Power & Majesty (22 page)

The artists’ blood had been mixed with resin, and Garnet himself gleefully added splashes of it here and there across the walls, to make the fight scenes between lions and eagles and bears ‘more realistic’. That was the day Ashiol had lost hope that his Garnet would be a different, better Power and Majesty than his predecessors.

Garnet’s madness came as a surprise to no one else. The entire Court had seen it as…inevitable, really.

Stairways and ladders led up and around in all directions, to the various galleries and balconies that lined the walls and upper levels of the Haymarket. Ashiol hesitated. Would Livilla be in her old rooms, or had she already taken over Garnet’s quarters? There were no other Lords to challenge her for the space—or were there?

He realised now that he had been so wrapped up in self-pity and his desire to get out of the city that he had never asked Kelpie to complete her report on who was still around. She was nearby with Macready, but so were half a dozen unfamiliar courtesi, watching Ashiol with the eyes of cautious animals. He couldn’t call her forward here and ask for more details within earshot of them all. It would make him look weak.

Five Lords, Kelpie had said. Ashiol knew about Poet, Priest, Livilla and Dhynar. Who was the fifth? There was Lief, of course. He was still alive when Ashiol left the Court. But Lief ’s hounds ran with Dhynar now—Ashiol had recognised them when they attacked him in the Gardens of Trajus. That almost certainly meant that Lief was dead. The fifth Lord must be newer, one of the courtesi who had risen in the ranks since Ashiol was last in the Court.

There were Lords nearby. He could feel Livilla’s presence,
above him in Garnet’s old rooms. He could practically hear the thud of her heart beating beneath her skin. But there was another Lord too, here in the heart of Garnet’s territory. A familiar scent, and Ashiol’s heart turned over as he realised the truth.

He knew who the fifth Lord was.

Wrapping his enhanced Lord form around him like a shield, Ashiol made for the main staircase. As he did so, a dark figure appeared at the top of it, gazing down with unfriendly eyes.

‘Mars,’ said Ashiol.

‘They call me Warlord now,’ said the fifth Lord of the Court in his rich, deep voice. ‘Welcome home, Ash.’ As his foot hit the second step, he shaped himself into a panther and leaped into empty space.

Most of the Creature Court started their lives out low, street brats like Hel and Livilla, orphans and wanderers like Priest and Poet. Ashiol was a rare exception: a nobleman with a real home and a family who had watched his descent into the darkness with fear in their eyes. They thought he was running with street gangs, rebelling against the restrictive life of the Palazzo. They thought he was into knives and drugs and crime. They thought he was a bad seed, in with a bad crowd.
Seven hells, it’s not like they were wrong.

Ashiol rose to Lord less than a year after Garnet killed Tasha. Once they were equal in status again, they had returned to being close as they had always been—friends, brothers. But Garnet wasn’t Ashiol’s brother. He came from a family of peasants and servants, and although he knew the price of family disappointment, it was nothing like the weight Ashiol had to live with every day.

The Creature Court was full of Lords and Kings, but none of them had actually been born noble. They were all in love with their hierarchy and power games, and not one of them had the blood of an aristocrat. Then Mars came along, and finally Ashiol had someone who understood.

Ashiol had been in the Creature Court for six years and he felt like he owned the world. Nine-year-old Comtessilla Isangell had recovered from her early childhood illnesses that had so frightened the family, and it was looking less and less likely that he would face the horrific fate of ruling the damn city some day. But while Ashiol spent every nox with the Creature Court, he was still expected to make appearances at the Palazzo among the daylight folk. He had gained a reputation among his grandfather’s court for being disreputable and possibly mad, which had the strange effect of drawing young noblewomen to him like moths to a candle flame.

Every time he went back to the daylight to attend one of his uncle’s salons under the watchful eyes of the Old Duc and Duchessa, Ashiol promised himself that this would be the last time. He would disappear into the nox once and for all and bury himself in the Creature Court, leaving behind the disapproving glares of his family.

And just when he thought he couldn’t stand it any longer, there was Mars. Maziz dal Sara was fifteen, the swarthy son of the new Zafiran ambassador who was a princel in his own land. Mars was young and handsome, surprisingly confident for one so young. The keen young noblewomen who usually worried their mothers by flocking around Ashiol smiled and winked at the newcomer instead.

Ashiol watched the ambassador’s son all that first nox, his eyes on the dark boy as he turned about the dance floor and escorted lady after lady to the supper table. Maziz dal Sara made easy pleasantries with the Duc and Duchessa, and skilfully evaded the flirtatious gaze of the Ducomte Artorio as well as that of his neglected wife, the Ducomtessa Eglantine. Ashiol watched until he was absolutely certain. It was in the way the boy walked and held himself, in the gleam in his eye and bite of his teeth as he ate slices of smoked ham and raw fish—never the vegetable florets or sugared fruits.

Finally their paths crossed, and a tipsy Baronissa introduced them.

‘So, my Lord Comte,’ laughed young Maziz dal Sara. ‘What do you think of me?’

‘I can’t quite decide,’ said Ashiol.

‘Now don’t be jealous, Ashie, you know I adore you most of all,’ hiccuped the Baronissa, amused at the thought that the two men might fight over her.

Ashiol couldn’t remember her name then, let alone now.

‘Can’t decide what?’ challenged the Zafiran ambassador’s son.

‘Whether it’s gattopardo or tigris. Some kind of cat, I know that much.’ Ashiol smiled too, a disconcerting sight rarely seen in the daylight. ‘It’s my business to know.’

The boy’s eyes faltered for a moment, then he grinned and resumed his relaxed composure. ‘Panther,’ he said. ‘As it happens.
Khatri zaba
in my own language.’

Later, when nox was fully dark and both young men had made excuses to their respective guardians, they ran together on the roofs of Aufleur. By morning, Ashiol had his first courteso.

Ashiol bucked against the heaviness of the Panther Lord, twisting so as not to be pinned to the ground by his weight. He could fight this battle in two-leg form—hells, he could shape himself into his collection of tom cats and still beat the bastard into submission. But that wasn’t what today was about. Today was about demonstrating how easily he could take power.

Ashiol went chimaera and tore the panther to pieces.

When it was over, Mars lay bleeding, too wrecked to be anything other than himself. ‘I’d forgotten,’ he gasped. Blood bubbled up through his lips.

There wasn’t a mark on Ashiol as he stood above the other man. His long black coat was barely damaged, but the transformation had ripped his shirt into shreds down
the front and back. Amazingly, the breeches were still in one piece—the blazing power of the chimaera had split holes in the leather here and there, but Velody’s seams held true. The boots were ruined, the soles having half-exploded with the force of the change. ‘Forgotten what?’

‘How frigging good you are.’ There was a long pause. ‘Majesty.’

Ashiol stared down at the Lord who had once been his friend, who had laughed with him and stood at his side for so long. They had fucked women together—hells, they had fucked each other on a few very memorable occasions. Mars was
his
. A thrill and shiver passed through Ashiol’s body as the title was acknowledged. Part of him was screaming,
Velody, save me from this.
The other part was saying,
Why the hells not?

He nodded to the shadows, where he could smell Mars’s courtesi hovering anxiously. ‘Do what you can with him.’

A striped brock crawled towards his master, shaping into a short, muscled young man as he did so. He was followed by an elegant greymoon cat with lustrous eyes. When the cat reached Mars’s struggling, bloodied body, it became a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman who nodded respectfully at Ashiol before she bent over her master. They had a choice now—to huddle close and let him die in order to quench his power, or to make him whole again.

The woman—she was familiar, Ashiol thought, perhaps she had been a courtesa in the old days, under Lief or Lysandor or Celeste—drew a line of blood in her own throat with a sharpened fingernail and held herself over Mars so that he could drink. With loyalty like that, he would heal and recover.

Ashiol kicked off the remains of his latest pair of ruined boots and continued up the stairs unchallenged. At the top, he turned without thinking towards where he knew Livilla was.

A courteso stood in his way, fierce and uncompromising.
He was so young it made Ashiol’s teeth ache. This lad couldn’t have been halfway through his teens and here he was, dressed like a warrior in hard brown leathers with a silver wolf tattooed on his bare left shoulder. He was probably servicing Livilla on a regular basis, and would have killed for her at least once.

Ashiol had wondered what Livilla had turned into during his absence, and now he knew the truth. She had turned into Tasha.

‘She’s busy,’ said the lad in a clipped voice, like he meant business, like he didn’t care that the man before him was a Creature King and had taken out the Panther Lord without even blinking.

Ashiol remembered sounding this tough, feeling this brave. He knew how easy it was to twist that confidence into something ugly. He stared at the lad for a full minute, watching impatience and stupid bravado flicker through the dark brown eyes.

The lad moved first, an attack blow, and Ashiol moved second. Within another minute he was holding the lad to the floor, arms bent up in a painful manner, knee inserted in his back, half his weight pressed hard into the limp, beaten body. ‘I am your Power and Majesty, boy,’ he said in a low voice, near the lad’s ear. ‘What am I?’

Livilla’s lad let out a whine that might have had the words ‘power’ and ‘majesty’ in it.

‘Say it again. Say it better.’

‘Power an’ Majesty.’

‘Good.’

The lad hadn’t even thought to shape into the wolf that Ashiol could feel lurking under his skin. It should have been instinctual, but he was in too much pain to let instinct set in.

Livilla’s taste in pretty boys was going to get her killed. They weren’t much use in a fight.

‘Stay down,’ said Ashiol, and pushed open the door to Garnet’s bedchamber.

Two long bodies lay on top of the silken covers of the bed. Livilla’s pale limbs showed up beautifully beside her dark lover, her second courteso. Ashiol looked the young man over—late teens, not as young as the other—and saw the ghost of raven feathers in his black hair.

‘And here I thought I was giving you a chance to tidy up before I came in,’ Ashiol drawled.

Livilla’s pale face was made harder by the severe style of her dark hair, cut to her chin in the new fashion. Her lips were plum red and her eyes glittered. She didn’t say anything.

It was the dark courteso who moved, rolling to his feet and staring Ashiol down. ‘Get out,’ he said in a snarl so full of self-importance that Ashiol almost laughed in his face.

‘Livilla, which bit of him do you like best? I’d be happy to bite it off as a keepsake for you to remember him by.’

She tilted her head a little and licked her dark lips.

Ashiol eyed the raven courteso up and down. ‘Go and see to your brother courteso,’ he suggested in a low voice. ‘He’s hurt out there.’

‘I won’t leave her,’ said the raven.

‘Nice sentiment, if I was a Creature Lord looking to slice her in two and suck out her animor. That’s not what I am, and that’s not why I’m here.’

‘Janvier,’ said Livilla in her clear, childish voice, ‘go and look after Seonard. My Ash won’t hurt me.’

Ashiol was interested to hear that. ‘Confident, aren’t you?’

She reached for a black robe and draped it over her naked paleness, not hurrying. ‘Confident, yes.’ She lifted a fancy cigarette-holder from her bedside table and held it out for Ashiol to light like the nobleman he was.

Janvier hesitated, evidently torn between the threat he thought that Ashiol posed to his mistress and the cosy exchange that was now taking place between them. He must have been trained not to interfere between Livilla
and her other lovers, particularly when one of them was a Creature King. Ashiol lifted the gold lighter from the table and flicked it, lighting Livilla’s cigarette. Janvier left.

Livilla sucked on the end of her cigarette-holder and smiled.

Ashiol had thought of a hundred things he wanted to say to her, but now he couldn’t remember a single one. This wasn’t the demoiselle he knew. It was a parody of her. A parody of all the women who had been touched by the Creature Court.

This is what Velody would turn into, if I had my way.

That made his mind up for him. If he was going to be a monster, then fine. Let him be the monster. He would do it the good old-fashioned way instead of corrupting a sensible young woman for his own selfish needs.

‘On your feet,’ he said, making it an order.

Livilla’s eyes flashed a moment of defiance, and then she relaxed against her pillows and inhaled a slow curl of perfumed smoke. The scent of it made Ash want to claw his own throat out.

‘One of those useless sentinels broke my leg in the last skybattle,’ she said. ‘I can’t stand up.’

Ashiol eyed her bare legs. A thin, lacy bandage was strategically tied around her left ankle. ‘Are you telling me that with two juicy boys at your disposal, you haven’t been able to suck enough bodily fluids in two days to heal that?’

She pouted her painted lips around the stem of the cigarette-holder. ‘It’s mostly healed. It still hurts when I stand on it.’

Ashiol reached out and pulled the cigarette from the holder, pinching it out and hurling it aside. She looked faintly ridiculous now, with the holder hanging from her mouth. He pulled that out too and tossed it to the floor. He took her throat in his right hand and squeezed. ‘Show me how much it hurts.’