Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders

by Aliette de Bodard

Thuan said, “I’ll go to Grandmother or Second Aunt and ask them to set you free. You know I would.”

  “Yes.” Kim Diep shifted, her feet crunching on dried algae. “I do.”

  “Please, elder aunt.”

  For a moment he thought he’d reached her; that he’d made her see—but then she shook her head. “Ah, child. I don’t know how you could remain so naive about the way the world works.”

  “I’m not naive,” Thuan said, stubbornly. “Things can change from the inside.” Hawthorn had.

  “Perhaps.” Kim Diep’s voice was sharp. “If there’s a will to change. If priorities are made.” A gentle snort. “If if if. Consider this, then: it shouldn’t take a prince of imperial blood and a special favour for me to get what I want.” She rose, and the net tightened around Thuan once more, drawing him huddled into himself. “Goodbye, dragon prince. With any luck you should be able to make it back to Hawthorn.”

  It was too late. He’d lost because he’d been too stubborn, too opinionated, too blind. Her footsteps receded away from him, and there was nothing but the shadow of his own body, the misery of the net’s mesh holding him tight, the sense of his own failure.

  He—

  Other quiet, determined footsteps, and a flare of familiar magic.

  “I don’t think so,” a cool voice said. “I do have strong objections to people roughing up my husband.”

  Kim Diep’s footsteps had stopped—a clink of spears and knives, Asmodeus’s gentle laughter. “I gave you your one single warning to keep out of my way.”

  And then a tumult of metal on metal, footsteps ringing, people screaming—Thuan trying to stretch once more, the net stubbornly refusing to give way. “Asmodeus!” he shouted. “Go warn them. I’ll be fine.”

  A grunt, the soft sound of a knife sliding into flesh, and a body hitting the ground.

  “You’re demonstrably not fine,” Asmodeus said, kneeling by his side and laying a hand on Thuan’s skin through the mesh. The net loosened but didn’t break: it was Van, with a blood-stained dagger in her belt, shaking like a leaf.

  “You’re wasting time,” Thuan said, to Asmodeus, who had started helping Van with taking the net apart. His fingers were releasing bursts of Fallen magic that contracted the mesh around Thuan’s skin, a warm and not wholly unpleasant feeling that went all the way to Thuan’s spine, a split second before these parts of the mesh dissolved into nothingness. It was painstaking and slow—link by link, patch by patch—and it wasn’t going to be over in any good time.

  “I’m seeing to my own.” Asmodeus’s voice was low and angry. “We’ve already had this discussion.”

  Thuan said—because he didn’t know what else to say—“Please. You said I didn’t respect your way of doing things, and I have no right to ask you to put yourself in danger.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “And I’m not asking Van because it would be unfair, and cowardly.” The net loosened enough for Thuan to start unfolding his head, wincing as cramped muscles finally eased. He was in an empty room he couldn’t identify, with an open door leading outside: the light was warm and still pink, the sun barely risen. Behind Van were scattered bodies in various states from wounded to unconscious to dying—Kim Diep was on her back with a dagger pinning her shoulder to the floor, eyes closed and entire body limp. The net still held more than half of him: his legs were bunched together in a way that made walking or flight impossible.

  “My lord—” Van started.

  “You said you wanted to live. You’re scared, and you’re the one who’s got the most to lose,” Thuan said.

  “In that, if nothing else, he’s entirely right.” Asmodeus’s face looked a fraction softer, which didn’t change much. “He can’t order you to do this, and he shouldn’t.”

  “Please, Asmodeus. I’m just asking you to stand by me,” Thuan said. He tried to slip free of the net, but his chest and lower half were still encased in what felt like an unbreakable hold of khi-water. “Because it’s important to me, and it’s going to take way too much time to get me free.”

  “Emotional blackmail?”

  “No,” Thuan said. “Because blackmail is when you don’t have a choice. You do.”

  “So you’ll forgive me if I just free you and we walk away from this, instead of warning the Empress or whoever it is I should be risking my neck for?” Asmodeus’s voice was sharp. He laid a hand on the net on Thuan’s chest, and Fallen magic contracted it until Thuan’s breath was a diffuse, throbbing fire in his lungs. “Don’t lie, Thuan.”

  “Asmodeus.” Thuan closed his eyes, for a brief moment. The net was tight and unbearably warm on his skin. Asmodeus was right: it was unfair, and too much to ask. “Fine. Just get me out of this and I’ll go. It’s my responsibility, not yours.”

  “And perhaps I don’t want you to risk your life.”

  “That’s my decision to make, not yours.”

  Asmodeus watched him, for a while, head cocked. Then he laughed. “Ah, dragon prince. You give up too easily,” he said. He bent and kissed Thuan—a short, sharp thing that made the burning in Thuan’s chest incoherent and needful—and rose. “You’re most definitely getting me out of trouble afterwards.” And, to Van, “What do I tell them?”

  Van said something that Thuan didn’t hear, because Asmodeus was stretching, and the ghost of great dark wings spread behind him with a noise like ten thousand banners unfurling—and then he started running towards the exit of the room, moving with the easy, sinuous elegance and speed of a large cat catching up with prey. Thuan watched him with his heart in his throat.

  Ancestors, please let it not be too late. Please let it not be too late.

  He barely heard the distant shouts—Asmodeus’s voice raised in pitch-perfect Viet, followed by more forceful French, then the distant argument. And then, like an answer to his prayer, the music starting again, and Van’s hand on his shoulder as, finally freed from the net, he made his way out of the room they’d shut him in, passing by unconscious and wounded officials; watched the procession of officials exit the Palace of Audiences carrying a water bowl as though it might bite—and only peaceful silence spreading over the citadel.

  Then, and only then, did he allow himself to relax.

  * * *

  It was not over, of course. When Thuan finally walked into the Palace of Audiences with Van by his side, he found Asmodeus held in a ring of spears by guards, the Empress gone, and officials wanting explanations. This was followed, in quick order, by the eunuch from Grandmother who’d let Thuan out of his house arrest—who took one look at the situation and started ordering officials about in an authoritative manner eerily reminiscent of his mistress.

  Asmodeus let himself be led off by the guards, with a significant glance at Thuan that he was being patient for Thuan’s sake but that Thuan had better deliver on his end of the bargain soon, or sharp and stabby things were going to come out again.

  Thuan and Van were sent back to their quarters to await an imperial audience, and Thuan sent Van—who was still shaking—to the reception room to get a tea and some food in her. He sat on the bed and mentally started rehearsing arguments for said audience, though he mainly counted on Hong Chi being there.

  “My lord?”

  He raised his head, and saw Van leaning in the doorframe with a cup of tea in her hands. “You look better,” he said. “I don’t know how you are feeling.”

  Van shrugged. She came into the bedroom, and laid the tea on the table, very deliberately and carefully. “I’m all right. Thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Thuan said. “For freeing me. And I’m sorry. It must have been a shock. With Dang Quang.”

  Van grimaced. “I stabbed him. Well, the first time.” Her face was still frozen in that odd expression between fear and elation. “He grabbed me in the courtyard, saying he wasn’t letting go so easily, and I didn’t know what else to do, and there was no way I was ever going back in his power…”

  And Asmodeus had taken over. “I wouldn
’t worry about it,” Thuan said. “They’re going to owe us quite a few favours for this, and they’ll smooth a lot of things out. Including that one.”

  “I guess so.” Van stared at the tea, for a while. “He’s all right,” she said. “Your husband.”

  Ah, dragon prince. You give up too easily. Thuan rubbed his lips, feeling the warmth of Asmodeus’s touch on them. “I’m not too sure these are the words I’d use.”

  Van said, finally, “I’d like to ask a favour.”

  Thuan said nothing, only waited.

  “I want to go home,” Van said. “To my town.”

  Thuan, startled, stared at her. Her fists were clenched, shifting into pincers. She must have expected him to say no. “You want to leave the House?”

  “Asmodeus said—” Van closed her eyes. “He—was rigged. That I couldn’t afford to play by the rules.”

  “He says lots of things. They’re not always true.”

  “But these are.” Van’s voice was soft. “And they shouldn’t be.” She drew herself to her full height, and Thuan suddenly understood, seeing the closed pincers and the shimmering carapace, how formidable crabs could be. “I want to change it.”

  A silence. Thuan said, finally, “Are you doing this because you stood aside?” Because she’d freed Thuan instead of running to the Empress; of risking her own life to warn them.

  “Yes,” Van said. “And don’t tell me it’s not a reason.”

  Thuan said nothing, for a while. At length, “We’ve been making too many decisions for you as it is, so no, I’m not going to tell you anything. If being amnestied and going back is what you want, then that’s the way it’s going to be. Or the way I’m going to try and make it be.” He said, finally, “You don’t sound very worried about Asmodeus.”

  Van was silent for a while. “No,” she said. “I realised that…” she bit her lips. “I realised that, as scary as he was, there were scarier things.”

  And wouldn’t that be a blow to Asmodeus’s pride. But then again he must have known all of Van’s worst fears: he had an uncanny instinct for these, a predator’s scenting prey—just as he knew all of Thuan’s worst fears: abandonment, loss—and, ultimately, turning away so much from what was right that he wouldn’t dare look at himself in the mirror in the morning.

  These things are true. And they shouldn’t be.

  Thuan stared at the table, pondering on righteousness, and rituals, and benevolence—and finally sat down, to draft a letter.

  * * *

  The imperial audience took place in the Empress’s private office, not in the throne room, which didn’t spare Thuan from having to make his way there through the throne room, between two aligned groups of officials, as if he were going up the aisles of a Catholic church. He’d sent off his letter the previous evening, signing it with his personal seal, and dressed that morning as if he were going into battle—finally choosing the red and gold robes of a prince rather than the swallowtail suit that would remind Second Aunt too much of the House. Van was trailing behind him, the marks on her arms hidden beneath the large, opaque sleeves of her robes.

  The office was a simple room, the wooden carvings on the wall sparse, the desk a simple affair of red lacquered wood, and a few cupboards holding writing materials: brushes, ink stones and rolls of paper. Second Aunt sat behind the desk reading a report: she was a middle-aged, forbidding dragon woman, wearing the yellow embroidered robes of her rank—but not her crown, though she didn’t need to, in private. Hong Chi was by her side in full court robes—and Asmodeus was sitting in a chair, surrounded by guards. He had chains around his wrists and a very familiar expression on his face of patient indulgence wound very, very tight.

  Thuan bowed, very low—because disrespecting propriety was not going to get him anywhere, and then asked, “The society?”

  Hong Chi’s face was expressionless. “We’ll deal with them.”

  She grimaced, but it was Second Aunt who spoke. “That was a rather large disturbance.”

  “You hired us,” Asmodeus said, rather drily. “You did know what you were getting into.”

  “I did not,” Second Aunt said, mildly.

  Ah. That was the problem, then. He’d suspected as much. Thuan threw a glance at Hong Chi, but she didn’t appear to be moving. Too much in trouble of her own?

  Asmodeus’s face was creased in a broad, ironic smile. Your cousin is playing you like a fiddle, and not a particularly good one at that.

  Thuan hesitated, then said, coldly, “I’m not playing games. Either Hong Chi has your confidence, or she doesn’t.” It was a deuced awkward position to be lecturing one’s empress and elder, a very fine line to walk. “And why is Asmodeus still a prisoner?”

  Hong Chi’s voice was cool. “Because he stabbed an official in the palace.”

  Thuan opened his mouth to say he hadn’t, and then realised that would be throwing Van to the tigers. Asmodeus got there first. “Your official was looking for trouble. Interfering with my personal business.”

  “That’s not a reason—”

  Asmodeus’s voice was cool. “Trying to seize one of my dependents to torture her is, I think, a clear breach of House Hawthorn’s diplomatic immunity.”

  “You have no diplomatic immunity.” Second Aunt’s voice was cold. “You’re here as my relative, and that makes you subject to the law, same as anyone.”

  A shrug. “I see. Complaining about the broken plates on the way to the banquet. That’s rather rich of you.” He looked, thoughtfully, at the chains, and Fallen magic started glowing under his skin.

  Thuan tried to find words, couldn’t. It was all rather going downhill rather quickly.

  Behind him, the door opened, and the wind carried in a hint of orchid perfume, and that particular smell of sandalwood and cedar. Second Aunt got up, hastily bowing, and Thuan did the same—even Asmodeus moved in a clink of chains, his head briefly dipping down.

  “Grandmother.”

  The Empress Dowager’s gaze raked the participants in the meeting. “I see I’m just in time.” She sat down in the chair right next to Asmodeus, and gestured to the eunuch who had accompanied her. “Well, off you go. Free him.”

  Second Aunt opened her mouth, closed it. Asmodeus’s face was a study in carefully disguised shock: he looked to Thuan, who merely nodded grimly. Not playing by the rules. Or rather, creatively selecting the bits he was going to uphold. He couldn’t order Second Aunt about, but her own mother could—if appraised of the meeting and its stakes for Thuan and Asmodeus by a letter from her grandson, for instance.

  The chains fell off. Asmodeus stretched—rather too theatrically—and then laid his elbow on the arm of the chair, and rested his chin on his hand, looking at the entire scene with the clear expression of someone waiting, glass of wine in hand, for the entertaining fireworks to start. He was silent, but he probably wasn’t going to remain so for long.

  “You should be ashamed.” Grandmother’s voice was cold.

  “I don’t see what you mean,” Second Aunt said. “I’m upholding the order of Heaven. as is proper.”

  “Hmmmf.” Grandmother snorted. “I told Asmodeus already that the kingdom has gotten weak.”

  “And your solution is foreigners running amok in the citadel stabbing officials?”

  Ah. There was the rub, then. Not Hong Chi’s decision to give this investigation to outsiders, but the diplomatic tangle of involving House Hawthorn to interfere in Second Aunt’s own running of the citadel.

  Grandmother picked up the cup of tea the eunuch had mysteriously summoned for her, and sipped at it, rheumy eyes thoughtful. “No. My solution is executing everyone who so much looks as if they’re thinking of disloyalty.”

  Hong Chi winced. Asmodeus’s smile was even broader. Second Aunt spluttered, and then said, “That’s not the way things go nowadays, Mother.”

  “The way things go nowadays is you have a secret society getting close enough to the regnal seals to create an uproar. Not to mention imprisoning my
own grandson a few paces away from the Palace of Audiences.”

  That would be Thuan—who was still busy putting his arguments together. He’d hoped to offer Van; to send her to some high post in the civil service, so she could push change through—the letter to Grandmother, obviously, had only aimed to get Asmodeus free. But if the problem was outsiders, his offering a former House Hawthorn dependent—never mind one with a particular history—was not going to solve anything.

  Be honest: it had never looked likely to solve anything.

  These things are true. And they shouldn’t be.

  Consider this, then: it shouldn’t take a prince of imperial blood and a special favour for me to get what I want.

  Thuan said, “You have a choice. You can purge every discontent in blood, knowing it will touch more than the society. Or—” he took a deep breath, aghast at his own audacity—“You can push change through.”

  A short, sharp intake of breath from Van; a look that could have frozen stone from Grandmother. Before Second Aunt could protest, Thuan said, “You’re trying not to make waves. You want to keep your officials contented and your throne safe. And it’s those same officials that are causing harm and spreading discontent. The cost of not making waves is that, further away from the citadel, people choke under misrule. If you want to change things, these officials have to go. They have to receive the punishment for corruption; for murder; for closing their eyes to the misery of their own people.”

  “You don’t understand politics.” Second Aunt’s voice was cold.

  Asmodeus said, “I agree. He’s always been far too idealistic.” A shrug. “Personally, I’d go for the first option.”

  Hong Chi said, “We need time.” She sounded raw and desperate, repeating an argument she must have made too many times.

  “You’re out of time,” Thuan said, gently. “Look at the society. It’s got tendrils in the citadel. That’s how far discontent goes.”

  Second Aunt looked at Thuan. “So you’re telling me what to do.”

  Thuan stared at her. “Are you going to tell me I’m a foreigner too and this isn’t my home?”