Reign of Beasts (35 page)

I
sangell sat on the edge of her floral sofa, fingertips pressed to her temples. ‘I can see it,' she said. ‘The battle. All of it. I can't unsee it.'

You might want to get used to that
, Heliora advised her.

Kelpie had left her swords crossed on the floor. She sat on the window sill looking miserable, though there was no way she could see out through the blurred seal that covered the glass. ‘Hate this,' she muttered. ‘I should be there. I should be fighting.'

‘What's the point of me being the Seer if I'm separated from the rest of them?' Isangell asked, and they looked at each other.

‘I don't know,' Kelpie said finally.

‘So open this nest of yours and let me out.' Isangell didn't know what to believe. But she could see soldiers with bright swords falling and dying, she could see her Forum awash with demons and angels, and there had to be something better to do than sit here and wait for it to be over.

Kelpie shifted a little and then shook her head. ‘I can't. I don't know if it was Rhian or that bitch you have in your head, but I can't move. I don't have a choice.' She was furious, her hands clenched into fists. ‘I never have
a fucking choice. As if I might turn tail and run the second they test me. I've always been loyal!' She was yelling at the ceiling now.

Isangell stood. She could move. She still had a choice. The voices in her head tried to interrupt her, but she pushed them swiftly aside. She had been ignoring meaningless chatter from inferiors all of her life.

‘We will make our own path,' she told Kelpie firmly. ‘We will get out of here.'

She opened her mouth to say more, but was overwhelmed by the images of the battle, the taste of dust and the light in the sky, and something almost but not quite like that feeling in the air before snow fell.

She saw a boy in a brown cloak fall against the arch of the Forum, and she knew him. She could not hide her reaction from Kelpie, who sat up straight and stared at her.

‘What did you see?'

‘Crane,' Isangell said softly.

He meant nothing to her, except that he was one of those who would have killed her that nox because the wrong person had been named Seer. But he meant something to Kelpie, she knew that much.

‘Dead,' Kelpie said, to be certain of it. When Isangell nodded, she turned away and rubbed her sleeve roughly against her face. ‘Damn it. I promised this fucking Court would never make me cry again.'

Isangell wanted to touch her, to say some words of comfort, but what was there to say? Nothing she knew anything about had any meaning in this new world.

The Palazzo shook from a direct blow, and she felt it break apart.

‘Saints, no!'

Be brave,
Heliora told her, and then the voices in her head fell silent, though the images did not. She felt every blow, every bolt of fire and ice that struck the
building. She heard the screams of the revellers at the Saturnalia ball, saw them running and burning and dying. She heard the servants wail in fear as the walls crumbled.

She saw every death.

Isangell beat her fists on the door until pain shot through her arms, and then she was sobbing, crying out. She felt Kelpie draw her away from the door and they hung on to each other as the Palazzo fell to pieces.

Her grandfather's atrium. Her grandmama's walled garden. The kitchens. The parlours. Room by room, it was destroyed, and the smell of death rose up through the cracks in the remaining walls.

‘This is what you saved me from,' she whispered into Kelpie's neck.

‘I'm sorry,' Kelpie whispered, and there was nothing flippant about it. The demme sounded honestly sorry that she had saved Isangell like this, that they would know for the rest of their lives that they had survived while hundreds died.

It felt like hours, and then it was over.

Isangell raised her head and looked at Kelpie. ‘Now? Can you let me out now?'

‘I think so,' said Kelpie.

She stood on shaky legs and placed her palms against the door that was not a door. It shimmered and came apart.

The first body they found was Armand, stretched across the hallway, crushed by a fallen beam. Isangell hardened her heart and stepped over him. There would be worse than this.

Half the Palazzo was too badly destroyed to even walk through. There was rubble everywhere, and charred furniture. Dead bodies, too many to count or to mourn. The nox sky gleamed through the gaps where ceilings and other floors used to be. Colours still flooded across it. The
battle was not over, though no more blows fell on this particular hill.

The usual path to the main entrance was blocked, and they had to crawl and clamber their way through all manner of awkward spaces, slipping on blood-stained tiles and broken glass.

Of all places, Isangell found her mother in the librarion. She and Kelpie were wading through fallen leatherbound volumes and smashed shelves when she saw a familiar skirt sticking out from behind a chair at an awkward angle. When she looked closer, she saw a foot.

‘Who is it?' Kelpie asked when she saw her reaction.

‘Mama.' Isangell could not say anything else, because the tears were coming thick and fast, and how could she face this alone?

‘The sky won't take Ashiol,' Kelpie blurted, as if it was the closest thing she could find to comfort. ‘Seriously, it's tried, so often he should be dead ten times over, but he has nine lives for each cat, and that's a lot.'

Isangell could not feel anything but her own heart, beating too loudly. Two steps and she would see her mother's dead body. Was she ready for that?

‘Let's go find him then,' she said abruptly, turning around and climbing over the mountain of books in the other direction. Thank the saints she was still wearing her Saturnalia costume. The gold trews and shirt might be foolish, but they were eminently more practical than what she usually wore.

‘I've never seen so many books,' Kelpie said with a nervous laugh.

‘My grandfather collected them,' said Isangell. ‘He loved to read about the history of the skywar and the early Ducs. The origins of festivals. That sort of thing.'

Kelpie's hand slipped and she stared at Isangell. ‘People … daylight folk wrote histories of the skywar? Of the festivals?'

‘Of course,' said Isangell. She thought she could hear laughter inside her head and firmly pushed Heliora deeper down. ‘Why?'

For the first time in hours, Kelpie did not look exhausted or miserable. Hope blazed out of her open face. ‘I think I know why we were supposed to survive here,' she said. ‘We still have some use, after all.'

Isangell stood and watched while Kelpie rummaged through the piles of books, checking the titles and discarding those of no interest. She looked like a woman possessed.

Is this true?
she asked the invader in her head.
Is that what we're here for? Can books make a difference?

There was a silence.
Possibly
, Heliora said finally.

Isangell frowned.
Don't you know? I thought you knew everything! Isn't that what being a Seer is all about?

I
, said Heliora, and then stopped.
I don't know. I'm only a piece of the Seer, and there isn't much of me left. It's getting dark.

Dark, no, not that. It was getting light. Isangell ran to the window and drew back the heavy velvet curtains, managing to keep her eyes turned away from the fallen body of her mother.

‘It's dawn. That means it's all over, doesn't it?'

‘Until nox comes again,' muttered Kelpie, still pawing through the books. ‘Gives us time to breathe. Regroup. Read.'

Isangell could not take her eyes off the city below. As the sky lightened, she could see straight down the hillside. There were fires in the Forum, and she could see damaged buildings from the River Verticordia all the way across to the Lucretine.

‘We can breathe,' she said softly.

Bolts of blazing light streaked through the early morning sky and blasted the Church Bridge into pieces. Isangell gasped.

Kelpie dropped the books and came to join her at the window, her shoulder pressing firmly against Isangell's. ‘Oh, hells,' she said in a low voice. ‘Not that.'

They stood there for some time, watching the sky hurl bolt after bolt at the city as it faded from black to pale grey and then a soft winter blue.

Day was here, and the battle continued.

V
ia Silviana was too far away. They weren't going to make it. The streets were too long, and the devils and angels were getting stronger. Velody's muscles ached as she fought her way down Duchessa's Avenue, heading south. She had been in chimaera form too long and the battle rage had died into something dull and hard.

She had lost track of everyone. Macready and Delphine were together, using their swords to keep the devils at bay, and she could feel Ashiol's presence nearby. But Poet and Livilla (if that really was Livilla) and the salamanders could be anywhere by now. She hadn't seen Crane for some time. Rhian. She couldn't think about Rhian or the panic would overwhelm her.

Warlord flew with them for a while, but then the storm took him and his courtesi, dragging them back into the maelstrom of rain and light and battle, and Velody did not see them again. Shade remained, looking around sometimes as if hoping Poet would join them soon. The boy, Zero, flew at his side, and Lennoc stayed near enough to keep an eye on them both, though not so close as to make Shade angry at him.

We protect those whom we love first,
Velody thought guiltily, well aware of how many people she hadn't saved today.

They had to make it to the dawn. Aufleur was holding fast. They had another day's grace, surely. The city was not yet tearing itself up by the roots as Bazeppe had done (though when Bazeppe had gone it had been fast, so breathtakingly fast).

Home drew her like a lantern in the darkness. Dawn came, finally, and Velody felt as if she could eat that light with a spoon. Light. Morning. Home. Safety.

The skybolt burst the street in front of them into pieces of stone and rubble. Velody hit a wall, shaping back into her own form in the shock of the blast, and blinked blood out of her eyes. The sentinels had leaped clear of it.

A rolling wave of animor swamped her before she even saw clearly who had been hit. Lennoc's power surged through her blood and, as Velody was gasping from the aftershock of quenching him, Zero's power swiftly followed.

Blinking away tears, she saw that Shade was on the ground, alive still. He resisted as she tried to draw him to his feet.

‘It's morning,' he muttered. ‘It's supposed to be over.'

Oh, saints, he was right. The sky was lightening and there were still deadly bolts raining down on the city. Velody choked back a sob.

‘Keep moving,' she told him. ‘Just … keep moving.'

He gave her a desperate look and she grabbed him around the wrist, pulling him away from the bodies of Lennoc and Zero.

Dawn was here and the battle continued. How could she pretend they had hope now?

Someone was screaming her name.

Velody stumbled through the dust and rubble to find the familiar curve of her alley. Delphine stood by the gate, yelling.

Ashiol swooped down from above, shaping from chimaera to Lord form as he dropped out of the sky. ‘Get
inside,' he ordered roughly. ‘The nest should protect us, for a while at least.'

Her home was a nest now. Velody nodded dumbly and turned into the gate, still pulling Shade behind her.

Macready was the first person she saw. ‘Where's everyone else?' she asked him.

‘This is it,' Ashiol said grimly.

The kitchen felt wrong as Velody stepped into it. Rhian was not here. Several children huddled in the corner, some still falling in and out of salamander shape. An older demme, the one who had been Priest's courtesa once upon a time, seemed to be in charge of putting out small fires as they occurred.

She looked up hopefully. ‘Is Topaz here?'

Velody shook her head quickly, and forced Shade to sit down.

Clara, Warlord's greymoon courtesa, made as if to stand, but Macready pushed her back down next to Shade. ‘Once you're here, you stay,' he barked, and then strode out into the storm himself, passing Ashiol on the way.

Velody could not sit. ‘This isn't right,' she said. ‘We can't just hide away and let the city fall around us.'

‘The dawn didn't stop the battle,' Ashiol said harshly. ‘The sky's a deathtrap. I just saw Mars burn up trying to make it to the south wall with some of his courtesi. There's no escape.' He sounded unemotional, like he was reporting something he had read in the newspaper.

Clara made a small noise, pressing her hands to her mouth. Shade looked at her but did not react.

‘Rhian is out there,' Velody said wretchedly. ‘Kelpie. Isangell.'

‘I'm sure they would be delighted if we got ourselves killed in sympathy,' Ashiol snapped.

She wanted to touch him, but if they did, one of them, or both, might fall to pieces.

‘Underground,' she said finally. ‘Can we shelter underground?'

Some of the others could have made it to the Arches. There was hope, surely. Where there was life …

‘I don't know,' said Ashiol, and he looked so bleak.

Don't touch, don't touch.

‘Where are the sentinels?' Velody asked.

Shade opened his mouth and blood poured out of it, onto the kitchen table.

 

Macready caught Delphine as she headed for the alley, stepping over the rubble in that fecking skysilver frock that stood out like a beacon.

‘Where do you think you're going, lass?'

‘Back out there, of course,' she said fiercely.

‘We need you here — the Kings, and any other survivors who make it this far. Can't seal the nest properly without you.'

Delphine set her chin. ‘My army, Mac. I brought them into this. I made them fight; made the Smith come out from the safety of his forge. You think I'm going to leave them now so I can hide out in a safe little nest? Not going to happen.'

‘They're all fecking gone, love,' he insisted, forcing himself to feel nothing. Time for that when dawn came, the real dawn, not this false sunshine that ebbed across the sky, pretending the all clear. ‘The Smith burned and died, I saw it happen, and half your toy soldiers with him. The rest of them can look after themselves, or they can't. Our duty is here, with the Kings.'

She wasn't giving up. ‘But my army —'

‘Cannon fodder,' he said brutally. ‘They were never going to be anything else.'

‘I won't leave them to die.' She smacked him hard against the cheek and he took it, appreciating the sensation for what it was. The noise of the storm and the battle (hard
to separate the two, they were part of the same thing, a whirling cloud of death and danger) grew louder.

‘They're already dead,' Macready shouted at her.

The wind howled around them, tasting of snow and light and blood.

‘We were going to save the city,' Delphine screamed. ‘What's the point of being a sentinel if we can't save everybody?'

A deep crack ran along the alley, as if this was the line where the city was being torn in two.

‘Jump,' Macready yelled, and all but threw Delphine across the crack, towards the nest and safety.

Too fecking far away.

 

Velody let Shade drink from her wrist, willing him to heal even as she scolded him for not telling her he had been wounded in the blast. Her animor was slow and difficult to work, and it took far too long to bring him back.

‘He doesn't care,' Clara said flatly. ‘Why should he live? Our Lords are dead. There's nothing left.'

Shade moaned and turned on his side, spitting out some of his own blood mingled with Velody's. ‘Poet's not dead,' he said in a rasp. ‘I know it. He wouldn't go so easily.'

‘I believe you,' Velody said, thinking of Garnet. Regardless of whether he was on their side or that of the sky, it was impossible to imagine he had succumbed to his wound. This was the man who could not stay dead, even when swallowed by the sky.

A loud cracking sound reverberated through the house and the floor rumbled. It felt for a moment as if a hillside had come down on top of them, the ceiling pouring dust into the kitchen even as the nest held tight.

Ashiol went to the door, scrabbling for the trick to open it, but when the wall unblurred to let him through, there was nothing but more stone and brick on the far side.

‘Street's come down,' he said. ‘The entrance is blocked.'

Velody went to his side and they worked to dig through the barrier with their animor, but she found her power as slow and clumsy as it had been when trying to heal Shade. ‘What's wrong with us?'

‘The nest stifles our powers,' said Ashiol. ‘We don't need animor while we're safe, remember? If an older, better sentinel had made this one it wouldn't be so bad, but Delphine's still a beginner.' He pulled back, stretching his fingers painfully. ‘Don't suppose you have a pickaxe in the house?'

 

Isangell had never greeted a Saturnalia dawn with such despair. She drew in a shaking breath as she stared down at her ruined city spread out beneath the Balisquine.

It's good,
said the voice in her head.

How could this possibly be good?
Isangell thought back.

I never saw this future. A battle that burns through the morning. None of us have ever seen this. It's new.

And that's a good thing?

I don't know,
said Heliora.
But it's new, and that means there's hope. All is not lost.

Isangell shook her head in irritation.
You'll forgive me if I find that difficult to believe. If new is so very important, why are you still here? You died.

That's a very good question,
Heliora said after a short while.
You're not like the others.

That's because she isn't one of us.
Another voice broke into the cacophony in Isangell's head.
I'm sorry about that. But you should know by now what a liar I am.

Rhian
, said Heliora.
Are you … are you dead?

Not yet. I couldn't make it all the way to the Palazzo, though. Had to send Kelpie ahead.

If you're not dead, what are you doing in here?

Please stop treating me like I'm not a part of this,
Isangell broke in.
It's my head you're using like some kind of coffee house!

Can we take all the apologies and explanations as read?
suggested Rhian.
We're running out of time. Does Kelpie have the book?

Isangell lifted her head. ‘Kelpie?'

The sentinel was sitting with her back against a broken bookcase, an elderly volume teetering on her knees. ‘Did you know that you have a whole shelf of books about the festivals of Aufleur and the history of the skywar?' she said in disbelief. ‘How did Ashiol not know this?'

‘They're books,' Isangell said in simple explanation. She didn't think Ashiol had ever opened a book in his life. ‘What do we do now?'

Hold tight
, Rhian said inside her head.
The cavalry is coming.

The library shook and buckled as if the Palazzo was coming apart all over again. The wall burst open in a shower of heat and sparks, and two figures stood there: an oddly familiar woman in a red frock like swirling water, and a very young brown-skinned demme with flames flickering along her arms and legs.

Isangell blinked. ‘Did we take tea once?'

‘Not you,' Kelpie said in astonishment, clutching one of the books to her stomach as if she feared it might be snatched away from her. ‘Can't you even die like ordinary people?'

Livilla gave a wolfish smile. ‘Is that any way to speak about your rescue party, dearling?'