Reign of Beasts

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  He smiled.

  Velody waited, her tiny heartbeat chiming the seconds, until the old man in the brocade suit and his clockwork saints had left the room. Then she called in the rest of her, one mouse at a time, and formed her own body. Naked, she leaned over the sweating, shaking figure of Ashiol.

  ‘Wake up,’ she crooned. ‘Come on.’

  He smelled of potions and salt, and he opened his eyes easily enough, but only to grin stupidly at her, his face feverish.

  It wasn’t endearing.

  ‘Nearly nox,’ she said. ‘Snap out of it. We couldn’t get Kelpie in; she’s waiting at the trees. You can have her blood, as much of it as you like, but not yet. I need you on your feet.’

  ‘I love you,’ he said dreamily, to the ceiling and not in any way to Velody. ‘You can’t make me stop. You’re mine now.’

  Velody sighed. ‘Fine,’ she said impatiently, and shaped herself into chimaera. The power buzzed through her muscles and broadened her back, and she was able to scoop him up from his bed as if he were a doll. He was heavy, but she was strong.

  Somewhere, a clock was chiming. Everywhere, clocks were chiming, one after the other. The Palazzo shuddered with the sound of clocks heralding the hour.

  Velody went to the balcony doors and pulled back the curtain. Three clockwork saints stood nearby, unmoving. She could hear every whirr and scrape of their inner workings.

  ‘You are too late, my dear,’ said a voice.

  Velody turned, and saw an older gentleman in a bright red velvet suit — the Duc-Elected — standing in the doorway.

  ‘We do not need protection from the likes of you,’ he said politely. ‘As you can see, we have everything under control.’

  Velody shifted into Lord form, her naked skin glowing white in the dim room, Ashiol’s body still cradled in her powerful arms. ‘Your saints betrayed the Court.’

  ‘They did as they were expected to do.’

  ‘They’re not defending the city,’ she said angrily. ‘They’re working for those … things that lie beyond the sky. Our enemy.’

  ‘Your enemy, perhaps,’ said the Duc-Elected. He coughed discreetly into his handkerchief. ‘But what on earth made you think that we are supposed to defend the city from them?’

  Velody stared at him. ‘You’re behind this? You sold out your own city to them. Your own people!’

  ‘We will be safe beyond the sky. It is an honour that they want us there.’

  ‘Believe me, I’ve been there,’ she grated. ‘It’s nothing special.’

  There was an eerie light in the Duc-Elected’s eyes. ‘That is not for you to say.’

  Velody made a quick step towards the balcony, but the clockwork saints clanked into her path, preventing her escape. She went chimaera and flew at the Duc-Elected. He shoved back against her, unreasonably strong, and she stumbled, almost dropping Ashiol. She growled under her breath.

  The glass doors shattered suddenly, shards falling everywhere. White owls and grey falcons filled the room with harsh cries.

  The clockwork saints fell to pieces as a skysilver sword sliced through them as if they were made of cotton. Kelpie sat astride a lynx, swords bared, looking terribly pleased with herself. ‘Time to go!’

  41

  Velody threw herself towards the balcony in chimaera form, dragging Ashiol into the sky. It was so close to nox, but she couldn’t think about that now.

  They made it outside the city bounds, and Velody lay Ashiol down. She returned to her own shape, and brushed his cheek with her hand. He barely seemed aware that she was there.

  ‘Those bastards,’ said Lysandor, changing from lynx to Lord form once Kelpie was on her own feet. ‘What did they give him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Velody, checking Ashiol’s eyes and peering down his throat. ‘The dust devils did this in Aufleur, or they tried to. They got into Priest to pull the Creature Court apart from the inside, and they got under the skin of the Duchessa, used her to lower the city’s defences.’

  ‘Tierce, too,’ said Lysandor. ‘Must have been.’

  Velody slid her hands under Ashiol’s shirt, touching his bare skin. ‘Come back to us,’ she said, and pushed at him with her animor. She pictured her power brushing against his, and then pressing more firmly. Then she visualised the potions inside him, alien and poisonous. She flexed her animor hard.

  Ashiol screamed and choked as liquid filled his mouth. Velody pulled him onto his side, with Lysandor’s help, and Ashiol vomited onto the paving stones, sticky, dark green gunk.

  ‘He should feel much better for that,’ Kelpie suggested.

  Colour was beginning to streak across the fading sky.

  ‘It’s starting,’ Lysandor said gravely. He clapped Troyes on the shoulder. ‘Up for another battle, aye? Who needs sleep?’

  Troyes laughed faintly.

  Velody looked around. ‘Where is Celeste?’

  ‘I’m here.’ Celeste walked out of the city on foot, holding the hand of her daughter. The child looked untroubled. ‘I have to ask a favour of you.’

  ‘You can’t leave her with strangers,’ Lysandor protested.

  ‘Ashiol isn’t a stranger.’

  ‘Ashiol can hardly walk upright; he’s in no position to help anyone.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Velody interrupted.

  ‘We have to fight for our city,’ said Celeste. ‘If we fail, I need to know Lucia is safe.’

  Kelpie swore under her breath.

  ‘I was planning on fighting at your side,’ said Velody. ‘We all were.’ She looked down at Ashiol, who was now groaning and half-conscious. ‘We’re not going to leave you to battle this alone.’

  ‘If Velody fights at our side,’ Lysandor told Celeste, hope lighting his eyes, ‘you could stay out of it.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ she said sharply. ‘Bazeppe needs all of us. All the power we can muster.’

  ‘Lucia needs a mother,’ he countered.

  ‘And a father.’

  They stared at each other.

  Ashiol muttered something and spat more green onto the cobbles.

  ‘This is why we don’t have families,’ Kelpie translated.

  ‘We’ve been lucky so far,’ said Celeste. ‘But I am the Power and Majesty here. I have a duty.’

  ‘Oh, for saints’ sake,’ Kelpie said crossly. ‘I’ll look after the pup. But one of you had better come back. I’m not the mothering kind.’

  Celeste squeezed her daughter’s hand. ‘Will you stay with the nice demoiselle while Mama fights the sky?’

  ‘She doesn’t look like a nice demoiselle,’ said Lucia clearly. She eyed Kelpie. ‘Can I play with your swords?’

  Kelpie shrugged. ‘Sure.’

  The sky peeled back in layers of light, each more fierce than the last. ‘And here they come,’ Velody said beneath her breath.

  The dust devils poured out, one after another. They ignored the Clockwork Court, who hovered battle-ready at cloud height, and streaked straight towards the remains of the Emporium.

  ‘Ha,’ said Celeste with some satisfaction.

  ‘Try making your bodies solid with that.’ They had put every piece of skysilver from the wreckage on the last train to Aufleur. It was too far away, and the dust devils were too late.

  Velody was just pleased her idea had worked. ‘Incoming,’ she warned, and then the devils were upon them, swarming from underneath, their eyes glowing fiercely.

  There was clanking and whirring in the streets below and the remaining clockwork saints processed down from the Palazzo to join the battle.

  ‘Hope you’ve got a really good war cry,’ said Celeste.

  ‘I’ve been working on it,’ said Velody, and then the battle started and there was no more time for bravado.

  The dust got everywhere, in their mouths, against their skin, biting hard. And every time a wave of the devils was blasted from the sky by the Clockwork Court, there were more to take their place.

  Lysandor was killed
when a dust devil sank inside him, its false fingers bursting him from the inside out. It wore his skin for a moment, laughing with his mouth, and then tore him to ribbons so that there was no mistaking it.

  Celeste did not react, and Velody thought she had not seen it; but she fought with greater rigor, her animor slashing out of her in fiery white bursts, and oh yes, Velody realised: she knew.

  Ashiol dreamed of Garnet, who was poisoning him. One drop of skysilver in every measure of imperium. They drank, and glared at each other, and each mouthful was pain.

  ‘Hate you,’ said Ashiol.

  ‘No, you never will,’ said Garnet with glee.

  Footsteps sounded outside the room. The handle turned.

  ‘Here you both are,’ said Lysandor. ‘Livilla’s in a foul mood and, as the only one not sleeping with her, I nominate one of you bastards to deal with it.’

  ‘Livilla’s dead,’ Ashiol blurted.

  Lysandor looked unimpressed. ‘We’re all dead. I hardly think that counts as a valid excuse.’

  Ashiol let out a startled laugh. ‘I missed you. Someone around here has to be sane.’

  It was not yet full dark when the last of the courtesi died. There were three Lords left, and then two.

  Troyes, the Falcon Lord, lost half his leg in a cloudburst that came close to sucking him entirely into the sky. He fought his way free and Velody went to help him, but it was too late, the blood pouring out too fast. He changed to bird form, but the wound was still there, and he fell, crying out only once as he dropped from the sky.

  The dust devils kept coming, faster and faster, shining brighter, and the city buildings were smashed below them, one by one.

  The Palazzo was ground to pieces. Velody could not find it in her to be sorry, though a small inner part of her was horrified at the deaths. The servants. The people of the city. So many; too many nameless faces to care about.

  Finally it was just the two of them, Velody and Celeste, fighting back to back as the dust devils closed in around them.

  ‘We should have just let the fucking city fall,’ said Celeste through a rubbed-dry throat. ‘We shouldn’t have tried. There was a train. We could have got on it.’

  ‘What else were we going to do?’ Velody demanded.

  Saving the city was everything. She had been doing this for only half a year and she knew it in her blood and her bones. There was nothing else but this: fighting and struggling against the sky. Postponing the inevitable, perhaps, but that was life for you.

  ‘I’m sorry you’re going to die,’ said Celeste, still unwavering.

  ‘Be sorry for your daughter,’ Velody snapped.

  The sky was so bright she could hardly see, and even in her chimaera form her muscles ached with exhaustion. Help, she thought desperately, hoping for some kind of miracle, hoping for Ashiol to climb out of his fugue and come to her aid, hoping for sentinels and Lords and Court to stand at her side.

  There was blood dripping into her eyes, and she could barely move one of her wings after the last firebolt that had scorched across the top layer of skin. She would give anything right now for familiar faces, for Warlord and Livilla and Priest and Poet.

  Seriously? a voice said inside her head. After everything, that’s what you ask for?

  Garnet. Bloody Garnet, so far away. How desperate was she that her call had reached him?

  Tierce was on her mind. That must be it.

  It’s the least you owe me, she sent to him, expecting nothing.

  True enough. But now you will owe me, I think.

  And then blissful animor was pouring into her from an unseen place, filling her veins with power so bright that it put the sky to shame.

  Oh, yes. That.

  Velody spun around and seized hold of Celeste as the world flared fiercely around them. The sky itself flickered and disappeared.

  They hit the railway platform rolling, their skin charred from battle, both gasping for breath.

  ‘How did we —’ Celeste began to say, then choked out a breath as her daughter hit her hard, wrapping her arms around her waist and burying a tiny tear-streaked face in her stomach.

  Ashiol was sitting up, leaning against the wall of the station, his face grey.

  ‘You’re alive, then,’ said Velody, not knowing what else to say.

  ‘You, too,’ he noted without inflection.

  The city of Bazeppe creaked and groaned behind them.

  ‘We should go back,’ said Celeste, her face buried in Lucia’s coat.

  ‘It’s too late,’ said Velody. ‘It’s gone.’

  The city screamed, and, as they watched, the paved streets tore loose from the ground and hovered, the bronze-coloured buildings seeming to float in the air. The railway platform buckled under them, but held fast. The sky blazed like salamander fire, bright enough to sear the eyes. And then it was calm, and the city was gone.

  Silence fell over the survivors on the platform.

  ‘I always thought,’ Ashiol said slowly, his tongue getting in the way of making coherent words, ‘that if we had gone to Tierce’s aid, if we had listened to Heliora’s warning and Garnet had allowed us to leave, we might have saved them. I don’t think that’s true.’

  ‘No,’ said Velody. It was so dark out there with the city gone. No lamps were lit, except the one above them. ‘If they want to take us, they just … take.’

  ‘Enough to make you think we might have been wasting our time all these years,’ Ashiol said. He smiled wearily, an old man of a smile. ‘We’re going to need to travel on foot. By tomorrow, no one will remember why trains ever ran this far south.’

  ‘Can you walk?’ Velody asked him.

  He looked offended. ‘That’s hardly relevant.’

  Celeste and Lucia were crying softly together, wrapped in each other’s pain.

  ‘What are we going to do about Aufleur?’ Kelpie said to the empty air.

  Neither Ashiol nor Velody had an answer for her, and Celeste was too busy holding her daughter to say a word.

  PART XIII

  Sentinels at War

  42

  Three days before the Nones of Saturnalis

  It was fifteen years ago, and the world had just changed irrevocably.

  Ashiol lay on the cold marble tiles of the bathroom, awash in sensation. He was bruised, bitten, sticky, and his mind was such a jumble that he couldn’t concentrate on anything, not the smell of Garnet’s skin, nor the musky taste of come that still lingered on his tongue.

  There was a mosaic pattern on the ceiling: a long-winged lizard chasing its own tail. He had never noticed it before.

  Garnet made a small sound beside him and Ashiol rolled over, conscious suddenly of the puddles of oil spreading across the tiles, dripping into the now-cold bath. A glass bottle had broken in their first sudden lunge at each other, and it was a miracle that in all their clumsy fumblings neither of them had managed to cut himself.

  This. Finally. They had come close on other occasions, there had been kisses and touches and the petting games that Tasha especially encouraged in them, but this was nothing less than momentous, and he knew that when they looked back, it was this that they would name their first time.

  They would have to be careful to hide it from Tasha: that her cubs had chosen a pretty bathroom in the Duc’s Palazzo for the occasion of their first fuck, rather than one of the beds in her own den. Perhaps they would have to act out a similar scenario in future weeks, so she thought she was witnessing it. It wouldn’t be difficult to pretend it was their first time. Ashiol was pretty sure they couldn’t be good at it yet.

  ‘Did I hurt you?’ he muttered, certain that all of Garnet’s cries hadn’t been of pleasure, but he had been wrapped up in the moment and hadn’t been careful enough.

  ‘I’ll live,’ said Garnet in a low voice, and then winced when Ashiol lay his palm across the curve of his arse. ‘Ah, hands off.’

  ‘I did hurt you.’

  ‘Maybe I like it that way.’

 
He always talked like that, like nothing mattered, like he was as old and worldly as Tasha or Saturn.

  ‘Shut up,’ Ashiol said into the nape of his neck, kissing and then licking with a flick of his tongue. ‘I’ll let you do me next time.’

  ‘Ha, I bet.’

  ‘I will.’ Ashiol nuzzled in against him, careful not to get too close. ‘You liked it when I held you down,’ he added thoughtfully.

  ‘Pervert.’ Garnet laughed, then arched back against him. ‘I liked all of it.’

  ‘Aye.’ Nothing was going to be the same again, not now. ‘So,’ said Ashiol, too pleasantly numb to move, though the cold was starting to leach through his skin. ‘Do we bother cleaning up? Or do we let the maids — you know? Figure it out.’

  No servant would say a word to the Duc and Duchessa. He wasn’t sure whether it made him squirm with embarrassment or if it was even hotter, the idea of people knowing what he had been up to, even if they might not guess with whom.

  ‘We should just scamper out the window and away,’ said Garnet. ‘How’s that for the final “fuck you” to your fancy family?’

  Ashiol laughed. ‘I’d have to come back sooner or later.’

  ‘No, really.’ Garnet turned and gazed at him, his eyes intensely bright. ‘What’s keeping you here? We have Tasha now, and the others. We’re the frigging Creature Court. It’s time to cut the ties. Leave the daylight behind.’

  Ashiol wasn’t sure how serious his friend was. ‘The daylight has its uses. Why give up everything we have here when we can have both?’

  Garnet’s eyes did that icy thing that showed he was angry. ‘Because I don’t want to be your fucking manservant any more,’ he said, as if Ashiol was stupid.

  Which, aye, he was. Quite obviously.

  ‘That was never real,’ Ashiol said, treading carefully now he knew he was in dangerous territory. ‘It was just an excuse to keep you with me.’

  ‘Real enough when I have to take dinner in the servants’ hall,’ Garnet said, half-spitting the words.

  ‘I didn’t know it bothered you.’