“Yours.” Her voice was cold, but she was shaking. “Take it back, and don’t ever bother us. Ever again.”
Her skin was alight with magic—the strongest of all of them, though she was seven years old and looked heartbreakingly small compared to Morningstar. His hand tensed—he could easily backhand her to the cobblestones. Emmanuelle found herself, futilely, reaching out—knowing she’d be too late.
A cold, sliding sound. Morningstar’s mouth opened—made no sound, only gushed blood. He had a shocked expression as he collapsed to the cobblestones. Darrias, breathing hard, withdrew the dagger she’d stabbed him with—and knelt, drawing it in one smooth, easy movement across his throat, even as her other hand sent burning fire into his chest.
It shouldn’t have worked. One couldn’t kill a Fallen so smoothly, so easily. One couldn’t kill Lucifer Morningstar, first and foremost of all Fallen, founder of House Silverspires, like that. Emmanuelle found herself biting back a scream—but of course he was weak, his magic spent fighting Guy. Fighting for her sake.
It shouldn’t have worked. But blood tinged with light fountained out from his throat, eagerly lapped up by the cobblestones. Darrias held him with practiced ease as he writhed and flopped and finally fell still, and the light fled in a rush from his gray skin, like the sun overtaken by clouds.
The woman said, slowly, carefully, “Darrias?”
“It’s all right,” Darrias said. She sat holding Morningstar’s corpse, her face graven in shock. “We’re safe now, Frédérique. We’re all safe.”
They all looked as though they didn’t believe her, didn’t believe that their ordeal had ended. What had Morningstar done to them? What atrocities had he committed, in the name of his survival, in the name of House Silverspires’ survival?
Some things can’t be atoned for.
Emmanuelle found herself staring upwards, at the sky slowly blurring into unfocused insignificance—at the distant light that might have been the City, that might have been a glint of glory on angels’ wings.
Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be they name…
Please forgive us our trespasses…
Please take him home.
TWENTY-FOUR
Coming Home
Aurore woke up, disoriented. For a brief, panicked moment she thought she was back in House Hawthorn’s hospital, but then she saw that she lay on Marianne’s bed in the flat.
“Big sis.” It was Cassiopée’s voice, thick with relief.
“Mamma mamma!” Marianne came barreling from the other room, struggling to climb on the bed. “Mamma awake.”
She’d thought everything would hurt, but she just felt… exhausted. Alive when she had no right to be so.
“How…?” she asked.
“You were healed.”
A man detached himself from the wall of the room. She’d seen him before, but couldn’t place him—and then it hit her like a blow to the gut. Dân Chay. Behind him was a glowering woman in an old-fashioned, elaborate ao dai. The cloth was so new and so finely embroidered it was almost incongruous.
“You…” She tried to speak, but it came out as a croak. “You tried to burn us.”
Low, amused laughter. “I’ve had… a change of heart. Don’t worry. Your community is safe.”
The woman behind him glowered even harder.
Aurore was too tired to even attempt to be diplomatic.
“I don’t understand.”
Dân Chay came to sit by the foot of the bed, ignoring Marianne’s attempts to bounce up and down on it. When he moved, she could see the shadow of fire, clinging to the cloth of his tunic.
“I mean you no harm, child. But I know what you did. And why Philippe couldn’t heal you.”
Aurore looked up. The room was suddenly very conspicuously empty of adults, Cassiopée and the woman having withdrawn to the kitchen to talk in low voices.
“I’m not ashamed,” she snapped.
While that was debatable, she certainly wasn’t going to be lectured by him, change of heart or not.
An amused snort. “I understand hunger, believe me. And the thirst for revenge.”
“Not revenge,” Aurore said. Marianne was now attempting to burrow into her chest. Aurore held her, ignoring the winces of pain from her ribs. “Safety.”
Dân Chay’s face didn’t move.
“I don’t understand why I’m alive,” Aurore said. “The House died.”
“The House was killed,” Dân Chay said. “The other Houses are still tearing themselves apart, preying on their own dependents to survive.” A pause. “They won’t survive, either.”
“Good.” Aurore didn’t even attempt to hide the viciousness from her voice. Why should she? “And you—?”
“Oh, I’m leaving,” Dân Chay said. Another smile, revealing teeth too sharp and yellow to be human. “You gave everything you had to House Hawthorn, didn’t you? Hollowed yourself out in the name of power.”
Aurore thought, again, of the rush of joy when she’d drained Niraphanes. Of Aunt Ha’s horrified face after her healing. Of standing up to the child of thorns, shaking and struggling to hold her own spell.
“I have no regrets.” And then, in a lower voice, because he was there, because he was a stranger and wouldn’t judge her the way the community did, “Tools that cannot be controlled have to be set aside. Or destroyed.”
A head cocked, considering. “Don’t blame yourself. The Houses have always been hungry, and always turned on their own to ensure their own survival. It would have happened, to someone else, if not to you. Not all power is doomed to be uncontrollable.” Dân Chay smiled again. “And you can’t heal a hollow thing, but you can fill it with new power. And, as I said, I’ve always had a soft spot for hunger.”
He extended a hand. A flame of khi fire danced, trembling and stubborn, on the darkness of his palm—except that it was the color of his skin. And Aurore felt something move within her in answer, sluggish and tentative, a warmth like breathed-on embers.
“I… I don’t know what it means,” she said.
Dân Chay smiled. “Everyone can learn to manipulate the khi elements, given enough time and study. I’ve just given you a head start, when it comes to using khi fire. Enough knowledge to make it answer to you more easily.”
“Why?”
“Consider it… a parting gift,” Dân Chay said. “And a thank you, for trying to protect me against Morningstar, back in House Harrier.”
Back in Harrier’s ruined armory, when they’d found the box. When she’d told Morningstar to leave Dân Chay alone, that he’d hurt Dân Chay enough and that he needed to stop. It felt like a lifetime ago. Her cheeks burned. It had been the height of foolhardiness.
“I didn’t do much of anything,” she said, looking away from him.
“And I’m not giving you much in return,” Dân Chay said. “I’m leaving. Back to Annam. I don’t imagine you’d want to go there.”
“I’ve got nothing to do with Annam,” Aurore said stiffly.
Another amused snort. “Not quite true, is it? But I understand the sentiment.”
He rose, started to walk away. At the door, he stopped, watching her with no expression on his face. His eyes shone golden, and for a moment only she saw the vertical slits of a tiger’s gaze instead of a human one.
“It wouldn’t have been fair to leave this as a surprise. That way you know. What it all means…” He shrugged. “Many things are up to you, child.”
And then he was gone.
“What did he want?” Cassiopée asked.
“I don’t know,” Aurore said.
She extended a hand, the way he had; felt the slight tug of fire within her. Hollow, he had said. She didn’t feel hollow. Just exhausted and wrung out and unsure of what anything was going to be like, anymore.
* * *
“You have visitors,” Cassiopée said.
Aurore, startled, looked up from her bed. Marianne was sleeping in her lap, contentedly wrapped up around her
mother’s legs. Aurore felt all she did was sleep, and watch the world pass her by. She’d offered to help with the reconstruction effort—she could have cooked for people, or sewn clothes—but Cassiopée had been adamant she needed to not fall over when she got up first.
“Visitors?”
They were already crowding behind Cassiopée: a Fallen she didn’t recognize, wearing the colors of Hawthorn. For a panicked heartbeat Aurore thought they’d come for her again, but then she saw Frédérique and Nicolas by the Fallen’s side.
“This is Darrias,” Frédérique said.
The Fallen had a shaved head, and an elaborate set of henna markings on her skin that looked like words.
Her wife. Aurore looked at her. Darrias looked back, levelly.
“I came to thank you,” she said, inclining her head. “For saving my family.”
For almost killing them. Aurore’s mouth clamped on the words. Darrias was still speaking.
“I think Frédérique wanted a longer word with you.”
She inclined her head again as she left. Nicolas nodded at Aurore, and left with Darrias.
It was just her and Frédérique. They stared at each other, for a while, awkwardly.
“How are you?” Frédérique asked. She looked thin and gaunt, and the Hawthorn uniform sat awkwardly on her frame.
Aurore tried to shrug. “I’ve been better. You?”
Frédérique’s lips tightened. “Healed, mostly.”
“Virginie—?”
“She’ll be fine,” Frédérique said. “And we have Darrias.”
But they had lost Niraphanes.
“I’m sorry,” Aurore said, finally.
Dân Chay’s face swam in front of her. Something warm and alien shifted within her, the same fire that had been steadily growing in her.
Don’t blame yourself.
As if he really understood what contrition was.
Frédérique shook her head. “Don’t be. If you hadn’t been there—if you hadn’t killed the birds—we wouldn’t have survived.”
“You know what happened.”
“Of course,” Frédérique said. “I won’t forget it. But I can still acknowledge the good. You should, too.”
“You didn’t have to carry me back,” Aurore said. “When I collapsed.”
“Don’t be absurd.” Frédérique looked at Marianne’s sleeping face. The child moved. Aurore stroked her head, gently, rhythmically. A sigh. “I wanted to protect my family. I let them take Virginie. I let them teach her. I did worse than you.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“Sharing blame?” Frédérique shrugged, again. “I didn’t come here for that. I just wanted to let you know how we were.”
“And to tell me we probably shouldn’t see each other again,” Aurore said, shrewdly.
Frédérique was silent, for a while.
“I should, shouldn’t I? That’s what Darrias would say, but Darrias’s hands aren’t exactly clean either.”
She fished into her pocket and laid a paper on the bed. It was a white cardboard piece with elaborate gilded patterns of flowers: the old invitations sent for parties or weddings, with Hawthorn’s crest at the bottom.
Aurore stared at it for a while: it represented a world she’d never moved in, and never would. She opened her mouth, but Frédérique got there first.
“I thought it looked pretty, and we have so few of these left. But you don’t need it per se if you want to visit.” She rose, graceful and fluid.
Asmodeus’s House. The children’s House. Aurore’s hand strayed to her chest, where the disk had once been.
“Thank you. I’ll think on it.”
Frédérique’s smile was brief, but for that moment it changed her entire face, smoothing away the gauntness and making her stand taller.
“Until we meet again.”
Cassiopée showed them out in silence, and then came back into the room.
“What was that about?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet.”
Aurore picked up the piece of cardboard, held it to the light. It gleamed, like liquid gold.
She set it down, and picked up the cup by her bedside table. Then, as carefully as if she were flexing an unfamiliar muscle, she called on the fire within her. It took three tries before it would even answer; but when she did, light danced within the water, washes of reds and oranges sparkling against the glass, glinting like a thin layer of crystal.
Power. Magic. She looked at the cardboard again—saw herself at the gates of Hawthorn, walking into the House with that fire within her held like her lifeline.
“Until we meet again,” she said, aloud.
And now she knew they would.
* * *
“You’re fidgeting,” Selene said.
“Not at all,” Emmanuelle said.
She’d put on a somber scarf to cover her hair, and a simple and sober dark dress to match. Black didn’t suit her, but she was the partner of the head of the House, and it was all but required at funerals.
Selene came to stand in front of her, frowning—and then bent down, arms wrapped around her, for a kiss. It was so good it was startling. Emmanuelle let desire arch up her spine, send quivering warmth in her entire body.
When she came up for air, she said, “This isn’t—”
“Appropriate?” Selene arched an eyebrow. “You’ll forgive me. I have some catching up I’m desperate for.” She kissed Emmanuelle again, this time a shorter, almost playful embrace.
The clock on the mantelpiece struck a quarter to one. Selene straightened up.
“Time.” She cast a critical eye at Emmanuelle. “I’m not even sure you should be there.”
“Try and stop me,” Emmanuelle said.
Aragon had been more reluctant than Selene to let her out of hospital, but even he had had to admit that her presence was necessary.
They walked out of their quarters, and into the corridors of the House.
It was a ruin now, a jumbled mass of banyan roots and collapsed corridors. Entire wings were open to the wind and rain, the faded wallpaper peeling off. But they’d stretched tarpaulins over broken roofs, and erected tents in the courtyard—and all the ruined buildings were full of Houseless refugees. Emmanuelle had never seen so many children in the House.
Inside the ruin of Notre-Dame, Morningstar’s throne still stood empty. But, where the burned pews had been, a crowd was waiting for them, facing the pyre where Morningstar’s body lay.
They had buried most of the bodies, or left them on ice in the common morgue so people could find their family. But Selene had been adamant on this one. Emmanuelle understood: it was a symbol, and it sent a simple, devastating statement. No one would scavenge Morningstar’s magic. He had once belonged to House Silverspires, but the order of things had changed.
“For you are dust, and to dust you shall return…” Father Javier’s reedy voice, rising in the broken church, speaking the words he no longer believed.
In front of him, the crowd—the dependents, the Houseless, the Annamites and the other natives. An old Annamite woman standing next to Philippe with the bearing of a queen, and a black man wearing a kaftan and ample yellow agbada with elaborate embroidery around the sleeves and neck; the exhausted Hawthorn delegation, with Asmodeus and Thuan, grave and composed, and a little further Darrias and her family; and Lazarus, Solférino, Stormgate, Minimes, remnants of the other Houses, which had died before they could stop their own wards turning on them. And here and there, a few Harrier uniforms worn like funeral shrouds, or badges of pride. A prim envoy from the dragon kingdom, ramrod straight and keeping a wary distance from everyone else: the devastated kingdom had taken no part in this, and didn’t look likely to involve itself in the city’s affairs again.
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die…”
There was a speech. A eulogy; a quiet, careful dance around what Morningstar had done a
nd failed to do. Overweening ambition, arrogance, cruelty. Drive, vision.
He’d helped her, or tried to. Had risked his life; had come back to save her from Guy. And he’d been a monster, and none of her own experiences would change any of that. They’d paid off the people he’d harmed—Virginie and Darrias’s family, and the Fallen Lorcid, and the Harrier refugees—but there was no proper way of offering restitution, given the magnitude of what he’d done and their own ruin. Too little, too late.
Selene walked to the pyre, and laid her hands on the kindling. Fire spread, slowly, lazily as Fallen magic flared up. The smell of smoke filled the cathedral. Emmanuelle watched, dry-eyed, as it consumed Morningstar’s corpse until he was nothing more than ashes dancing in the air.
And then it was over, and she and Selene were on the parvis, accepting the mourners’ well-wishes. Selene’s face was expressionless. Emmanuelle felt exhausted again.
“My condolences.” Asmodeus’s face was stretched in his customary smile—except that, looking at him, Emmanuelle saw the sharpness was tinged with pain. “I believe we shall not see his like again.”
Selene raised an eyebrow. “Is that a personal assurance, Asmodeus?”
A shrug. “It would be in everyone’s best interest, wouldn’t it? Even if I were in a position to bring him back.”
“He’s not,” Thuan said, bluntly. He put a hand on Asmodeus’s own, as if to keep him and Selene apart. “We’ve had our differences in the past, but they no longer apply. We cannot afford them.”
“I’m glad,” Emmanuelle said.
Selene said, with a touch of unpleasantness—she still hadn’t forgiven either of them for imprisoning Emmanuelle, “I wasn’t aware House Hawthorn still existed as an entity.”
“Oh, Hawthorn is more than a collection of wards,” Asmodeus said, sweetly. “I can assure you Thuan and I have things well in hand.”
Thuan inclined his head, not missing a beat. They both wandered off to talk to others.
Another person came up, and another and another, an endless flow of people and platitudes. Emmanuelle’s face ached with the effort of keeping up the smile.
The House of Sundering Flames Page 43