Read Online Power & Majesty by Tansy Rayner Roberts - Free Book Online Page B

its rocking progression down the avenue. Isangell reached out her hand, shivering a little inthe cool air, and Ashiol wrapped his fingers around hers. Garnet’s still alive , he chanted inwardly as the pavilion rattled along. Alive, still Power and Majesty, still whole, still sane .
    In that instant, Ashiol knew that he was going to break every promise he had made to Isangell. Nothing in this city was going to stop him seeing Garnet again.
    King, my King, my King, my King.
    Velody dreamed of a battle. Lords and ladies fought the sky, throwing lightning with their fingers and shaping themselves into all manner of fearsome creatures.
    She had dreamed such things before. In particular, she had dreamed of the red-gold man who blazed at the centre of the battle, hurling balls of fire at the unseen enemy.
    He was beautiful in his passion and his violence. She could watch him for hours, dancing the sky with blood dripping down his face and hot light pouring from his fingers.
    Only this time, the sky caught him and would not let him go.
    ‘Velody.’
    She awoke in darkness, gasping for air. He was caught, he was trapped…could they pull him free this time, or would the sky swallow him?
    A hot cup was pushed into her hands and the aroma of mint and sage drowned out everything else, even the lingering memories of the dream.
    ‘You do want to catch the parade, don’t you?’ asked Rhian.
    Velody swallowed a mouthful of tisane. ‘As if I’d miss our masterpiece.’
    ‘Tell me everything about it when you get back,’ the other demme said eagerly.
    Velody drank deeper, burying her disappointment. The dress is half your work, you should see it, why aren’t you braver? ‘You know I will.’
    ‘Veeeeelodeeeee,’ sang Delphine from the door. She held a lantern, and was wrapped in just about every garment she owned. Her bobbed blonde hair was shoved under a knitted hat she had once claimed was so ugly that the creator of it should be forced to wear last year’s fashions for a decade. ‘Wrap up warm, don’t want to get cooooold!’
    ‘I think you’ll be warm enough for both of us,’ said Velody, putting down her cup. It was time to go.

13
Garnet
    I thought of them both, when the sky swallowed me. It was the nox before Floralia—the warmth of spring just beginning to touch the air. Twelve years earlier I had kissed a demoiselle on a balcony and stolen the powers that were only beginning to awake within her skin.
    Five years ago I had stolen the powers of a King, my dearest friend, and made him crawl away into exile.
    When I went into battle, I knew. I knew he had returned to the city. He was coming for me. To take back everything I had stolen. My head was full of him, and every time I forced him out of my thoughts to concentrate on the frigging battle in front of me, I saw the little brown mouse’s face before my eyes instead.
    It wasn’t that much of a kiss, but it changed my life, and his, and is it any wonder she was as tangled in my thoughts of him as her animor was tangled with his and my own?
    The three of us, warring inside my skin. Maybe that’s why it happened.
    I was caught in a rift like some frigging first-year courteso and it had to be the two of them finally getting their ownback. I couldn’t feel my legs, and I resolved to kill them both as soon as I got out of this.
    The sky dragged me deeper and I started losing it completely. I thought I heard Ashiol’s voice in my ear: ‘Remember that day when you carved three scars into my skin, and I begged you to let me go because you needed me on your side, needed me to save your arse half a dozen times a nox, and I would still do it, because you were my Power and Majesty and the best friend I ever had? Looks like I was right.’
    ‘If I’m seeing you,’ I said with a gasp, ‘does that mean I’m dead?’
    I didn’t feel dead, not yet, but then how could I tell? I couldn’t feel anything.
    ‘Not yet,’ said Ash. A damned good hallucination. He even smelled