Iron Kin: A Novel of the Half-Light City (26 page)

Chapter Fifteen

S
ASKIA

The
sounds of explosions—screams and rumbles and a overwhelming smothering, roaring noise that punched into my ears—crashed around me as Fen pulled me out of my chair and down to the floor, throwing himself on top of me as debris rained from the ceiling.

My back hit the marble, which shook below me. With no metal in the building, I had no way to tell what was happening. A steady rain of small pieces of debris struck the parts of me not covered by Fen, but I didn’t feel any larger blows. I twisted my head, tried to push Fen away a little so that I could move, but he only pressed me more firmly into the floor.

“Stay
down
.”

Idiot man. I could probably do more to protect myself than he could in this situation. But he was too heavy to dislodge.

“Tell me what’s happening,” I demanded.

His face was close to mine, smudged with a dark streak of something across one cheek. A trickle of blood oozed from a slice above his eyebrow, the flow thickening as his brows drew down. “Something blew up.” His voice seemed to come from far away, distorted by the ringing in my ears.

“I know that,” I said sharply. “Are you hurt? You’re bleeding.”

He shook his head, as though he was more trying to clear his ears than to answer my question.

“What about you?” I shook my head in turn. I couldn’t feel anything immediately painful, so presumably there was nothing worth worrying about.

Fen lifted his head sharply as Guy’s voice cut through the roar in my ears, calling my name. “Stay down,” he repeated. His weight vanished from me as he lifted himself to a crouching position. “We’re here,” he called.

His movement cleared my line of sight and I stared up at the gaping hole in the ceiling. The air was full of ashes and bits of falling—well, I wasn’t entirely sure what they were other than the fact that they were on fire. I pushed myself up to a seated position carefully, checking for any protesting muscles or bones. I took a deep breath—a mistake—then coughed as the smoke hit my lungs. Fen’s head twisted back toward me. He glared.

“I’m still down,” I said. Though I didn’t intend to stay that way for very much longer. My back hurt where I’d hit the floor and the sleeve of my dress was torn, but I seemed otherwise unharmed. Which meant I should start helping those who were hurt.

Guy’s face suddenly loomed above me, peering over the remains of the row of chairs in front of us. “Are you two all right?” His voice was faint but clear.

I nodded while Fen said, “Yes.”

Guy’s answering nod was brisk. “Good. Let’s move.”

Fen reached down and grabbed my hand, pulling me carefully upward as he stood. “Where?”

“Out of here,” Guy said shortly. “The building is on fire.”

“But—” I started to protest.

Guy slashed a hand through the air, cutting me off. “No arguments. You’re leaving.”

“Where’s Simon?”

“He’s fine. He’s helping people.”

“I can help.”

“No.” Guy reached across Fen to take my arm. “Let’s go.”

I looked around the room. Chaos reigned. There were bodies sprawled across the floor and some of the rows of seats. Those who were moving were either doing so dazedly or pushing and shoving toward the doors. In the Beast Kind area nearest the door, a whole section of chairs about fifteen feet across had seemingly vanished. Where were the delegates?

I peered harder through the smoky air and started to pick out bloody shapes. Too small to be whole bodies. I swallowed hard, then coughed again, fighting the urge to spit ash and bile.
Sainted earth
. Who had done this?

Guy tugged on my arm and we moved as quickly as we could along the row of broken seats toward the aisle. The human section seemed to have been spared too much damage. I didn’t see any bodies, at least. But when I reached the aisle and turned to look back down at the speaking floor I saw something that made my stomach heave.

“Sweet Lady,” I said. “Guy, is that . . .” I turned away, not wanting to look at the crumpled figure of the Speaker for the Veil lying across the golden ring of the speaker’s circle. A massive spike of darkened wood speared his side. The uncanny stillness of his pose and the huge pool of blood spreading across the marble floor made it clear there was no hope he had survived.

Where was the queen?

I searched the room and found her. No longer robed in white, her twisting veils turned pitch black, she stood stock-still in front of the chair that was hers, staring down at the Speaker, heedless of the rest of the chaos around her.

Sainted bloody earth. The Speaker was dead. And the queen’s veils were black. Guy was right—we needed to get out of here.
Fast
.

People were going to die.

I hastened my steps, but before I’d moved even a few feet down the aisle there was a second thunderclap of sound. All around me, people flung themselves down, arms wrapped around their heads protectively. But this sound wasn’t followed by a blast and flying debris.

No, instead, in its wake it left a ringing silence, as the flames died and the air cleared. I felt the sizzling sting of wild, powerful magic scrape across my skin and rose to my feet cautiously, unsure what had just happened. Everyone else was doing the same thing. One by one, we turned toward the queen, who stood in the middle of the room, with her hands raised.

“Who,” she demanded, “has done this thing?”

The silence was absolute. The feeling of power rolled across the room again, making the air close around me like the pressure before a storm. The jewels on the queen’s hands sparked color like fireworks.

“Who?” she repeated, her voice full of a rage so deep it seemed as though it might drown us all.

Nobody answered. Which, given the tug and roil of the magic she was pouring into us, I had to imagine meant that whoever it was either wasn’t in the room or lay amongst the dead. No one could have resisted the urge to speak in the face of that terrible voice.

Not unless they were protected by magics I couldn’t even begin to imagine. The hall’s wards were meant to prevent such a thing.

The queen’s veils whipped and coiled around her, edged with dark light, as though lightning bolts might spring from them at any second. She was the Fae queen. The gods-damned Fae
queen
. She could raze the City if she chose.

“Who?”
she said again, and this time I heard not just rage but grief in her voice. Grief like ice and darkness. I shivered and reached blindly behind me for someone, anyone, to shelter me against the weight of it. I felt a hand grip mine and knew it was Fen, but I couldn’t look away from the queen to turn to the comfort of his touch.

“Justice will be done,” she said. “Until then, these negotiations are ended.”

“Somebody has to stop her,” I said to Guy. Around us, everybody seemed to be standing frozen in place. The only figures moving in the entire room were those working on the wounded and the Fae who had started to swirl protectively around the queen.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Guy said, staring at the queen.

“Seconded,” Fen agreed.

“The negotiations have to go ahead. If they don’t, then whoever did this will try and take advantage. They could end the treaty. She knows you,” I said to Guy. “She might listen to you.”

Several of the Fae had knelt beside the Speaker’s body and were covering it with a cloth produced from gods knew where. “You have to try.”

Guy’s face was grim, but he nodded, once. “I’ll try. If she kills me, then I’m telling Holly it was your fault.”

I wasn’t sure how that would work, but I wasn’t going to argue. If Guy could make any kind of a joke right now, no matter how feeble, then he must not be too worried that the queen actually would kill him. He sheathed his sword as he descended to the floor. Before he got within fifteen feet of the speaker’s circle, he was surrounded by Fae guards, bristling with weapons. He held up his hands, stopped where he was.

“My name,” he said carefully, “is Sir Guy DuCaine. I wish to speak to the queen.”

The queen’s head turned slightly, but then she focused back on those tending to the Speaker.

“Her Majesty will be leaving,” one of the guards said, his voice no less icy than the queen’s had been. “Stay where you are, human.”

Guy, wisely, didn’t move. He did, however, raise his voice. He was a Templar knight, used to working in noisy situations. He knew how to make himself heard.

“Your Majesty,” he called. “Please. Listen to me.”

This time her head turned fully, the veils writhing like serpents. “Do you know who did this, Templar?” she asked.

“No, Your Majesty.”

I held my breath, watching. For a moment I thought she was going to be reasonable, but, “Then you are no use to me. Be silent.” Her hand snapped out and Guy’s mouth snapped shut.

Holy mother of . . . Had the queen just cast a spell on a Templar knight?

If that was true, then we were indeed in deep, deep trouble.

Guy’s face turned thunderous, but he didn’t say anything more. I didn’t know if it was because he couldn’t or because he had decided that discretion was the better part of valor if he was to avoid being turned into a frog or incinerated by a fireball, but no one else tried to approach the queen in the few minutes before the Speaker’s body was fully wrapped and then carried—floated—out of the hall.

* * *

The minute the last of the Fae passed through the charred and shattered doorway, the noise in the hall erupted again with a vengeance. Everyone, it seemed, started talking at once. I ran down to Guy. “Can you speak?”

He shook his head. I turned to Fen, who was right on my heels. “Find Simon. Or Bryony.”

He nodded. I patted Guy’s arm, trying not to notice the fury in his eyes and the too white knuckles tightened around his sword hilt. He was furious. He jerked his head toward the door.

“Nobody is going anywhere just yet,” I said. It wasn’t strictly true. The Blood and Beast Kin delegates were streaming out of the hall, some escorting the injured or carrying bodies. Their expressions were a mixture—shaken, terrified, oddly calm, intent. The humans were hanging back, probably thinking it was wise not to get caught up amongst a crowd of Night Worlders just yet.

Fen returned, with Bryony right behind him.

The Fae healer looked at Guy with a careful expression, then laid a hand on his arm. The strain on her face eased a little. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s just a glamour. It will wear off in a little while.”

“Can’t you remove it?” I asked.

Bryony shook her head. “Saskia, if I could undo enchantments wrought by the queen, I would
be
the queen. It will wear off. It’s not hurting, is it, Guy?”

He shook his head, but I wasn’t sure I entirely believed him.

“Good,” Bryony said. “Then we should leave. This building can’t be safe, particularly not now that the queen has gone. And we need to make plans.”

Plans for what exactly? Hunting down whoever had done this? How on earth were we supposed to do that? Someone had subverted the wards of the Treaty Hall and managed to kill the Speaker for the Veil. Anyone with that sort of power wasn’t going to be easy to find.

Still, I couldn’t argue with the proposal to leave. There wasn’t much metal in the building—only the small traces in the stones it was constructed from and some of the furniture—but I could feel the strain in what little there was, the tiny faltering song of it speaking of stresses almost beyond bearing. Whatever magics had held the hall together for all this time had been torn, if not snuffed out altogether, and I would be surprised if it didn’t collapse. Soon.

So I did as I was told, helping to gather the wounded and the still standing and herding them through our retreat back out into the night.

F
EN

* * *

The Beasts and the Blood had vanished into the darkness by the time we got the last of the human delegation out of the hall. There was no sign of the Fae either, not that I had expected there would be. No, they would be headed back to Summerdale, speeding their queen to safety.

Fuck the Veil.

This was a disaster beyond anything we could have expected. The queen had shut down the negotiations. My days of being tutored hadn’t made me into an expert in treaty law, but even I knew that with no negotiations, the treaty stood to fail.