Bright Ruin

by Vic James

‘To Aston House,’ said Gavar.

  ‘Wait.’

  Abi hesitated, and it took a moment for Gavar to realize why. Jenner.

  ‘I’m pretty sure he’s at Westminster. He’s been rather thick with Bouda lately. If he is there, I’ll keep him away from you.’

  She nodded, and their strange procession made its way through the crowd. Bouda had finished speaking and people were dispersing, streaming away from the square doubtless fearful of being implicated in two terrible deeds: the destruction of the House of Light, and the death of a chancellor.

  This should have been a morning that changed everything.

  It still was, but not how anyone had anticipated.

  The gates of Aston opened for him, clearly not objecting to his patricide, and Gavar kicked open the heavy front door and led his fugitives in. (When had they become his? The moment Midsummer had died, perhaps.) He yelled for the servants, who came hurrying – and Mother with them.

  ‘Will you check she’s okay?’ he murmured to Abigail, setting Layla down. ‘One of the staff can call our family doctor, if you think she’s needed.’

  ‘What has happened?’

  Mother’s pale complexion went even paler at the sight of the blood that covered them all. One of her dark curls had come loose as she ran, and Gavar smoothed it back behind her ear. She was so tiny and birdlike. Father had kept her caged for all these years.

  He led her to one of Aston’s many salons. Telling her was almost harder than the deed itself.

  ‘Father’s dead.’

  Her hand came up to her mouth and she gripped a chair-back for support. But she didn’t cry. She’d never say it, but she was glad he was dead, Gavar knew.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I shot him.’

  But Mother flew at him then, with a scream and flailing fists. He had to grab both her hands in one of his and hold them till she quieted. When she’d fought herself to a standstill, she looked up at him. The wet streaks of mascara made it look as though her black eyes were leaking.

  ‘You’re not sorry to see him gone?’ he asked. ‘I thought—’

  ‘Not him. Not him, Gavar.’ And she collapsed against his chest, her narrow shoulders rising and falling. ‘This ruins everything. For you.’

  When she’d calmed, she eased away from him.

  ‘Take me to his body. I need to see it. And people need to see me with you – to know that you have my full support.’

  ‘You think it will get that bad? Everyone in parliament knows me – knows what sort of a man Father was. My wife will effectively be running parliament.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of. Go and change. We need to show your remorse and your duty.’

  And so, a short while later, Gavar and his mother went back down Birdcage Walk. Gavar wore a black suit, had shaved, washed and neatly parted his hair. He looked every inch the grieving son.

  Mother gasped when they reached Parliament Square and saw the yawning space where the House of Light had been, now filled with nothing but a pulsing golden miasma. The bronze dragons lay broken across the high railing around the Westminster precinct. They must have fallen when the Skill animating them died.

  When Midsummer died.

  Parliament Square was empty, although its perimeter was now ringed with Security guards. Father’s body had been removed. The abandoned stage, churned mud and detritus of trampled placards and banners were the only evidence of the presence of tens of thousands of people. Gavar took his mother through the events of the morning, showing her where he had stood, where Father had fallen. He hadn’t seen where the remains of Midsummer’s body had dropped – they were gone, too – but he steered Mother away from a patch of grass that was darkly slicked with blood.

  Equal bodies were never released to hospitals, so they must have taken Father’s inside the parliamentary grounds. Gavar may have killed a chancellor – something he now had in common with the Hadley boy – but Westminster’s gates recognized him and swung open. Patricide or no, he was still Heir Gavar Jardine. Was, in fact, now Lord Gavar Jardine.

  Perhaps he could really do what he’d threatened to all these years, and make Libby his heir.

  Once behind the railings, they could see more clearly the extent of the destruction. The House of Light had fallen in such a way that the surrounding buildings were unscathed, so not a single life would have been in danger. Gavar knew intuitively that Midsummer would have planned it that way. Even as she destroyed, she spared.

  What a leader the country had lost in her. Who would run things now?

  The ruined House filled the courtyard: a mass of blocky rubble, shattered beams, grit and glass. Dust still hung in the air, and the Skill-light that pulsed there rendered it almost opaque, like bright cloud.

  Laid over one section of broken wall was a black cloth. Dust clung to it and glittered. And on top, was Father’s body. Former chancellors were always laid in state in the House before their funeral. That hadn’t been possible with Zelston, of course, but plainly someone was observing the niceties with Father, and that touch of ritual and routine was reassuring.

  Gavar took his mother’s hand and led her over. Father’s skin had gone waxy; the cheeks beginning to sink in. The flesh was cold to touch. His salamander-print neckerchief had been folded decorously over the missing top of his head.

  The Chancellor’s star of office had already been unpinned from his chest.

  Mother circled the body. She didn’t bend to kiss it, but paused every now and then to touch it with light fingertips. The lines on Father’s knuckles, the greying gold hair that peeped at the neck of his shirt, no longer concealed by the neckscarf. Gavar looked at the body and wondered how it was that even though death had not wiped out his fear and anger towards this man, he still felt a profound sadness at having never won his love.

  It was overwhelming, and Gavar stepped away, nearly turning his ankle on some masonry. He looked down, only to find an expression very like Silyen’s staring blankly back: the head of the statue of Cadmus Parva-Jardine, that had once stood in the chamber. It was where Father had liked to converse discreetly with his allies, and Gavar had been forced to listen, as part of his political apprenticeship.

  ‘The fall of the House of Jardine,’ said a voice. ‘How very appropriate.’

  Gavar looked up. ‘Bouda.’

  His wife stood there with her two cronies at her side: Astrid Halfdan and Jon Faiers. Well, that cleared up whose side he’d been on. Someone else Midsummer had mistakenly trusted.

  ‘It’s your house, too,’ he said, ‘so I wouldn’t speak too quickly.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ She stepped a little closer. ‘I gave you the chance to be a proper husband to me two nights ago, and you refused. And now I can hardly stand by a man who murdered his father and his Chancellor. No, I’m afraid I’ll need a separation, Gavar.’

  He shrugged. ‘I suppose. But I thought your priority was “finding a way forward for Britain”?’

  ‘You’re quite right. That – and other things. Such as, first, your confirmation as the next Lord Jardine. Seeing as you have no legitimate offspring, that makes me, as your wife, your next of kin and heir. Second, your trial for your father’s murder. Third, once you’re found guilty, the stripping of your title. That title and the accompanying assets then pass to – well, your next of kin and heir. Me. So I guess the House of Jardine gets reborn after all.’

  ‘You jumped-up little bitch.’ Mother appeared at Gavar’s side. He could feel the fury quivering through her, and wondered why he’d always assumed he inherited his temper solely from his father. ‘You’re a tradesman’s daughter. Every inch of standing you have you owe to us – to my husband’s family and to mine.’

  ‘But don’t you see, Thalia – it’s a new world? Oh, you Parvas and Jardines played your part in your day. You established the rightful rule of our kind. But you’ve not kept up. The slavedays have become inefficient and the Equals irrelevant. That’s going to change.

  �
��I intend to modernize the slavedays. We’ll extract maximum use from every man and woman in this country. And they’ll love us anyway, because your little freak Silyen is right – we’ve forgotten what we’re capable of. I won’t give them spectacles of terror, like your husband’s vulgar Blood Fair. I’ll give them feats of wonder. People will be better fed, better educated, better employed. They’ll have rulers to marvel at. They’ll neither notice nor care that they’re still not free.’

  Father had known what he was doing when he’d picked this woman for Gavar. She had enough ambition for the two of them, and no heart at all.

  Bouda came closer. Gavar tensed, but she passed him and went to where Father lay. Bouda bent to inspect the corpse. She lifted the folded neckerchief, wrinkled her nose, then dropped it carelessly back again.

  She was practically purring, like she’d had it all worked out, yet the only thing that had given her this opportunity was Gavar’s own rash stupidity.

  ‘What would you have done, if I hadn’t killed Father earlier and handed you all this on a plate?’

  ‘Your father would have got a bullet one way or the other. Your talk about snipers rather inspired me. I got his permission to have a few marksmen planted in that crowd, to take down Midsummer in case there was no opportunity for him to do it Skillfully. But unlike Riverhead, these shooters were mine.

  ‘They answered only to me, and they all knew there were two possible targets: her, or him. You throwing yourself into the middle of it was an unanticipated bonus. But it just shows what a hothead you are, Gavar. People like you will make it hard to build a stable new administration. So, come along quietly and your mother won’t get hurt.’

  ‘Come along quietly? You think you’ve got a prison cell that can hold me?’

  ‘Who said anything about a prison?’

  Bouda’s smile was as lovely as it had been on their wedding day as something stung the back of Gavar’s neck.

  ‘You gave us the idea for this, too, when you faked the rescue with the Hadley girl,’ Astrid murmured in Gavar’s ear, as her clever fingers depressed the needle’s plunger. ‘Who knew you had so many good ideas . . .’

  Ice spread through Gavar’s veins.

  And his scorching Skill froze over.

  25

  Luke

  Meeting the Wonder King, Rædwald, had blown Luke’s mind.

  Properly blown it, like a lightbulb, into little pieces that couldn’t be put back together in any way that would work.

  In the year since Kessler had pulled up in front of the house in the slavetown van, and Luke had experienced the first queasy feeling that something was horribly wrong, he had been thrust from one incomprehensible situation to another. Millmoor. Kyneston. Eilean Dòchais. Gorregan Square and Far Carr. He’d learned to adapt fast.

  But this? A world in which people could just step into thin air and disappear?

  A world which was just one of many worlds.

  He still couldn’t quite believe it, despite having seen it happen. First with Coira, then again with a king who should have died one and a half thousand years ago, and who had only been a legend until he walked into Luke’s mind and then onto Silyen’s beach and showed them both marvels.

  They’d stayed on the beach after Rædwald had departed, attempting to follow him. Trying and failing to open a door in the sky. A door that might lead them to Coira.

  The Equal was pacing up and down talking to himself, while Luke attempted to offer constructive input, or just occasionally snorted as Sil swore effusively after another fruitless attempt to reach into thin air and pull another dimension out of it. They’d been at it for hours now, and their patience was growing as frayed and tattered as Rædwald’s cloak.

  Luke could still find no way of rationalizing what had happened – or, no way that would make sense.

  ‘The “door” we went through to his memories was like the “doors”’ – Luke drew air quotes around the word – ‘in those mind-places of ours. Our bodies stayed here, just like they did when we met him at Eilean Dòchais. But then he and Coira physically went through actual doors to actual other worlds. And that doesn’t make any more sense now than it did the first time I said it. If Mum could hear me, she’d have me down the clinic for a drugs test.’

  ‘Your family sounds terribly narrow-minded.’ Silyen made a show of examining his fingernails.

  ‘And yours is better, is it? Maniacs and narcissists and murderers.’

  ‘Harsh. Only a few of them are murderers.’

  ‘That’s not funny, Silyen.’

  Luke turned his back and bent over the fire, poking it with a charred stick. It was nearly down to embers, although they soon wouldn’t need its light, because far out over the sea the sun was rising. As he watched the fiery sparks float and eddy, Luke thought about how Silyen had looked when Rædwald had shown them the Skill that shimmered everywhere.

  He had dazzled with it.

  The dance of the embers was hypnotic and Luke evidently nodded off, because when he opened his eyes next it was bright day and the sun stood high overhead. Was it past noon? He sat up, and felt something slip off him. It was Silyen’s riding jacket. The Equal must have put it over him while he slept.

  He looked for the boy himself, wondering if Silyen had figured things out while Luke dozed, and had walked off into some strange new world without him. The thought provoked an inexplicable ache. But no, there Sil was, face down on the stones on the other side of the fire.

  Luke scrambled over. The Equal’s constitution would protect him from any chill – hence the loan of the jacket – but had he overtaxed his strength? Then Luke’s alarm escalated to panic as it occurred to him that maybe the boy had remembered Rædwald’s gruesome murder and tried to off himself in the hope that his Skill would both save him – and super-power him.

  But no, Sil was breathing deeply and evenly. His skin was warm, if still disconcertingly pale. Luke rolled him over to double-check, gently shaking his shoulders.

  Silyen groaned and cracked an eye, then opened both on seeing Luke.

  ‘There’s a nice sight to wake up to.’

  Luke glared. ‘Just checking you weren’t, you know, dead.’

  ‘Good as,’ Silyen yawned, ‘until I’ve got some coffee in me. Come on. Let’s head back.’

  And he jumped to his feet, hooked his jacket with a finger, and strode off along the beach.

  The remainder of the day passed in more thwarted discussion about what exactly Rædwald had done on the beach. Silyen stood glaring at the canvas in the great hall, as if the tiny painted figure of the Wonder King might come to life and squeak out all his secrets.

  It was that evening they first noticed Dog’s absence. One of Far Carr’s freezers had contained an abundance of sausages, and they’d got used to Dog filling a sizzling pan with them and poking with his finger-knives to check if they were cooked through. But he wasn’t around, so they shared a sorry-looking ready meal instead.

  Luke didn’t sleep well that night. Partly because his sleep pattern was out of whack, but mostly because he lay awake pondering his next move. With the failure of their best efforts to follow Rædwald, he had to accept that there was nothing more he could do for Coira. She was hopefully safe, but was definitely somewhere he couldn’t find her. Mind-blowing though this whole doors-to-other-worlds thing was, it wasn’t a challenge that was playing to Luke’s strengths.

  He needed to start thinking about finding Abi. About making sure that his parents were doing okay in Millmoor, and that Gavar Jardine was still treating Daisy right. Where was Renie? Silyen had said that the woman who rescued her was Midsummer Zelston, the late Chancellor’s niece. Dared Luke hope that she might see past his role in her uncle’s death, and let him see Renie?

  He didn’t launch straight in with it the next morning, but after another couple of hours that were no more productive than the previous afternoon, Luke spoke up. Silyen looked at him incredulously.

  ‘You’ve just witnessed the
most astonishing feat of Skill this country has ever seen – something that makes the acts of my ancestors Lycus and Cadmus look like a game of hopscotch – and you want to walk away?’

  ‘Be honest, it’s not like I’m much use. What do you want me to do? Stand around looking pretty while you think? No, don’t answer that. I’m serious, Silyen.’

  An awkward silence fell, then stretched on and on.

  ‘Excuse me,’ the Equal said tightly. ‘I find that music aids my thought process and I haven’t practised since we came here.’

  And he brushed past to a piano in the adjoining room, that even Luke could tell was out of tune, where he proceeded to violently play a piece that sounded like it required at least six hands.

  Fine.

  Luke knew what would help his own thought processes. Getting the heck away from Far Carr and its lord. Silyen had said he was free to leave this place, and that he would be able to see the wall and find his way back to it if he did. Time to put that to the test.

  He hiked across the estate to the gate, and put his hand to the latch. The gate swung open. Luke drew in a breath, and stepped through. Nothing.

  He felt for the car key that he never took out of his pocket. He wasn’t planning on leaving right this moment. But it would be good to check that the vehicle was still in working order. Back home, scally kids sometimes let down tyres on people’s cars for a laugh. It didn’t seem likely that vehicles parked at a magically protected Equal estate would have the same problem, but you never knew.

  Which was when he saw the tyre marks in the woodchip of the path. At first Luke thought they were the ones he’d made when they arrived. Then he realized they belonged to a second vehicle.

  Someone had come here and gone again.

  The thought was unnerving. Who had it been? Had Lord Jardine sent someone to investigate the freeing of the estate slaves? Had Security been prowling around Far Carr’s hidden wall?

  It looked as though the vehicle had at one point pulled up behind what Luke was now calling ‘his’ car. Why would it do that? He clicked the door lock – all in working order – then inspected his vehicle thoroughly. No one had tampered with the tyres or brakes. The fuel gauge still showed half a tank.