you can’t make me turn over people’s secrets so you can launch some kind of takeover bid against the other Kings. Do you even remember what “sentinel” means?’

  ‘Garnet used you. Abused you. Broke all the rules about what sentinels were.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kelpie spat. ‘And you’re supposed to be different.’

  She turned and walked away from him. He watched her go.

  Aye, that was what he was supposed to be. Different from Garnet.

  7

  Two days after the Ides of Bestialis

  Velody returned home at dawn. There had been no attacks from the sky that nox, thank the saints. Exploding a theatre was obviously enough to keep it quiet for a time. She met Crane and Macready at the end of her street. They looked as tired as she felt. Macready was bright eyed and swaying on his feet.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For trying. I know you can’t have a lot of trust in me right now.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Crane said indignantly. ‘You’re — we’re not going to suddenly stop being your sentinels, you know.’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Velody said. ‘I stopped being your King. I wasn’t here. And now you have loyalty to three Kings to juggle.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time,’ said Macready. ‘Don’t fret about us, lass. We never expected to have you back with us at all.’

  Velody hugged them both, impulsively. ‘I didn’t think I would make it, either.’

  ‘Where were you?’ Crane asked. ‘I mean — I saw sandstone in the theatre.’

  ‘Tierce, you said,’ Macready repeated.

  Crane flinched at that.

  ‘I was in the sky,’ said Velody. ‘It looked like Tierce, but it was a shadow of the city I remember.’ She did remember the city at least now, clearer than ever before. ‘I never saw … them.’ The dust devils, vicious and fast and unlike anything they had faced before. ‘Did they come back?’ she asked.

  Both sentinels shook their heads. ‘Not since the sky swallowed you.’

  ‘I suppose there’s a lot to catch me up on.’ She managed a smile. ‘Like how you talked Delphine into being a sentinel.’

  Macready wasn’t smiling. ‘It was in her all along. All it took was —’

  ‘Blood, sweat, yelling,’ Crane chipped in.

  Macready cuffed him lightly. ‘Aye, that.’ He was still sombre. ‘There’s something else you should know. About Rhian — and Ashiol.’

  Velody frowned. ‘He hasn’t been bothering her about this Seer business, has he? How has she been coping
with it all?’ Apart from going missing for a whole day after a near-death theatre experience.

  ‘Let’s go back to the house,’ Macready muttered. ‘Discuss it there.’

  They headed up the back alley together. As they entered the yard, a figure on the doorstep stood up suddenly. Macready swore.

  Velody fell forward. ‘Rhian!’

  Her friend looked ragged around the edges, more of a mess even than on that horrible Lupercalia nearly two years ago. At the same time, her eyes were bright and she seemed more alive, more Rhian, than she had been in years.

  ‘Velody,’ Rhian said calmly, ‘you have to go to the train station, right now.’

  ‘What happened to you?’ Velody asked. ‘Are you … have you been all right?’

  Macready and Delphine had been so strange about Rhian. She had missed something vital, she knew it.

  ‘If you don’t get to the station now, Priest will leave the city,’ Rhian said, still sounding so serene.

  ‘The futures came to you?’ Macready demanded, sounding oddly attacking.

  Rhian paused, then nodded. ‘Priest is catching a train, with Fionella and Damson.’

  Velody barely knew the names of the courtesi. How did Rhian know them? It felt like Rhian was more a part of the Court now than she was.

  ‘Where is he going?’ she asked.

  ‘The clockwork city,’ said Rhian.

  ‘Bazeppe,’ said Macready. ‘Feck, the early train leaves in an hour.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Velody. ‘The rest of you need to get some sleep.’

  ‘No,’ Crane said suddenly. They stared at him. ‘No more going off alone, Velody. It’s not fair to any of us.’

  ‘It’s morning,’ she pointed out. ‘I think I can resist the urge to hurl myself into the sky again.’

  ‘I’ll go with you.’ Kelpie appeared at the gate. She arched her eyebrows at Velody. ‘Or don’t you want my help?’

  ‘I’d welcome it,’ said Velody. She poked Crane in the chest. ‘Sleep. Thank you for your help this nox. You, too,’ she added to Macready.