Reign of Beasts

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  Rhian let go of his hand and leaned against the nearest wall, her chest rising and falling with the effort of it. She looked not just weary but old. Far too old for a lass like her.

  ‘I can see how that would make things hard,’ Macready tried.

  ‘You don’t see anything. I have it all inside my head. And it’s so important!’

  ‘Why?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Because I’m the last Seer!’ Her voice rang out across the alley and she looked horrified. ‘I don’t think I’m supposed to tell anyone that. So many secret … I can’t keep them all straight.’

  ‘What do you mean, love?’

  ‘I mean, this is it. I’m the last one. There won’t be any Seers after me. I don’t know what it means — if the city will fall, or if I’m going to be doing the job forever, or what. But it’s hard and it’s heavy and I don’t know what to do with it.’

  She slid down the brick wall to the ground. Macready sat next to her. When he took her hand again, she let him.

  ‘How long have you known?’ he asked.

  ‘Since the nox Garnet came back. Everything crashed in on me and I saw so much … I’m still trying to make sense of everything I saw. I came to Velody today because I saw that I did. I went to Garnet because I’d seen that, as well. I know everything I’m going to do, and it makes it easier to do exactly that. At least I don’t have to make any decisions.’

  ‘How do you know the future you’ve seen is a path and not a warning? You can’t let it rule your feet and hands, lass. Fate is something to be fought against. You don’t walk into it like a —’

  ‘Like a lamb?’ Rhian said cynically. ‘I’m so tired. The voices in my head won’t be quiet, even for a moment.’

  She leaned against him, and he let her, wondering when she had last used touch as comfort.

  ‘Can’t help noticing you’re still not burning me to a crisp,’ he said lightly after a while.

  ‘I can control it more now, the heat,’ she said. ‘Garnet — being around him helped, I don’t know why. Ashiol, too. I think because they’re both so used to having so much power in their skin. I can almost … borrow control from them.’

  ‘Can you see inside their heads?’ asked Macready, alarmed at the possibility.

  ‘Sometimes. I’m not sure if it’s their thoughts or my anticipation of events.’ Rhian sighed deeply. ‘Two minutes from now, you’re going to try to kiss me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ he protested, his cheeks flaming with embarrassment. Damned Seers.

  Rhian smiled, as if his sense of honour made her sad. ‘And yet.’

  ‘What’s going to change in two minutes?’ Macready demanded. ‘Are you planning to hit me with a rock or will I just randomly take leave of my senses?’

  ‘You do have a flattering tongue on you.’

  ‘It’s not that, love. You know it wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘What’s right means so much to you. You’re the last honest man in the world.’

  ‘Oh, I hope that’s not true,’ he said fervently.

  They sat together for some time. The silence wrapped around them like a blanket. Once Macready was sure that two minutes and then some had passed, he said, ‘See? We can change the future.’

  Rhian turned to him, her eyes so dark and melancholy though she was smiling. ‘You can,’ she said.

  It took every ounce of control he had not to kiss her. The future was not going to make him its bitch. He reached out, though, and touched her face. ‘Fighting is the best thing we have. It keeps us sane and in one piece. Sitting still and letting the bad things happen — that’s what kills your soul.’

  ‘I lied,’ Rhian said softly. ‘You were never going to kiss me.’

  He leaned in towards her.

  A very definite sound of a throat being cleared filled the alley, louder than any thunderclap.

  ‘Velody wants to know if you’re coming back,’ said Delphine. Her eyes were bright and cold.

  26

  Velody had never seen Rhian so sad. Scared, panicky, climbing the walls with misery, yes. But not this quiet melancholy.

  Rhian stared at the tabletop, avoiding the eyes of them all as she explained the situation in a low voice. ‘After Ashiol left the Court, Heliora refused to see the futures on Garnet’s behalf. Once he gave up on her, he consulted every fortune-teller and card-reader he could find in the city. They all said the same thing: death by fire. That’s why the salamander frightens him.’

  ‘We can fight it,’ Macready said determinedly. He was hovering protectively close to Rhian. ‘We can beat him.’

  Velody wondered what made him so sure.

  ‘Just as long as we start by saving my lamb,’ Livilla reminded them all.

  ‘What about the others?’ Velody asked. ‘They’re safe from Garnet, aren’t they?’

  Livilla gave a little frown. ‘He knows to keep his distance from my rooms.’

  They all stared at her.

  ‘Because the salamander lass is there to frighten him away?’ Macready said finally. ‘I’m pretty sure that threat doesn’t work any more. What with him having her locked up.’

  Topaz awoke in a cage. She could still feel the harsh lines of the net that had been used to capture her. It had left a pale web of scars across her brown skin. Her hands shook as she levered herself up into a sitting position. Her foot brushed the side of the cage and she pulled it back with a yelp. More pain; she couldn’t take more pain, not now.

  She tried to bring the flames up, but her body hurt too badly for her to concentrate.

  ‘Good morning, salamander. I trust you slept well?’ said Garnet in an overly cheerful voice. ‘Look, we brought some friends to keep you company.’

  Topaz looked around, fearing the sight of the other lambs imprisoned alongside her. She only saw one: little Freddy, shackled to the wall. No skysilver near him, but his creature was a bear, so he couldn’t change into many smaller forms in order to escape the cuffs. Her heart turned over when she realised how bruised he was.

  ‘He runs with a limp,’ she remarked aloud. ‘Was he the only one you could catch?’

  Freddy’s face lit up. ‘It was keen, Topaz,’ he said, his chin crusted with blood from a split lip. ‘Belinny’s slingshots worked a peach. Told you it’d be worth stealing one of those shiny swords to break into bits.’

  Topaz swallowed a startled laugh. Garnet’s face looked hard and displeased.

  Poet came in a short while later, several scratches on his arms and face. ‘Little bastards,’ he muttered. ‘Shade almost lost an eye.’

  ‘Maybe if you’d protected us lambs like you promised, we’d be on your side now,’ Topaz yelled to him. No point in being polite any more.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry,’ said Garnet, tending to Poet with a light cuff around the temples, then tugging him closer by his hair to examine the small wounds. ‘They’ll fall into line when their leader is sacrificed. The lake will run red with blood, and the lambs will either flee or serve me as they should serve the Power and Majesty.’

  Topaz went very still. ‘You have Lord Livilla?’

  ‘You, Topaz,’ called out Freddy. ‘They want to sacrifice you! I told ’em we’d see ’em hanged first.’

  Topaz shook her head quickly. ‘Get word to the others. They’re not to do anything foolish, not for me. Better you all run while you can.’

  ‘You show great confidence,’ said Garnet. ‘The boy will tell his friends nothing unless they join you both in custody.’

  Topaz stared hard at Freddy and then pushed him with her … Livilla and Bree called it ‘animor’, though she thought of it as her fire. Freddy jolted as if he was about to throw up, then shaped himself into hundreds of tiny lizards. He skittered across the floor and was gone.

  Poet and Garnet stared at Topaz in amazement.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’ Poet said.

  ‘I made him into a salamander,’ Topaz said boldly. ‘Sacrifice me all you like. Do it twice if you want to. I’m
not the only one, you know. We can all do it. I taught them.’

  Poet and Garnet exchanged hurried words. ‘I told you she was valuable,’ Poet urged. ‘She’s changing the way the Creature Court works.’

  ‘Too late for that,’ said Garnet. ‘Keep her unconscious until the ritual. The sky needs blood.’

  ‘Sacrifice,’ Livilla said bitterly. ‘So wrong. We don’t take part in rituals.’

  Delphine stared at her in dislike. Why was this wretched woman even allowed in their house? ‘That’s just for the plebs and peasants of the daylight world, is it?’

  ‘Frankly, yes,’ sneered Livilla.

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Macready. ‘The Creature Court can’t scratch their backsides without some kind of fecking ritual. You just bite and kiss and flirt with each other instead of baking honey cakes and tearing the guts out of an animal.’

  Delphine was silent. She didn’t need Macready’s help in this conversation, and the last thing she wanted was to feel grateful to him. He had been kissing Rhian. She didn’t want to think about that.

  ‘Our rituals aren’t empty,’ Livilla said sharply. ‘They’re to prove loyalty, to make our power stronger. Executing a barely blooded courtesa is beyond anything Ortheus would have done. Anything Garnet would have done before your Velody brought him back.’

  ‘Oh ho,’ said Macready with a laugh. ‘Her fault, is it? That he doesn’t fancy you any more?’

  Livilla hissed between her teeth. Delphine felt her own cheeks colour, damn it. Was that it? She’d thought they’d ended what they had because they had nothing left to give each other; because she was a fucking failure as a nurturing demme-friend and he was a selfish wreck. Not because Macready liked someone else better.

  Velody and Rhian returned from upstairs. Rhian was so pale you could almost see through her to the staircase beyond. How could Macready fancy her? She didn’t even know what to do with a man. Though that had been a lie. Anyone who could tumble with Ashiol Xandelian wasn’t a shrinking violet. What else was a lie? How long had this Macready and Rhian thing been going on?

  ‘Rhian doesn’t know where the sacrifice will take place,’ Velody said.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ Crane asked.

  Delphine made a rude noise. ‘How can she not know? She saw it, didn’t she?’

  ‘I’m right here,’ Rhian said mildly.

  Delphine met her friend’s gaze, finally letting herself feel something. Anger. Resentment. ‘If you saw it, then you know where it happened.’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. It doesn’t work like that.’

  ‘Then, by all means, tell us how it does work.’

  ‘Delphine,’ Velody said firmly, ‘stop being such a bitch. We don’t have time for it.’

  ‘I saw Topaz’s body falling into water,’ said Rhian. ‘Believe me, I’ve tried to see it more clearly. But that’s all I know.’

  ‘The sluice,’ Kelpie said grimly. ‘In the Haymarket. It’s swallowed its share of dead bodies.’

  ‘The lake,’ Livilla suggested. ‘Garnet’s always had a thing about that lake.’

  ‘Come to that, there’s a whole fecking river wrapped around this city,’ Macready said. ‘We’ll have to split up.’

  Delphine attempted to put the thought directly into Velody’s head that if she was paired with Macready she would push him into the river.

  ‘I can keep an eye on the Haymarket without being spotted,’ Crane volunteered. ‘There’s an old nest near there.’

  Velody nodded. ‘Take Delphine with you. Kelpie and Macready can stake out the lake. Livilla and I are best suited to search the river.’

  She reached out one hand and Delphine watched in mild disgust as two small brown mice detached from the skin of her arm. One ran to Delphine, and the other to Macready.

  ‘If you see any sign of the sacrifice being readied, send it back to me,’ said Velody.

  Delphine looked at the mouse and nudged Crane. ‘That can be your job.’

  He grinned and scooped up the small creature. ‘Fine. But you have to kill any of the Lords and Court we run across.’

  ‘No problem,’ she said sweetly.

  Delphine had been perfectly fine with never setting foot in the Arches again. The wet, musty underground smell got to her every time. She’d had to burn several outfits because no amount of washing could get rid of it, and if she hadn’t learnt the trick of washing her hair in mint and lemon, she would have been tempted to cut it even shorter.

  Crane led the way down through winding tunnels (crawling; she would have been fine to avoid all future crawling as well!) to an alcove deep in the walls that surrounded the Haymarket.

  ‘I didn’t know there were any nests down here,’ she said as they squeezed into the small space together.

  ‘The Silver Captain made this one as an experiment,’ said Crane. There was really just enough room for one person, and Delphine was practically on his lap. ‘To see if he could do it without Garnet noticing. We would never have moved against him, but Cap wanted to gauge the Power and Majesty’s moods so he could pick the right moment to plead for our blades back.’

  Delphine shifted uncomfortably as a corner of rock dug into her back. ‘Why didn’t it work?’

  ‘He died.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  Delphine felt like she couldn’t turn around at the moment without putting her foot in her mouth. Though that was more acrobatic than she could contemplate right now. Crane smelled like wool and dried barley. The warmth of him was strangely comforting. Every time he shifted, even slightly, Delphine felt the planes of his body against hers.

  There was one part where the wall was thin and they could actually see into the Haymarket. It was deserted.

  ‘Are you glad to be doing this again?’ Delphine asked, raising herself up on her toes to see better. The gap wasn’t quite a window, and if she looked too closely everything blurred.

  ‘I’m not glad that Garnet’s trying to sacrifice a child.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  Crane sighed, a deep and weary sound for such a young man. ‘No, I’m not glad. Macready and Kelpie are born sentinels. It’s been a struggle for them to live without it. But I … was getting used to the idea.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Delphine.

  ‘I would never walk away — I mean, I’m loyal to Velody. I left the Court because my duty was to her, and to Ashiol.’

  She reached out to pat his shoulder and her hand closed around his upper arm. ‘You don’t have to explain anything. Velody’s lucky to have you.’

  ‘She doesn’t want me,’ he muttered.

  Delphine remembered all those puppy-dog looks of his whenever Velody entered a room. The poor dearling. Velody’s taste in men was kinglier than Crane could provide.

  ‘I know what that’s like, too,’ she said.

  Crane shifted and she felt his woollen cloak rustle against her. She was wearing hers, too, for the first time in months.

  ‘You?’ he sounded amused. ‘I thought you could have anyone you wanted. You got Macready easily enough.’

  ‘And lost him all over again.’

  That came out more bitter than she had intended. She wasn’t going to dwell on Macready. Not now, not ever.

  ‘How long do we have to hide out down here?’

  ‘Hours,’ he said. ‘Until we’re sure the sacrifice won’t happen here, or we hear from the others.’

  Hours jammed together like dormice in a pot, feeling sorry for themselves. No, that wouldn’t do at all.

  ‘We’ll have to find something to do to pass the time,’ she said.

  Dusk was fading into nox. Velody glided high over the river, her chimaera form a dark shadow among many. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of Livilla in her creature form, or a shadow she thought was Livilla. The Wolf Lord was dangerously good at avoiding being seen, even if you knew to look for her.

  There were a few spots here and there along the river that were secluded enough to stage
a sacrifice, but there was no sign of Garnet or the rest of the Court at any of them. Perhaps they’d been wrong. Perhaps Rhian had misled them, or made a mistake. A body, falling into water … It could be anything, anywhere.

  Ashiol was gone. He was really gone. He hadn’t just left the Court that had exiled him all over again; he had left Velody behind to clean up the unholy mess that remained of the Court. She still couldn’t comprehend it, that he had willingly stayed away. What was in Bazeppe to keep him there?

  The new moon was barely a sliver of light in the sky. A shadow flitted past and Velody almost ignored it. But no, there it was again. A bat. It swooped over the city then plunged down, south of her position. Towards the lake.

  Velody turned in the air to look for Livilla, and saw the silhouette of the wolf streaking through the sky above her.

  Had Warlord let himself be seen deliberately? Was he choosing his old loyalties to Livilla, or even Velody, over Garnet? Or was it a trap?

  Velody sped as quietly and swiftly as she could over the city. Time to find out.

  Delphine and Crane had been wedged into the small nest for hours. Or maybe it just seemed that way. The Velody mouse had not only failed to pass on any exciting messages but appeared to be asleep in Crane’s pocket. All right for some.

  Delphine tensed as pain jolted through her calf. ‘Mmmph,’ she said, trying not to cry out.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Cramp. Owwww.’

  ‘Shhh.’ He moved against her, and they both jostled for space as he tried to help her stretch it out. ‘Better?’

  ‘No, ow!’ she said crossly, though it did feel better when he did that. ‘Harder.’

  He rubbed her calf until the knots of tension went away.

  ‘Okay, fine,’ she grumbled. ‘You’re good at that.’

  ‘An old trick.’

  He struggled to straighten up again and their bodies pressed clumsily together. Oh, to hells with it. Delphine was bored and depressed and pissed off at Macready, and what else did they have to do? She reached out and took his hands in hers, steadying both palms against her hips.