The House of Binding Thorns

by Aliette de Bodard

  “I was rather counting on you for that,” Second Aunt said. “Something big and large and splashy.” Her face didn’t move. Her mouth, thin and red, was set in an unamused smile. “And no, I don’t think that’s merely an alliance. That’s not the House’s style.”

  “I . . .” Thuan hesitated. “I don’t think he’s the one behind the angel essence traffic.”

  “So someone else wants to weaken us.”

  “Or to grow rich,” Thuan said. “It may be a simple matter of greed.”

  Second Aunt shook her head. “Perhaps. But whatever Hawthorn wants, it’s not as simple as money, I’m afraid. We have something that interests Asmodeus. Magic, perhaps? He wanted us to send him teachers.”

  Thuan thought, again, of that power in Asmodeus’s bedroom. “He already has that in abundance. Something else,” he said. “A prelude to a conquest?”

  “How? We’re weak, but not that weak.” But Second Aunt sounded thoughtful now. “We’ll have to look into it some other way.”

  Pillow talk. Thuan tried to imagine himself doing that, and gave up. He could lie and smile, but while in bed . . .

  “Anyway.” Second Aunt sighed. “He’s in the palace now. Resting, after his adventures with the rebels.”

  “I think,” Thuan said, softly, “that you’d better tell me everything from the beginning.”

  * * *

  AFTERWARD, Thuan walked through the corridors of the palace, to the bedroom where Cousin Dinh slept fitfully, with a tired-looking dragon doctor keeping an eye on him. He was covered in thick bandages, and one arm was immobilized in a sling. Thuan could barely see his eyes, swollen and bruised, and the sound of his breathing was slow, labored.

  “How is he?” he asked, and the doctor shook her head.

  “I don’t know,” she said. Dragons had healing powers stronger than any Fallen or mortals, but there were limits to what the flesh would bear. “He will heal. But it will not be tomorrow, or next week. And there might be scars. Extensive ones.”

  Thuan sat, for a while, watching his cousin. He remembered Cousin Dinh, standing in front of a mirror and turning around, to watch the swirl of yellow silk on his new robes. He’d always been a bit vain, a bit of a rooster in love with his own reflection. Always a bit flighty, chafing at the strictures of palace life and wishing he could change things.

  Things would change, for him. Thuan couldn’t be sure what Cousin Dinh would have wanted. But it was certainly not months of coma, and disfiguring scars, or the memory of being trapped under rubble and unable to reach anyone else for help. “I’m sorry,” he said. It felt small, and slight, and utterly inadequate. “I hope you heal fast, and well.” Ancestors, watch over him.

  The doctor said nothing. Wise of her, not to commit. And Cousin Dinh, of course, couldn’t say anything. Second Aunt had said he hadn’t regained consciousness since the attack. He probably couldn’t hear a word Thuan was saying.

  Thuan was supposed to be joining Second Aunt and the delegates, to sign the alliance contract—which, for him, would be the binding marriage, ceremony or no ceremony. He could put it off, for a time. He could not think about it, or about what it all meant to him.

  He had read the memorials, and all the materials that were remotely relevant. He knew, intellectually, that Second Aunt was right, that they needed a replacement for Cousin Dinh, and he was the only other suitable person. He just . . . He’d always known marriage wouldn’t be a matter of love or preference, but he’d at least hoped for some respect.

  For something more than being bartered away to ensure the increasingly fragile safety of the kingdom. And even that would have been fine if he’d believed anything he did or said could influence Asmodeus, but it wasn’t going to happen. From all of Second Aunt’s accounts, from all the official reports, the Fallen came as conquerors, demanding what they could not take by force. And if a marriage was involved? That, too, must encompass something Asmodeus wanted.

  He was probably only going to learn what when it happened to him, and he very much doubted it would be pleasant. He thought again, of the legends Nadine had talked about in the gardens—saw bodies, hanging in the branches of ghostly trees and forever writhing in agony, and imagined one of these was his—imagined being stretched out on branches with all his bones shattered, all his muscles a mass of pain, and his life force leaching into the wards, to feed the power of the House. . . . Ancestors, watch over me.

  It would have been nice if he could believe the ancestors’ reach extended anywhere inside Hawthorn.

  SEVENTEEN

  In the Name of Alliances

  MADELEINE was trying to put together the shards of the halberd. It was a puzzle she could focus on, something that didn’t require thinking about Yen Oanh, or the grueling walk back to the palace, or the nightmares that flashed across the insides of her eyelids every time she tried to rest. The worst of it wasn’t Asmodeus, or the memories of the cell on the laundry barge, but Clothilde. She’d always been effortlessly sarcastic and calm in the face of everything the dragon kingdom had thrown at her; and as Asmodeus stumbled, she’d crumpled like crushed paper.

  From Clothilde’s room came the low murmur of voices. They’d both been closeted in there for a while. Madeleine hadn’t been invited, and didn’t want to be. Neither of them seemed to be overly concerned about Elphon’s continued disappearance, or their continued failure to find Ghislaine.

  The table in front of her was mother-of-pearl, tinged with those same oil-spill colors of Seine waters. She’d laid the salvaged shards on them, and pivoted them to reconstitute almost the entire blade. It was almost a short sword, or a knife. The only thing missing was a small, triangle-shaped piece near the tip. The blade hadn’t turned dark again, and that odd, oppressive feeling she’d had when handling it whole hadn’t come back. When she touched it, she only felt the slight, familiar tingle of Fallen magic.

  This was no alchemical artifact, but it worked on some of the same principles. The container that it had been infused into was the blade, and when that had shattered, the magic had seeped away like water from a broken cup.

  “Madeleine?”

  She looked up, and saw Véronique. She looked much as she had before, with thin-jointed fingers, patches of grayish blue shell on her cheeks, and that incongruous Western dress worn like a costume rather than a suit. “I—” Madeleine struggled for words. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Badly hurt.” Véronique smiled. There was no joy in it. “But we heal fast, as your lord has reason to know.”

  Asmodeus, from what Madeleine understood, had let himself be looked over and bandaged by dragon doctors. He had not spoken all the while, and had refused the rituals of healing that had been offered to him. “Charles died. I’m sorry.”

  “I know.” Véronique’s face shifted, slightly, as if she’d already been told numerous times, and numbed to grief already. “I won’t forget. One day . . .”

  “And the prince?”

  Véronique said nothing.

  Oh. She hadn’t liked Phuong Dinh, per se—it was hard to like someone she’d met for only a few moments—but there’d been so much blood, and waste. And if she’d understood anything about the way Hawthorn worked, this was only the beginning. For the death of his dependents, Asmodeus would exact payment in blood and pain, and remind the world that no one trifled with Hawthorn.

  It was her House. The one to which her fortunes were inextricably tied, the one who might swallow her whole and torture her to death, but would leave no one else that privilege. She had to remember that.

  “May I?” Véronique said. She ran a finger on the edge of the blade, and sniffed. “The rumors are true, then.”

  “What rumors?”

  Véronique’s smile was edged with a hint of plated, rust-colored segments around her mouth. “You can’t feel it, but there are khi elements on this blade. Someone merged Fallen and dra
gon magic to create this weapon.”

  “Why?” Madeleine started, and then remembered what Asmodeus had said. To kill Fallen, and dragons. “Magical blades. To have an advantage over Fallen and Houses?” Fallen wounds healed almost instantaneously when they didn’t remove organs, and if they weren’t outright fatal: it was extremely hard to incapacitate one of the Fallen. Madeleine had seen many corpses in her laboratory, back when she was working as an alchemist. All of them had been gravely wounded, with injuries that had proved fatal within a short amount of time, or outright drained of life by magic. Isabelle had been killed with two bloody holes the size of fists through her chest.

  “You’re hard to kill,” Véronique said, without rancor. “And the rebels aren’t that numerous.”

  Asmodeus had said that dragons were hard to kill, too, and healed themselves. But that didn’t change the sheer number of Fallen, and what would happen if even a fraction of House Hawthorn arrayed themselves against them.

  “But you can’t root the rebels out on your own.”

  Véronique shook her head. “We’re not that numerous, either.” She didn’t sound ashamed of admitting to weakness. Ngoc Bich probably wouldn’t have approved. “And a lot of us, on both sides, are taking care of the dying.”

  The hospital. The dying dragons. Madeleine fought back the taste of corruption in her mouth. “You didn’t tell us about the angel essence problem.”

  “Of course not,” Véronique said. “Since you’re the ones causing it.”

  “We’re not!” Madeleine started, and then stopped. Where else would they get Fallen bodies? And how else would they weaken the kingdom enough for negotiations? She opened her mouth again, remembered Clothilde telling her to remain silent. “I can’t say anything,” she said, finally. Because she didn’t know, anymore, what was going on and what the stakes were, and what she might jeopardize.

  “Not allowed?” Véronique shrugged. “It’s fine. Honestly. We’re not friends.” She slid a piece of the blade toward her, tilted it toward the ceiling. “It’s very fine jade. Almost too fine. No inclusions, and the color is too uniform, too perfect.” She bit her lip. “I’m not sure this was quarried anywhere in the kingdom.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Madeleine said.

  “This was made by magic. Except I don’t know of any spells which could do this.”

  “It was dark,” Madeleine said. “With green streaks, until it shattered.”

  Véronique nodded, distantly. “That wall you saw . . .”

  Madeleine looked up, startled. “How do you know—” Oh, of course. Asmodeus or Valchior, or possibly the prisoner, would have mentioned it.

  “We’re not friends, but we are allies. The wall—would you say it was the same color as this?”

  It hadn’t occurred to Madeleine. “I only saw it from afar, and it was only half-built.” She thought, for a while, trying to remember. The stone had looked odd. “I think so. I’m not sure.” And then she remembered the workers. “The workers were carrying clear green bricks. But they were dark on the wall. Why?”

  “Things can change, when they become part of a spell,” Véronique said. “But the princess was wondering. Jade is fragile. It’s an odd choice for building anything. For weapons or for walls.”

  “This one shattered,” Madeleine said.

  “It should have shattered the first time it hit something hard. Like glass.” Véronique looked at the halberd, for a while. “Fallen magic,” she said at last. “Crammed into it until the khi elements were forced out. Making this more resistant. It is, after all, always dominant.” She slid the piece back toward Madeleine. Her face was expressionless. Something, long delayed, finally worked its way to the surface of Madeleine’s thoughts.

  “You’re not just essence addicts, are you? You—you believe in us. You think we’re your salvation. That the House is your salvation.” She wasn’t sure how that made her feel.

  “We’re weak,” Véronique said, simply. “Dying out. The king of the Bièvre didn’t die because the Seine invaded him. He died like our previous emperor, choked by the residue of spells and pollution. Fallen magic will be like fresh blood. An infusion of power that will revitalize us.”

  And yet Fallen magic—the aftermath of the magical war, and the angel essence—was what was killing them. “There have to be other ways.”

  “Your lord would think otherwise,” Véronique said. “And, to remain on the victors’ good side, here is a little token of our goodwill.” She laid something on the table, beside the broken blade: a piece of paper folded in four.

  It was addressed to Madeleine: the handwriting hurriedly crammed together on the paper. When she touched it, magic rose, a faint, insistent touch she would have known anywhere.

  Elphon.

  She unfolded it. Something tugged at her, merging, for a moment, with the tracking disk she still wore, and then letters formed on the blank paper as if an invisible quill were writing them.

  Madeleine. You’re the only one who can read this. Come to the docks of la Villette Basin. There is something you need to see. But, for the love of all that is holy, do not bring Clothilde with you, or tell her about this message.

  “I don’t understand,” Madeleine said.

  Véronique shook her head. “If you don’t, I don’t, either. I’m just carrying the message. Not its meaning. We should go, or we’re going to be late.”

  “Late for what?” Madeleine asked, and then, looking up, saw Clothilde and Asmodeus waiting in the courtyard.

  * * *

  IN the pavilion by the great courtyard, Ngoc Bich was waiting for them in full court regalia: a robe of yellow silk with the sprawling figure of a dragon amidst waves—almost new, with barely a trace of decay—and her crown of black cloth and beaded tassels. She was followed by four attendants with a parasol, another three with fans, and three carrying incense burners. Behind her was a large group of officials: Thanh Phan, Minh, and others Madeleine couldn’t recognize. And, by her side, a young Annamite with long hair tied into a topknot, who looked barely out of childhood—though they always looked younger than they really were—wearing red robes that were so vivid and striking that he seemed to throw everyone else into insignificance.

  “This is Rong Minh Thanh Thuan,” Ngoc Bich said, gravely, to Asmodeus. “I trust you find him acceptable.”

  Asmodeus bowed, a fraction. His smile was sharp, wolfish, as if he had remembered some hold he had over them all.

  They all sat down around the large table. Valchior’s movements were stiff and a little awkward, but nothing whatsoever indicated that Asmodeus had been wounded less than a day ago.

  There was a stack of papers in front of Clothilde, who fanned them out slowly, and handed them to Ngoc Bich. “This is what we agreed on,” she said. “Rifles and magical artifacts, and a complement of soldiers to help you train yours.”

  And essence. Madeleine couldn’t get Véronique’s face out of her mind. In her hand, Elphon’s message was warm, a touch of reassuring magic that wasn’t the link to the House.

  Asmodeus was watching Thuan intently. The prince, in turn, had to have noticed, but pretended to be unaffected. “You neglected to mention how bad your rebel problem was,” he said to Ngoc Bich.

  Ngoc Bich raised an eyebrow. “Did you think we would negotiate with you if we were strong?”

  “I know you’re not.” His eyes were still on Thuan. If Madeleine had been the focus of that much attention, she would have been sick by now. “Madeleine told me they’re building a wall. Not to mention being able to reach inside your city and palace.”

  Ngoc Bich’s voice was freezing. “They’re our problem.”

  “Hawthorn’s, too,” Asmodeus said, with a mocking smile. “Since we’re now allied. I would hate to have to change interlocutors.”

  “You’re quite free to open negotiations with them if you wish
.” Ngoc Bich’s smile was almost malicious.

  “I’ve already had words with their leader,” Asmodeus said, with a shrug. He took off his glasses, and toyed with them for a while, his gaze still on Thuan. “I fear not ones which were conducive to an agreement. Also, she’s killed three of my dependents, and harmed two others.” His left hand rested, elegantly, on the chipped claws of one of the dragons on the table. His voice was low, even, as if they were having a pleasant chat about the weather. “In those circumstances, I find it hard to argue for anything less than destruction.”

  His dependents. What belonged to him, the possessions of the House. It wasn’t a promise, or affection, that had made him come for her, but simply anger, and greed, and pride.

  Asmodeus went on. “But I would like to know what they’re doing. Yen Oanh has to know she can’t invade your city, or do more than harry you. And yet she was confident enough to attempt to draw Hawthorn into the fight.”

  “How nice,” Ngoc Bich said, drily, “to know that the world revolves around you.”

  “You mistake me. I know where we stand today, and what power we wield. That’s the only superiority I claim.” Asmodeus’s smile was sharp and unpleasant. “Nothing more, but nothing less, either.”

  Ngoc Bich was silent, for a while, as if weighing options. “I can hazard a guess,” she said, “from the halberd you brought back, and Madeleine’s observations that the same stone was being used to build the wall. You will be familiar with symbolic magic.”

  “Intimately,” Asmodeus said, amused. “I didn’t know dragons were.”

  “Always know your enemy.” Ngoc Bich didn’t even blink. “There was earth, in that halberd. And metal. The khi elements that choke, that bind, that bury. And a hospital for the dying, nearby, wasn’t there?” She’d turned to Madeleine, who, shocked, simply nodded.

  “Few things are as absolute as the boundary between life and death. Even ageless Fallen die, eventually. Even dragons.” Ngoc Bich’s voice was mirthless. “That wall partakes of some of this.”