A snort. “Don’t be silly. You’re my nephew.”
“I don’t live in the kingdom anymore, but it’s a place that still matters to me. I care,” Thuan said, softly, desperately, and he didn’t know if he was speaking to Hong Chi or to her. “I’m just telling you the options you have. Pick something. Anything.”
Grandmother said, “I’m with Asmodeus. Kill them all. Or the first few, at any rate. That should make the next ones less bold.”
“I’m going to run out of people to kill if everyone is unsatisfied,” Second Aunt said, drily. She was looking at Thuan. “And I suppose you’ll be telling me not to make an example of Kim Diep, next?”
Thuan shrugged. “I’m not making suggestions for the entirety of dragon kingdom politics.” He sought other words, found only a gaping hole, and the only truth that he could hold. “I just want to make sure we do the right thing.”
Asmodeus’s face was a study in… Thuan would have said sarcasm, but actually the expression looked a great deal like fondness.
“The right thing.” Hong Chi’s voice was flat.
Thuan said, quoting the First Teacher, “Lead through moral force, not by means of rules and punishments.” He felt as exhausted as if he’d just run a marathon.
Second Aunt watched him, for a while. “The bookish one,” she said.
“Sometimes books are what we need.”
A sigh, from her. “There will be a heavy price to pay for this.”
“There is always the first solution,” Grandmother said.
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten,” Second Aunt said. Her smile was wide, and the stuff of Thuan’s nightmares. “The society will need to be purged, and you sound like you’re bored in your palace, Mother. Your agents can help Hong Chi track them down.” And, to Thuan, “Was that all?”
Thuan looked at Van—who hadn’t moved or spoken. He smiled, with a brightness he no longer felt. “Actually, not quite.”
* * *
Later—much, much later, when everything had blurred into far too much talking and posturing, Asmodeus walked Thuan back to their quarters in uncanny silence. He remained silent while Thuan brewed tea for them both, grassy and light for himself, sharper for Asmodeus, who liked his bitter and on the overbrewed side. Asmodeus took the cup from Thuan’s hand, and leant against the wall, watching as Thuan sat down on the bed, feeling as though nothing held him upright anymore.
Thuan said, finally, “I think Van will be all right.” Second Aunt had barely balked when he’d mentioned amnesty, but then again she’d had to swallow a much bitterer pill. They’d left Van the House Hawthorn tracking disk: all the formalities of reinstating her could wait until the following day.
“Oh, I have no doubt,” Asmodeus said. He sipped at his tea. “She’s smart and resourceful, and her new post should come with a significant salary. Your cousin said she wanted Van to be part of the new crop of imperial censors, going out to arrest the corrupt officials. I have no doubt she’ll take to it as a fish—sorry, a crab—to water.”
A silence. He was watching Thuan with an expression Thuan couldn’t quite parse. Thuan felt winded and uncertain, and with a cold emptiness in his stomach that he wasn’t quite sure was shame or fear, or both.
Thuan said, finally, “I’m sorry.”
A raised eyebrow. “You did get me out of trouble. And with such panache. It’s almost unlike you.”
“You know what I mean.” Thuan exhaled. “I shouldn’t have insisted on seeing this through. You were already indulging me by coming down here, and I dragged you into politics and into risking your own life. And you lost Van, too, which I know makes you unhappy. You hate letting go of dependents, and I made that decision on your behalf.”
A creak, on the bed: Asmodeus, sitting by his side, the tea cup casually left on the bedside table. “Actually, running through the citadel while trying to evade the guard was a much better thrill than having to sit through endless banquets with your family. And Dang Quang deserved all of what he got.” A smile. “And yes, we lost Van, but I get to help your grandmother deal with the Harmony of Heaven society. I’m a little bit disappointed Van didn’t take me up on my offer to visit retribution on Kim Diep. She was, after all, the one who tried to foist Van on us as a bribe, fully expecting Van to get tortured to death. Ah well. I should imagine punishment is coming to Kim Diep, one way or another.”
“Asmodeus—” Thuan closed his eyes. “If you want, we can go home. I think you’ve given enough to the kingdom.”
A touch of magic on his lips, stilling them, and other ones, pinning his arms by his side, as Asmodeus leant, his grey-green eyes transfixing Thuan—a finger drawing a slow circle on his lips. Something warm and unbearable rose within Thuan: he struggled to speak, but Asmodeus’s magic held him fast. “Sssh, dragon prince. I said you should respect the way I live. That does go both ways.” His fingers undid the fastening of Thuan’s robes, slipping them down until Thuan sat in the midst of a sea of embroidered silk, dragons spreading around him—Asmodeus’s hands rested, lightly, on Thuan’s chest. Warmth spread out, magnetic and urgent, as his fingers gently drew the same circles on Thuan’s skin, going upwards to the throat and Thuan’s madly beating larynx. “Consider yourself forgiven. As for leaving—why would I? I have all I want here.”
“Please,” Thuan said, and the magic lifted enough that he could croak the word through a throat that felt aflame.
Laughter, good-humored and sharp, and then a push that sent Thuan sprawling on the bed, and Asmodeus moving to straddle him, pale skin glowing with magic. His spell brushed Thuan’s neck and earlobes and lips, gently, slowly, back and forth until there was nothing left but moans in Thuan’s throat.
Please please please.
“Ah, dragon prince. Yes, of course. Always and always.” And Asmodeus bent over him, and the warmth of his body became Thuan’s entire world.
Acknowledgments
Books are always a bit of an adventure, and I would like to thank the following people for reading this: Zoe Johnson, D Franklin, Likhain, Lynn E. O’Connacht, Alicia Fourie, Yan Baltazar, Juliet Kemp, and Fran Wilde. I would also like to thank my friends for their never-ending support during the writing and publishing of this: Samit Basu, Elizabeth Bear and Scott Lynch, Liz Bourke, Stephanie Burgis, Zen Cho, Vida Cruz, Kate Elliott, Stella Evans, Stevie Finegan, Alessa Hinlo, Inkantadora, Inksea, Vic James, Ghislaine Lai, Hana Lee, Ken Liu, Likhain and her partner, Rachel Monte, Laura J Mixon, Sarah Mueller, Emma Newman, Jeannette Ng, Natasha Ngan and Fab, Nina Niskanen, Nene Ornes, Sheila Perry, Victor R Fernando Ocampo, Cindy Pon, Gareth L Powell, Justina Robson, Tricia Sullivan and Tade Thompson.
Many thanks to Patrick Disselhorst, Lisa Rodgers and Joshua Bilmes for putting this book together; to Ravven for the cover art; to Juliet Kemp for the proofreading; and to John Berlyne for coordinating everything.
And finally, to my family, my parents and my sister and my children: thank you for being my rock.
About the Author
Aliette de Bodard lives and works in Paris, where she has a day job as a System Architect. She studied Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, but moonlights as a writer of speculative fiction. Aliette has won three Nebula Awards, a Locus Award, a British Fantasy Award and four British Science Fiction Association Awards, and was a double Hugo finalist (Best Series and Best Novella).
Most recently she published The House of Sundering Flames (Gollancz/JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.), the conclusion to her Dominion of the Fallen trilogy, set in a turn-of-the-century Paris devastated by a magical war–which also comprises The House of Shattered Wings (Roc/Gollancz, 2015 British Science Fiction Association Award, Locus Award finalist), and The House of Binding Thorns (Ace/Gollancz, 2017 European Science Fiction Society Achievement Award, Locus award finalist).
Her short story collection Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight is out from Subterranean Press.
She is also the author of The Tea Master and the Detective (2018 Nebula Award winner, 2018 British Fantasy Award
winner, 2019 Hugo Award finalist), a murder mystery set on a space station in a Vietnamese Galactic empire, inspired by the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson; and In the Vanishers’ Palace, a dark Beauty and the Beast retelling, where they are both women and the Beast is a dragon.
Visit her website www.aliettedebodard.com for free fiction (including further short stories set in the same universe as this one), Vietnamese and French recipes and more.
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Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders Page 9