Reign of Beasts

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  He leaned his forehead against hers. ‘You just have to hang on, Rhian. You’re stronger than this.’

  She opened her mouth to say, ‘You never knew me, Macready,’ but her mouth filled with roses, silky perfumed petals, vicious thorns, and by the time she had spat them all to the floor, the stone had hold of her body. ‘Please,’ was all she managed. Kelpie. She needed Kelpie, but the words would not form in her throat.

  Macready kissed her briefly, his mouth pressed to hers, and then it was cold, so cold, and she couldn’t see him any more.

  Velody awoke in the early afternoon of the first day of the Saturnalia festival. It was strange to not being able to see anything out of her windows. Delphine had made the right call in turning the house into a nest, but it meant that every brick and floorboard felt a little bit wrong. There was no sign that Delphine’s bed had been slept in.

  She looked in on Rhian, and found her moaning quietly but apparently sleeping. Water dripped from her skin to form puddles on the floor. Macready sat beside her, asleep against the wall.

  Downstairs Kelpie was asleep in a chair.

  Velody made tea for herself, and stared at the shapes the steam from the kettle made against the ceiling. She shivered. This might be a nest, but there was nothing that made the house feel safe.

  Garnet was nearby. She could feel his presence closing around her. She could stay in here, but what was the point of being safe if she had no chance to change anything?

  She stepped outside. The city opened up to her, as if recognising her. The air smelled more real than inside the nest. And yes, there was Garnet; she could all but taste him on the chill winter breeze.

  A body hit the ground, bursting in front of her. Velody jumped back, and then pressed her hands to her mouth, bidding herself not to wail or faint or be sick. It was a child, oh saints, it was a child, and she knew nothing about him, who he was, what animal he had been.

  She should have protected him from this. From Garnet.

  She stepped into the air and flew up to the rooftop where he was waiting for her. It was freezing, with the smell of snow in the air, though none had yet fallen. The wind was icy. Garnet wore a dark red woollen coat, his cheeks ruddy in the wind and his hair a bright beacon against the grey sky.

  ‘Why would you do this?’ Velody screamed at him. ‘What’s wrong with you? How can you possibly think this is the way to be Power and Majesty?’

  ‘And what do you know about it?’ Garnet said calmly. ‘What ordeals have you ever passed, Mistress of Mice? How many times have your ideals been tested?’

  ‘It’s not hard, Garnet,’ she said furiously. ‘Don’t kill children. Surely that’s one of the easier rules in life to follow?’

  ‘So precious, so innocent,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Don’t you get it, Velody? Sacrifice means giving up something important. Something that it hurts to give up. This city of ours runs on that particular rule.’

  ‘No,’ she insisted. ‘There’s another way. There’s a better way. You stopped looking for it.’

  ‘You are not Power and Majesty!’ he yelled at her. ‘You never were. If you were Power and Majesty, you would have heard the voices.’

  Velody sucked in a cold gulp of air. ‘What voices?’

  Garnet gave her a suspicious look, as if she should already know. ‘The voices that swallowed Tierce. The voices that made me choose.’

  Topaz was shaken awake by Bree, who was none too gentle about it. ‘He wants you,’ she said, and it was clear from her tone that she hadn’t come around to the new way of doing things.

  ‘What have you got against Poet?’ said Topaz, deliberately not calling him Lord anything. It didn’t sit right on her tongue to do that with anyone but Livilla, not now.

  ‘He’s one of them,’ Bree said bitterly. ‘But he’s not ours, is he? He hasn’t offered us a Lord’s protection.’

  ‘We don’t need protection,’ said Topaz, pulling on her clothes, the nice ones that Livilla had given her. ‘We have the fire. We all have the fire.’

  ‘I was happy being a bird,’ Bree blurted. ‘I hate being a salamander. It’s all hot and scratchy.’

  ‘It’s power,’ Topaz said sternly. ‘If we have it, they can’t hurt us. Remember that.’

  Bree rolled her eyes.

  Topaz found Poet in Livilla’s room, fully dressed, hair combed, primped up for company. He looked too thin, and his wrists still bore the marks of the skysilver chains they had wrapped around him when they first captured him. She felt bad about that, but only a bit.

  His two courtesi were there, too: the dark-haired man and the weasel boy. Topaz nodded to them both, then turned to Poet.

  ‘You’re not going to go running to him the second you leave this place, are you?’ she asked bluntly. The one flaw in their plan was Poet going dizzy for Garnet all over again.

  Poet hesitated, took his specs off to polish them, buying himself some time. ‘I won’t kill him. I won’t let him be killed. I plan to save him from everyone, including himself.’

  ‘How are you going to do that, then?’

  ‘The skysilver cage is at Velody’s house. If we can get him there, we can take him out of the battle. It should be enough. The sky is using him, I know that. I think it’s my fault.’ His voice broke slightly. ‘That bloody watch. It gets inside your head. It only had hold of me for a short time, but Garnet … I think he was lost long ago.’

  ‘It would be simpler just to kill him,’ said Topaz.

  Poet laughed and tilted his head to one side. ‘You think so, do you? Think it’s easy to kill? We were supposed to be doing things differently now. Isn’t that the point of all this? We’re breaking the rules and behaving like seigneurs for once in our lives.’

  Bree was right. There was no trusting Poet. He might be willing to protect them, but he might equally take his dratted head off and hand it to Garnet on a plate. Topaz hadn’t missed the wary looks that his courtesi were giving him, either.

  ‘Well?’ Poet said politely. ‘I believe you were going to share something with us before we march into battle with you?’

  Topaz nodded. A small voice inside her (sounding a lot like Bree) complained that it was too much of a risk, but a promise was a promise.

  She went to Zero first, put her hand over his heart and felt the weasel shapes squiggling and wriggling inside him. She showed him her shape, the shape of the salamander, putting the images right inside his head.

  ‘It’s hot,’ he said, sounding surprised. Then he blinked and shaped into a sudden pile of fire lizards, scrambling all over each other and burning brightly.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Poet, his eyes bright. ‘Shade next, my dearling. Then me. Isn’t Garnet going to get a surprise?’

  Ashiol found Velody and Garnet on the roof of her house in Via Silviana.

  ‘There you are,’ Garnet greeted him with glee. ‘I seem to have misplaced the entire Creature Court, Ash-my-love. They no longer come when I call. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?’

  ‘They’re safe,’ was all Ashiol would tell him. He nodded distantly to Velody, not wanting to give too much away of how close the two of them had become.

  ‘Well now, how can that be true?’ Garnet challenged. ‘They don’t have their Power and Majesty to protect them. I’d say that makes them the opposite of safe.’

  ‘I’ve seen your idea of safe,’ Velody said, sounding distressed. ‘How many more of them will die in the name of your madness, Garnet?’

  ‘Now, that’s not nice,’ said Garnet. ‘I’m pretty sure I’m not the mad one here. Wouldn’t want our darling Ashiol to feel neglected.’ He looked from one to the other of them and laughed out loud. ‘Oh, that’s rich. You’re frigging like rabbits and you still haven’t made the sacred marriage. So much for gaining any advantage over me.’

  ‘Who did you suck this so-called wisdom out of?’ Ashiol demanded. ‘Are you making this up as you go along?’

  ‘I read books,’ Garnet said sweetly. �
�I keep my ear to the ground.’

  ‘And, oh yes, he hears voices,’ Velody said sharply.

  Ashiol narrowed his eyes at his old friend. ‘Since when?’

  ‘Oh, Ashiol,’ said Garnet. ‘Isn’t it sad? You never knew me at all.’

  Ashiol felt the presence of Kelpie and Macready, and wanted to shout to them to keep away.

  ‘Sentinels!’ Garnet laughed as the two of them clambered up onto the roof. ‘Let me guess. You, Macready, have come to inform your Kings that something is dreadfully wrong with our Seer. And Kelpie thinks you should both know that your rogue sentinel Delphine is building an army against me. You see, I know everything. There’s no point in playing, my friends. I know all your secrets and you know none of mine.’

  ‘I know your secrets, Garnet,’ said a voice, and Poet joined them on the roof.

  ‘Ah,’ said Garnet, sounding sad. ‘But you wouldn’t tell, would you, sweet boy? Your loyalty has always been to me.’

  ‘That’s the funny thing about loyalty,’ said Poet, a fragile figure even in his fine clothes. ‘The more you share it, the more you have. That boy on the ground down there was called Wils to his friends. He couldn’t dance worth a centime, but he was the best tumbler I’ve ever seen under ten years old and he had a voice like a Sweetheart Saint. His brother, his only family in the world, was crushed under a sandstone block in the destruction of the Vittorina Royale. My theatre.’ His feet slipped a little on the roof tiles. ‘Did you never wonder what it would take, Garnet, for the loyalty I have for you to run out?’

  ‘Not for that,’ scoffed Garnet. ‘A street lamb. You made them for me in the first place. Bred them for sacrifice. They all left you for Livilla.’

  Poet glanced briefly at Ashiol and Velody. ‘He’s getting all of his knowledge out of a book, one of a set that Lord Saturn collected. A history of the Creature Court. He stole it from me.’

  ‘Stole,’ Garnet said dismissively. ‘You would have given me the world and stars.’

  ‘Yes, I fucking would,’ Poet snarled. ‘He has a pocket watch, too. I gave it to him … I didn’t know —’

  ‘Clockwork,’ said Ashiol slowly.

  ‘It’s been talking to him through it. The sky. Promising him things. Demanding greater and greater acts of sacrifice. Though what’s greater than sacrificing a whole city, Garnet?’ Poet flung out.

  ‘You know nothing,’ Garnet spat.

  ‘I know the choice you made! Then and now.’

  ‘Everything I’ve ever done has been for Aufleur,’ declared Garnet. ‘I have protected you all from the sky.’

  ‘The sky took you a long time ago,’ said Poet. ‘You just won’t lie down.’

  A cruel smile played over Garnet’s face. ‘You brought me back, little rat. It’s your fault I’m here.’

  ‘I know,’ Poet sighed. ‘And I’m sorry for it. Maybe if you’d stayed dead, I could have let you go.’

  He shaped himself in a fast blur, but not into the usual white rats. Instead, he was salamanders, blazing with fire.

  Garnet cried out in alarm, stepping back and back until he teetered on the guttering of the roof.

  More salamanders poured up and over the roof from below, hundreds of them, far more than one lamb or two or three could make.

  Garnet went chimaera and flew off across the sky, and the horde of salamanders followed him, blazing with flame.

  Ashiol breathed out for one long moment. Velody looked at him with sympathy and he didn’t know if he wanted to touch her, or if he would hit her if she tried.

  ‘We have to take him down,’ he said grimly, and she nodded.

  Yes, that was obvious. It had been obvious for a long time. Whatever it was that Garnet thought he was doing, it was clear the sky had a hold on him. The only thing Ashiol had to hold on to was that this was not Garnet — the corruption had started in him long ago, and he was no longer the boy that Ashiol had loved.

  Perhaps it hadn’t even been him when he tortured Ashiol and tried to destroy him. Perhaps. It was a single warm light in a sea of frost.

  ‘Time to talk to the Seer,’ Ashiol said.

  ‘Aye, about that,’ Macready put in, but Ashiol didn’t wait to see what he had to say.

  Inside the nest that had once been a house and a shop and a place of ribbon scraps and warm soup, Velody led the way to Rhian’s room. She pushed on the door and it opened into darkness. ‘Rhian?’

  Was it too late?

  ‘I’m here,’ said a calm voice, and Rhian walked out of the room. She looked normal — skin healed, hair trimmed short. She smelled faintly of earth and stone, but otherwise she was as she should be. ‘I’m ready,’ she said.

  Velody stared, hardly able to believe it.

  ‘We need to see into the futures,’ said Ashiol as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Of course, he didn’t know, hadn’t seen the wreckage of Rhian that had filled this room less than an hour ago. Macready had seen it, though, and, like Velody, he was staring at this normal Rhian as if she had stepped out of the seven hells unscathed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Rhian with a smile. ‘It took me longer than I thought. But the Seer is gone now.’ She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and pressed it into Kelpie’s hand. ‘Give that to her, when the time is right,’ she said.

  Kelpie dug her hand deep into a pocket of her breeches before Velody could see what it contained.

  ‘What do you mean the Seer is gone?’ Ashiol demanded.

  ‘Heliora made a mistake,’ Rhian said simply. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be me. I’m something else. We should go soon.’

  ‘Go where?’ Velody asked.

  ‘To the Forum.’ Rhian led the way downstairs, and found an old woollen coat in the cupboard, which she shrugged into. ‘Garnet and the salamanders are waking something they shouldn’t. Then there’s Delphine’s army, and the sky will attack as soon as nox falls. Really, we shouldn’t delay.’

  ‘How do you know all that if you’re not the Seer?’ Velody blurted out, unused to this Rhian who acted so much like the demme she had known years ago, her sensible friend.

  ‘I told you,’ said Rhian. ‘I’m something else.’

  48

  Delphine and Crane had been on their feet all nox and most of the day, building an army. The skysilver was doing the work that it was supposed to do, turning daylight folk into sentinels through repeated exposure. It would not have had permanent effect if she had brought them anywhere else, but this was the Killing Ground. Skysilver was different here, more powerful. Delphine marched up and down the sands of the Killing Ground, observing the troops. Possibly she’d gone a little nuts, but she wasn’t going to admit that to anyone.

  The bright skysilver frock felt warm on her skin, warm like the artificial sun that beat down on them as they worked. Crane led the fops and flappers in a drill and they copied him perfectly.

  There was a light in their eyes that did not belong to any world Delphine recognised, and it made her uncomfortable if she thought too deeply about what she had done. Best not to think about it. After all, she had a city to save. Whatever happened this nox, whatever fate they all met, they would not suffer from a lack of sentinels.

  The Smith had not returned to his work. He leaned against the wall of his forge watching the army of new sentinels. Could he see the flickers of ghosts that filled the sands, the ghosts of fallen warriors?

  ‘Are you joining us?’ she asked him, striding up to him and staring into his large face. ‘Will you fight with us?’

  ‘I do not fight,’ he grunted. ‘I build.’

  Well, it was worth a try.

  This close to midwinter, nox came early. The traditional ball held at the Palazzo on the first day of the Saturnalia had begun in the middle of the afternoon and it felt already as if it had been going on forever. The great hall was a mess of masks, men dressed as demoiselles and ladies dressed as serving maids. Isangell had drunk too much, quite by accident, and had the taste of violet punch on her tongue as she danced, pa
ssed from hand to hand under the boisterous music. She remembered, as a child, sitting under one of the tables with a bowl of sugared almonds, watching the dancing and the costumes and the merriment. She wished she was there now. Everything had made sense when she was eight years old.

  Saturnalia had always been her most beloved festival. There was something delicious about the topsy-turviness of it all, of celebrating the wrong and the upside down and the strange.

  Her favourite Saturnalia game was to dress herself as a servant in clean, tidy linens and serve breakfast rolls to her mama, or dress her grandmama’s hair. She would insist on eating brown bread and plain cheese instead of her usual favourite pastries or candied fruits. Saints, she must have been an insufferable child, playing at peasantry, surrounded by hardworking servants who had to pretend amusement for her delight.

  This year, she had embraced some more adult aspects of the festival. There was something extraordinarily freeing about wearing breeches, even breeches made of embroidered gold satin, and a shirt of the finest cobweb silk. Isangell was sure she did not look remotely like a boy, but realism was hardly the point of Saturnalia.

  On impulse, moments before she made her entrance, she had demanded that her maids bob her hair and, oh, the look on her mother’s face had been worth it.

  Bazeppe was gone, and that meant Isangell’s last attempt at rebellion was over as well. It was time to choose one of the sweaty-handed, glazed-eyed boys of the Great Families of Aufleur.

  Many of them had not turned up to the ball and Isangell assumed that her recent attempts to find a husband from Bazeppe had insulted them enough to stay away. Except, of course, that none of them remembered Bazeppe … Saints, it made her head hurt.

  Some of the Families may have snubbed her, but there were still plenty of eligible men here. Why not just choose one now? Not one of them would make a Duc she wanted to unleash on the city; not one of them was anything close to the Princel Isangell had imagined for herself as a child. The more time she spent allowing them to court her, the more irritating they seemed. Why not just let the dance do its work for her? She could reach out blindly into a sea of costumed noblemen and marry the one who took her hand.