I try to hold on to the sea of people, to Helene.
‘I. Wasn’t. Kidding.’ Shepherd’s voice spits, anger mixed with strain. ‘I can’t hold everything together for too long. Go! Away!’
I feel the last two words like punches, pushing me backward. I lose my grip on Helene. The crowd moves like one mind, a throng convulsing, getting closer and closer to Shepherd, to her supposed protection. I’m left behind, alone.
Then, a door appears amid the rubble, stark white but for its doorknob, dripping red.
‘Go,’ Shepherd’s voice insists, now pleading. ‘If you love them, go.’
Another earthquake, this one more pronounced, felt through my every bone and squishy bit. Could be my heartthat’s breaking along with the world. The door shakes, half-vanishes. A sign it won’t be there for long.
Fine, I think at Shepherd.But if you don’t take care of them, I will come back to haunt you.I take my key, grab hold of the blood-stained doorknob, and unlock it.
I can hear Shepherd exhaling in relief, then leaving my mind with a whoosh. The change in my inner circumstances propels me forward, away from all the shaking instability of Shepherd’s realm. I fall again, this time into a world of gold and ancient grudges.
It’s only when the door slams shut behind me, that I regain my balance.
And I can feel my knife back in my hand.
43. Anassa
We fly to our dusty death, like the Fates whispered, or ordered, using these words as compass.Dusty death, dusty death, dusty death.We fly blind, frantic, half burning – and then our flight is finished. A destination has been reached, unwittingly, like an unseen wall cutting up the unseen sky, forcing us to retreat. Regroup. Become less than we are, so that we can do more.
It’s disorienting, the re-becoming of oneself. My flock converges into shape, my shape, shackling itself into two hands, two feet, and two entirely unimpressive points of sight. We blink, we settle. We are me again, though I can feel them, just beneath the skin, feathers itching to burst out. I stumble on two feet and someone catches me.
Will.
‘You’re here!’ Is that relief or disbelief in his voice? ‘We thought we lost you in that wretched world of yore.’
I look around, trying to understand where we are. This is the sitting room Shepherd first confined me in, with its ink-black mortar on the walls and its views to the rose garden – but the whole wall in front of me, the one that used to hold the fireplace, has collapsed. And through the ruins I see other structures, other people. They seem frazzled. Their skin and hair and clothes are caked with clay, as if a cannon has bombarded them with brick dust. Somehave cuts on their arms, their legs, their faces, blood flowing almost onyx underneath the grime.The way to dusty death …Isn’t that what the Fates said?
‘What happened here?’ I croak, my human throat struggling to contain corvid multitudes.
‘Well …’ Will’s face looks different, and it takes me a second to understand why. His wounds have nearly healed, only the smallest scar blooming by his mouth, where Lulach’s signet ring hit him. ‘I’m not entirely certain, but I think you happened,’ Will says, touching the broken wall in front of us.
‘Don’t be absurd. I can’t have caused any explosions, this clearly looks like cannons –’
He sighs. ‘Shepherd’s kingdom is a precarious place, only safe for as long as she stays in power. And what is power but perception? Perception that you smashed, may I add, as surely as that wall, when you showed it’s possible to move across this world’s proverbial spine, find its index, flip to the chapter of your preference. You weakened the material foundations of this realm with your rebellion.’
‘And you followed suit to fetch us, feeling responsible.’
‘Yes, well, I know better now. To stop you would be trying to tame a tempest. You are your own, majestic creature, more akin to her than me.’ He points ahead.
In an opening amid the ruins, like a dais made of rubble, sits Shepherd on a giant pillow. Human, but oozing feline grace, legs tucked underneath her, gold pendants sparkling – though I see some darker spots here and there. She seems to be narrating something, a sweet story of survival for all the people gathered round her. They look at her, rapt, grateful. And by her feet, on stairs that once led somewhere, sits Gruoch.
It all comes back to me: the cell, the subterfuge, the almost sacrifice.
‘What is she doing here?’ I demand, raven claws prickling from beneath my skin like thorns, eager to gouge her eyes out.
‘Who? Ah,’ Will spots her, nodding sagely. ‘Yes, I suppose Gruoch isn’t a story character per se – although who’s to say if Holinshed’s recounting of the era didn’t embellish factsjust enoughfor fiction to seep through? And who’s to say whether our great Shepherd doesn’t offer shelter to historical figures as well, even if they’ve been depicted truthfully in chronicles? These are written words too, you understand; it’s fascinating really –’
‘Yes, fascinating,’ I agree, only half listening. Because Will’s explanations do not matter. Yes, Gruoch isn’t a story – and neither is he. Yet they’re both here, because Shepherd wanted it so.
Therefore, I ask what matters.
‘Where’s Claret?’
‘Where is Claret …’ Will repeats my question slowly, leaning on the broken wall in front of us. ‘We were travelling together, weren’t we? And we went to that Scottish castle …’ He scratches his chin, fingers lingering next to his mouth, where his new scar is.
