Reign of Beasts Read Online Free Page B

cushions. ‘See how the little rat burrows. One of us, boys. You can taste it on his skin.’
    â€˜What do you want with him?’ demanded the dark lad, whom the others called Ash. ‘He’s a sprat. Is he going to hang around and pour drinks for us for the next five years?’
    Tasha grinned. ‘Not that. I have a better idea.’ She reached out and took my chin in her hand. ‘Do you want your revenge against Saturn, ratling? Do you want to know all his secrets?’
    I forgot that I blamed her for Madalena’s death, forgot that I had to be back at the theatre by sun-up or the stagemaster would beat me, forgot that she was a lion. I just leaned into her, trusting her, because there was something about her that reminded me of what it was like to have a mother, of how it felt to be loved.
    Tasha embraced me lightly, as Madalena had sometimes when she was feeling her years. ‘Do you like me, little rat?’
    â€˜You smell of sunshine,’ I muttered, half out of my senses. I had no idea what was happening, but everything about her drew me in, making me trust her.
    Tasha laughed. ‘Hear that, my cubs? The boy’s a poet.’
    And she tore me into pieces.

4
One day after the Ides of Bestialis
    S unlight shone into the broken theatre through holes in the walls and the sagging ceiling, catching motes of dust. The last of the bodies had been carried out by daybreak, but the place still smelled of death.
    Isangell, the Duchessa d’Aufleur, had awoken to the news that there had been a disaster in the Vittorine. The Proctor of that district was overwhelmed by distraught and protesting citizens, and had sent to the Palazzo begging for more lictors to protect himself and his family.
    The day after an Ides was traditionally nefas: ill luck. It was hard to argue with that tradition on a morning like this.
    Isangell stepped into the ruined theatre, shivering at the sight of the damage. Broken glass was everywhere, thick slabs of it, some of the edges still black and crimson with dried blood.
    â€˜We will need to perform a cleansing ritual,’ said the Matrona Irea in a solemn voice. By virtue of her senior position in the Priestesses of Ires, she was the only woman apart from Isangell herself who served as one of the City Fathers.
    The Master of Saints, an elderly thin man with a hooked nose who had terrified Isangell when she was a child, snorted. ‘Raze it to the ground,’ he suggested. ‘No amount of ritual can return fortune to this place.’
    â€˜A blood sacrifice could do it,’ grunted Brother Typhisus of the Silver Brethren.
    â€˜Hasn’t there been blood enough?’ demanded Matrona Irea, and promptly launched into a lecture about the healing properties of honey cakes and blessed water while the other priests scoffed at her.
    Isangell ignored the three of them, walking further into the theatre. She had dreamt of such places as a child, had begged her mother to let her attend a pantomime or a harlequinade. She’d had a book full of columbines in pretty gowns like flower petals, and had imagined quite seriously running away to sing and dance with the theatricals. Her mama had informed her in a haughty voice that musettes and columbine halls were not for respectable people. The closest Isangell had been to such shows in her childhood were the circuses at the sacred games, with an occasional tumbler, songsmith or dancer thrown in between the many ritualised fights and battles.
    When she was older, she had disguised herself as a commoner and snuck into performances at the Argentia and some of the other musettes. It was a delicious secret, one she had shared with no one but her dressmaker.
    This was awful. Broken statues and blocks of stone, all a strange buttery colour, had smashed one of the balconies, and lay scattered across the stage.
    Isangell pulled herself up onto the stage, feeling as if she did not belong there. She wasn’t about to