Power & Majesty

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  Poet’s voice was ragged as he addressed the whole Court. ‘He didn’t come back to lead us into battle! He just happened to be here. Every spare moment since Garnet died, this so-called Creature King of ours has been hunting the streets for someone else to rule in his place, a demoiselle with less sky experience than the youngest of our courtesi!’

  This was evidently no surprise to Dhynar, Priest or Mars, but no one had passed the intelligence on to Livilla. ‘A demoiselle?’ she repeated.

  ‘A female King,’ agreed Poet. ‘And did our Ash bring this miracle, this marvel, to us to decide what to do with her? No, he hid her away so that he could train her in secret to be the Power and Majesty he knows he can never be!’

  ‘You go too far, Poet,’ said Ashiol. His control of the situation was slipping. Could he get through this without tearing Poet’s throat out?

  ‘And what are you going to do to me, Majesty?’

  It was a challenge that had to be answered.

  Ashiol rolled his power over the Creature Lord, crushing Poet’s animor with the immense weight of his own. Poet fell to his knees with the pressure, eyes and mouth wide. A blood vessel burst in the white of his left eye, and he made a noise that was half-gasp and half-laugh. ‘Oh, that felt good, sweetling. Do it again.’

  With a growl, Ashiol seized Poet by the throat and lifted him high into the air. Poet was shorter, and he dangled from the Creature King’s hand like a broken puppet.

  ‘I didn’t want you to be the one that I made an example of,’ said Ashiol, gritting his teeth. ‘But I am here to stay, Poet. My moment of weakness is over. I will be the Power and Majesty, and you will regret challenging me.’

  It was better, at least, than the ‘this will hurt me more than it hurts you’ line that he had once heard Garnet deliver with only a faint trace of irony.

  Something crossed Poet’s face, an expression that Ashiol didn’t have time to decipher because he was busy forming his free hand into a long black claw that gleamed with the dark light of the chimaera.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ Poet managed to rasp. ‘Scare the shit out of them, kitten.’

  Ashiol drove the claw into Poet’s stomach and twisted hard. Poet screamed, his body twitching wildly.

  It was hard, to keep the claw inside and twisting, to deliver heat and pain into a horribly responsive body. It was the hardest thing Ashiol had ever done in his life. Sweat dripped into his eyes and, when he looked again, it was not the Poet of now that he saw but the defensive, wide-eyed child who had first been brought into Tasha’s household. The noise coming from the boy now was not even a scream, but the moan of an animal in pain.

  ‘Stop it!’

  For a moment, Ashiol thought he was hallucinating. What was Velody doing here? It couldn’t actually be her standing in the midst of the Creature Court.

  She wasn’t in Lord form. She was just herself, in a shapeless black gown and sandals, dark hair tangled around her face, large grey eyes wide and streaked with tears.

  ‘Stop it, Ash,’ she said again, so forcefully that he felt her animor uncurl within her body.

  The other Lords felt it too. They stared at her as she approached.

  Ashiol let go of Poet’s throat and lowered his claw, letting the Creature Lord’s body slide wetly to the grass with a thump. There was blood everywhere. Without Poet’s courtesi to assist him, he might die of this. Am I monster enough to let him? If not, why the frig not?

  ‘This is the way we do things,’ he said aloud to Velody. ‘This is what the Creature Court is.’

  ‘Who is this demme, Ash?’ asked Livilla, piercing as ever. ‘What right does she have to speak to you like this?’

  ‘If you had been listening, my dear,’ said Priest, ‘you would know exactly who she is.’

  Velody had eyes and ears only for Ashiol. ‘Why is this the way you do things?’ she asked, her face raw and filled with horror. ‘How do you even know this is the right way? Have you ever tried anything else?’

  ‘Think you could do it better?’ Ashiol challenged, seeing his chance.

  That stopped her. ‘No.’

  He flung out an arm and threw a thread of animor at the nearest courtesa, who happened to be Priest’s gull. The energy struck the demme on the left side and she screamed as it exploded in her face, throwing her to the ground. The smell of charred flesh filled the air. Priest and his other courtesi went to her side, holding her close and keeping her alive. Where the hells are Poet’s courtesi? Will they let him bleed to death? No one else here can raise a hand to help him without looking weak.

  ‘Now do you think you can do it better?’ Ashiol asked in a steady voice.

  ‘That’s what you want me to say,’ said Velody. ‘I won’t let you bully me into this.’

  ‘Why not? Bullying is what we do.’ Ashiol smiled, a genuine smile. He had been wrong from the start. She wasn’t the one to take Garnet’s place as Power and Majesty. How could she? ‘You were right, Velody. You just don’t have the stomach for this.’

  Her grey eyes blazed, and she moved her hand as if to slap him.

  Ashiol didn’t see it coming. There was a fierce burst of light and then he was on his back, coughing. The scent of her animor overwhelmed him as he struggled to recover from the blast, and he tried not to think about how long it had taken him to master the trick that she had copied from him in a matter of seconds.

  A new weight pressed on his chest as Velody set a sandalled foot over his ribcage. ‘Ashiol Xandelian,’ she said in a cold voice, ‘you don’t know me at all.’

  And he saw it, in that moment. Overlying her sweet, angry face, he saw the truth of it. He wasn’t the one that the Creature Court needed to be afraid of. Velody could be the monster after all. She might be frigging good at it.

  It was easy. Velody was horrified at seeing Ashiol dispense pain so casually upon another person, and yet a cold part of her brain had noted exactly how he drew the animor from within himself—only a little, not enough that he would miss it—and formed it into a destructive missile. It was a manoeuvre, that was all, something as simple as casting on a stitch or fitting a patchwork piece into place. Having seen him put it into practice, it was easy to turn his move against him and strike him down with this dark, sizzling power that she was only just beginning to recognise inside herself.

  Then he was on the ground, and Velody was standing over him. She was in Lord form, glowing with the strength of her own inner power. ‘Ashiol Xandelian, you don’t know me at all.’

  ‘None of us know you,’ broke in a refined voice—the Pigeon Lord, she thought. ‘Just who are you, demoiselle?’

  She turned and looked at them. Poet was crumpled on the grass, coughing blood from his mouth even as more bubbled up from the gaping wound in his stomach. The other Lords glowed with the spirit of their animor and their creature. The Wolf Lord had pointed teeth behind her dark red lipstick, and she stood in a mannikin pose as if she was aware of exactly how good she looked naked. Like Delphine, she probably half-starved herself to mould her body into the new slender fashion for women. Her hair was certainly in line with the current mode—black and sharply bobbed.

  The Panther Lord bristled with dark hair down his arms and stomach. His stance was defensive, perhaps because of the nasty scars and raw skin across his body. It looked as if his stomach had recently been ripped apart and put back together. Ash did that, Velody realised, scenting a trace of Ashiol’s animor on the Panther Lord’s skin. The Pigeon Lord stood as if unaware of his nakedness, unselfconscious of his large, bulging stomach and drooping penis. His arms were bulky too, but there was firm muscle there beneath the fat. He raised an eyebrow at Velody, as if waiting for a polite answer to his polite question.

  ‘My name is Priest,’ he said. ‘Whom is it that we are honoured to address this nox?’

  Kelpie and Macready stood at the back of the crowd of naked courtesi. Crane joined them now. All three sentinels had their skysilver blades at the ready, and Velody knew they would de
fend her if she needed them to.

  But this was her fight.

  ‘I’m Velody,’ she said, and couldn’t think of anything else to add.

  An intense sensation like a headache rolled over the top of her scalp, and she looked up a few seconds before everyone else. Something boiled out of the sky, a dark red cloud that did not look as though it belonged there.

  Dealing with this crisis was suddenly more tempting than thinking of something witty or threatening or conciliatory to say to the Creature Court. Velody pulled her dress off over her head and kicked her sandals to the grass before turning chimaera and leaping headfirst up into the sky.

  She had barely practised this form, but it felt like an old skill. She knew exactly how to push her animor against the firm gravity of the earth to launch herself impossibly high, catching the slightest eddies and breezes with her powerful, expert wings to propel herself higher and faster. The impossibility of it dizzied her, but there was little point in worrying about that now. The word ‘impossible’ is for daylight, apparently. Not nox.

  The red cloud pulled Velody towards it like a lantern in the fog. She spun and danced higher into the air. Reaching the danger, it seemed, was not a problem. What the saints do I do when I get there?

  She wasn’t alone. A second black figure swooped at her side, a chimaera who throbbed with familiar power. Unless you’d like to handle this yourself? a thought-voice suggested.

  Are you kidding? she shot back. I have no idea what I’m doing!

  It’s simple enough, sent Ashiol. The red cloud is the seed of a deathstorm. If we stop it now, we can save ourselves having to battle devils, angels and flaming hail all nox.

  Real angels and devils?

  Let’s concentrate on the current threat, shall we? Deal with philosophy later. There’s one tried and true method to vanquishing a skyseed. The theory is something like lancing a boil.

  Velody winced at the thought of it. Just as long as I don’t end up covered in pus.

  She couldn’t see any facial expressions in his black and shapeless chimaera form, but she felt him smile. Maybe you’d better wait for me on the ground.

  Oh hells.

  Not today I hope. Can you form a couple of long, sharp claws?

  Velody thought of the claw that Ashiol had formed to gut Poet with. I think so.

  Right. We aim for the centre of the cloud. As much force as you can manage. Throw everything you have into the blow.

  Everything? Won’t we need some animor left to fly down?

  This is a tricky thing to try—best not hold anything back. With any luck, the Creature Lords will catch us if we completely drain ourselves.

  She thought of Poet bleeding on the grass, the outrage on Priest’s face as his gull courtesa was hurt, and the arrogant expressions of the Wolf and Panther Lords. We’re relying on that lot to save our lives?

  They’re surprisingly good at that sort of thing.

  They were close to the red cloud now. Its boiling, swirling substance was beginning to fold a second colour into its dark centre, an odd purplish shade.

  Now, before it’s too late! sent Ashiol. One, two…three!

  In that instant, as they drove long clawed limbs into the centre of the dark cloud, it was as if their minds were connected, as if they had merged bodies and spirits. Velody could feel herself inside Ashiol’s skin, taste the blood in his arteries.

  He didn’t say whether we were going on three or after three, she thought stupidly. I knew anyway. This is all a little too close for comfort.

  You’re telling me? sent Ashiol as their claws tore harder into the core of the skyseed.

  There was a loud squelching sound, and Velody was back in her body again—her real body, wet and vulnerable. Wet? There was a sticky, gluey substance all over her skin, her face and hair, but that was less disturbing than the fact that she was falling out of the sky like an acorn in autumn.

  A shock wave jolted through her body, and her arm screamed with pain so fierce that she thought it had been pulled clear off. But, no. Ashiol had caught her by the hand. She hung limply from him as he hovered in the air, his Lord form still intact.

  She tried to think a response to him, but that didn’t seem to work without their chimaera bodies to interpret. ‘Well,’ she gasped, after coughing to clear her throat of the sticky sky fluid. ‘Now we know.’

  ‘Know what?’ he asked, unsmiling, making no attempt to catch hold of her by anything other than her single hand.

  ‘Which of us is more powerful. That skyseed wiped me out, and you still have enough in you to hold on to your Lord form.’

  ‘No,’ said Ashiol. ‘You’re wrong, Velody. I didn’t drain all my powers into the cloud because you didn’t give me the chance. You poured yourself so damn fast into that claw of yours that I couldn’t keep up.’

  She stared up at him. ‘What does that mean?’

  It was hard to see facial expressions while dangling in midair, but she thought she saw a twist of a grin cross Ashiol’s mouth. ‘Means you’re better than me, demoiselle dressmaker.’

  Before she could respond to that little piece of abject nonsense, Ashiol hauled her up into his arms and held her tightly around the ribcage as he lowered them both slowly to the ground.

  For the first time, Velody was very much aware of the fact that they were both naked. It was hard to miss when you were holding each other this tightly. As soon as their feet touched the grass of the Gardens of Trajus Alysaundre, Ashiol opened his arms and released her so quickly that she almost fell over.

  All eyes were on them. No, all eyes were on Velody. She stared defiantly back at the open curiosity of the Lords and Court, wishing her nipples were not so obviously hard.

  Crane came to her rescue, holding out the crumpled black dress that she had cast aside. She pulled it on over her head, not caring about the effect that the sky mucus would have on the garment, only wanting to be clothed.

  Macready came forward with her sandals and gave her a little smirk. She rolled her eyes at him, but was glad to pull her gaze away from the leering Creature Court long enough to slip the shoes onto her feet. Her wet, sticky hair slapped her back as she straightened up.

  Were they waiting for her to say something? Her attention was caught by the fallen figure of Poet. He made no sound, but his wide eyes showed that he was still, painfully, alive. The grass around him was soaked with his blood.

  Velody cleared her throat. ‘I appreciate that I am of a great deal of interest to you all, but did any of you even think of helping him?’

  As one, the Lords’ gaze switched to Ashiol.

  ‘They didn’t want to displease me,’ he said. ‘I caused the wounds and they don’t want to anger me by healing him. Even Dhynar, whom Poet called ally, didn’t dare make a move without my consent.’ He shot a mocking look at the Ferax Lord, who looked away. ‘The protocol in these instances is for the Lord’s courtesi to keep him alive until the King decides what to do with him, but Poet deliberately kept his courtesi away this nox. Bad luck for him.’

  Velody turned on Ashiol. ‘You could heal him. You healed Crane. Why are you even hesitating?’

  ‘Crane received his injuries defending innocents—defending the home of a Creature King,’ said Ashiol.

  ‘Poet received his injuries from you!’ she said angrily. ‘You should fix this.’

  ‘Then what would be the point of making an example of him?’

  Furious, Velody raised her hand to slap him, but he caught it quickly, squeezing her wrist so hard that it hurt.

  ‘If you won’t help him, then I will!’ she said. ‘It’s all about sharing blood, right? I’ll give him some of mine.’

  Ashiol squeezed her wrist even harder. ‘You can’t. After draining yourself in the sky, you can’t afford to lose any blood. You’re vulnerable, Velody. There’s barely a whisper of active animor left in you right now.’

  Velody threw her other hand at him, trying to prise herself loose. He held fast, but she snapped her t
eeth at him and he opened his hand in reflex. She skipped back out of range. ‘I’m still a Creature King, right? My blood will help him heal.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ashiol said reluctantly.

  ‘So don’t stop me helping him!’

  ‘This is the Lord who attacked you and your friend in the theatre. He allied with the Ferax Lord, Dhynar, who beat Crane to a pulp and scared your other friend half to death. Why would you want to help him?’

  ‘If I don’t, he might die,’ said Velody. She went to Poet. She was half-expecting Ashiol to make another try at physically stopping her, but he just watched with a strange look on his face as she knelt down beside Poet, pulling him into her arms. ‘I’m not entirely sure how to do this,’ she confessed, holding her wrist near his mouth. ‘I don’t have a knife.’

  She glanced over her shoulder at the sentinels. Crane looked ashamed. Kelpie crossed her arms. Macready just slowly shook his head.

  Velody took a deep breath. ‘You’ll have to bite,’ she said. ‘You can do that, can’t you?’

  Poet was staring at her. A little blood ran from the corner of his mouth. His chin was stained with it. Slowly, as if every movement caused agony, he nodded his head. He was not strong enough to go all the way into Lord form, but his eyes gleamed red and his incisors slowly lengthened to a point.

  Velody pressed her wrist to his mouth, preparing herself for a moment of pain. ‘Well, then.’

  Poet stopped glowing. His eyes and teeth faded to normal. He moved his head slightly from side to side.

  ‘Why not?’ she demanded.

  Gently, he leaned into her wrist and kissed it. Mumbled words came from his mouth so quietly that she could barely hear them.

  ‘I swear oath and allegiance to Velody as Power and Majesty, master of the Creature Court, King of Kings, overlord of all.’

  ‘Drink!’ she said in frustration, but Poet closed his eyes and once again shook his head slightly.

  ‘Stay close, sweetling,’ he whispered. ‘You’re going to need all the juice you can get.’