The House of Binding Thorns

by Aliette de Bodard

  Of course. Take what you need, kill the rest. How very like a House, or perhaps it was merely the language of power, spoken in different tongues but ultimately always the same.

  The wall pressed down on him, unbearable, a boundary that shouldn’t exist, a veil that needed to be torn away. He saw that the hole through which Ciseis and Yen Oanh had passed was almost sealed—no, not sealed; locked, like a door they didn’t want anyone to open. And, beyond the door, beyond the wall, Isabelle, and the mocking shadow of Morningstar, the blade of his sword as bright as a fallen sun.

  For a moment he was back in Françoise’s cramped flat; and, for a moment, he stood among the bookshelves of Berith’s dominion, with the soft touch of paper under his hands. And, as if the paper had suddenly burst into flames, illuminating everything, he suddenly knew.

  “I can call her back,” he whispered. He stopped, looked at Olympe again, and said, finally, “A friend of mine died, because of me. I asked Berith—”

  “How to bring her back?” Olympe’s voice was toneless. “Oh, child. The dead don’t come back. Except as hungry ghosts, feeding on our blood.”

  So many of those, a sea of white faces, of small, stunted bodies clinging to him like twisted children. “I know,” Philippe said. “But Fallen magic . . .” His voice trailed off.

  Olympe said nothing.

  “I can do it,” Philippe said. He stared at the wall looming over him, at the boundary that shouldn’t have been. “Except. Except—” Except that he would have to reopen that door. The wall . . . the wall, he knew, was an obstacle to what he wanted to do, everything that separated Isabelle from him made manifest. “It will tear a hole through the wall. It will bring it down, piece by piece.” He paused then, seeing the workers by their side get up, ready to go back to picking up bricks. “This isn’t what you need.”

  “Philippe.” The ghosts parted, for a moment, letting him see Olympe’s face, small and slight and wrinkled, and dark with repressed fury. “This won’t help us. But. But they built this wall with our sweat, and our blood, and our dead, to bring us into a fight between Houses we care nothing about. I don’t give a damn about the wall. Bring it down. Bring it all down.”

  * * *

  THANH Phan was waiting for them at the gates to the palace, her face unreadable. She led them, in silence, to the courtyard where Ngoc Bich had first welcomed them—and to the throne room, where Ngoc Bich sat on a raised dais, in a curved chair of delicate golden traceries, its arms ending in the shape of two golden dragons, with no trace of rot or of mold, merely the crushing weight of a kingdom at its height.

  Behind her, a crowd of dignitaries: a sickening press of officials in blue robes adorned with the faces of dragons, of parasol carriers, of attendants with fans, guards with spears and conical hats. The antlers of dragons mingled with the pincers of crabs, and the oily, glistening scales of fish. Not everyone was wholly human, and few seemed to care.

  Ngoc Bich’s face was covered in a thick layer of white, her antlers glinting with red lacquer. The entire room, from pillars to engraved canopy, seemed to vibrate with her anger. Madeleine followed Elphon’s lead, bowing to her. Clothilde barely bothered with courtesy, her own bow perfunctory.

  “I have little time,” she said. “You’re aware that the House is under attack.”

  “You mean the kingdom?” Ngoc Bich said. Her smile was assured and frightening, reminding Madeleine of nothing so much as Asmodeus’s, of a predator’s. “As I said to Asmodeus, the world doesn’t revolve around Houses.”

  Madeleine saw Clothilde open her mouth. She was going to say something sharp and wounding, something about the city still standing.

  “We’re allies,” she said. And stopped when once again all the attention in the room turned to her. “We’re supposed to fight this together.”

  “Are we?” Ngoc Bich’s expression was enigmatic.

  “Please,” Madeleine said. Within her, the link to the House twisted and turned, flailing. “We need your help.”

  The look Clothilde threw Madeleine could have frozen stone. “We don’t. But it would be good to have it. As Madeleine says”—again, that look that suggested a hard conversation later—“we are allies.”

  “And you would, no doubt, be grateful for support in your hour of need.”

  “They’re your rebels,” Clothilde said, pointedly.

  “For which we sought help from you,” Thanh Phan said.

  “Enough.” Ngoc Bich raised a hand. “Clothilde is right in one respect. There is little time left.” She paused, for a moment. “And I’ve had enough of Yen Oanh’s little rebellion. What do you want to do?”

  “Break the wall,” Clothilde said, simply. “Get into Hawthorn. Prevent the House from changing hands. Ciseis won’t be kind to the dragon kingdom and she has no reason to safeguard Asmodeus’s consort.”

  “Surely alliances last more than one reign?” Thanh Phan’s face was a mask of fury. “It’s good to know we can trust Fallen to keep their word.”

  “Alliances with other Houses? Yes. With heathen primitives? Probably not worth the paper they’re written on.” She raised a hand. “Not my words, or Lord Asmodeus’s.”

  “Of course not.” Ngoc Bich’s voice was deeply ironic. “So you know how to break the wall.”

  “The halberd broke when Lord Asmodeus poured enough Fallen magic into it,” Clothilde said. “I think the wall would do the same.”

  Except one was a small blade, the other an edifice that was so huge it had cut off Hawthorn. “You’d need a lot of power.”

  “I don’t have a lot of power,” Clothilde said, sharply. “Every other Fallen is inside the House. So it’s Elphon and me and you, and the artifacts I’ve brought with me.”

  “And angel essence,” Ngoc Bich said.

  That stopped Clothilde. “How—”

  “There’s no lack of it in the kingdom.” Ngoc Bich shook her head. “We’ll provide you with what angel essence we have, if you’re ready to pay the price for its use.”

  The sweet, sickly smell of it, a memory of lying on the wooden floor of the cabin, breathing it in, finding no comfort—only fear, only decay. “I can’t,” Madeleine said, before she could think.

  Clothilde’s voice was cold. “You’re not getting essence. I’m not dragging an addict on a high along with me, Madeleine. You can have angel breath. Elphon and I will deal with the essence.”

  Stung, Madeleine opened her mouth to protest, and then stopped. Did she truly want essence?

  “We’ll leave you to work out your differences,” Ngoc Bich said. “I’ll provide you with soldiers to get closer to the wall. After that . . .”

  After that, of course, they were on their own. But they’d known that all along.

  * * *

  AFTER Madeleine and Elphon had left, Berith turned back to Françoise. “We need to talk,” she said.

  Françoise didn’t want to talk. She wanted to lie down in the armchair; to sleep, as Camille was sleeping in her arms, wrapped in her scarf, finally getting the rest she’d been denied.

  “They’ll come back,” Berith said. “Nemnestra said as much. With Asmodeus gone, and Hawthorn in turmoil . . .”

  Had the storm they had feared or ignored, or both, finally come to their door? Françoise stroked Camille’s back, slowly, carefully. “You said we’d run, if worse came to worst.”

  “I—” Berith’s face twisted. “You should leave, Françoise. You and Camille.”

  “And leave you here to face them by yourself?” Françoise didn’t bother to keep the anger out of her voice. “Was that the plan?”

  “You . . .” Berith looked awful: bruised circles under her eyes, cheekbones protruding, a flimsy coat of flesh over bones. But then, Françoise, bone weary, still shaking with the memory of giving birth, wasn’t much better. “You have to realize that they’ll come after me. They’ll
always come after me. Because of Asmodeus. Because there is always a risk that I’ll want to help him, or avenge him, or both.”

  “And I—” But she already knew the answer. She was mortal, and powerless, and she might be able to borrow Berith’s or another Fallen’s power, but ultimately she mattered so little, in the grand scheme of things. She’d been happy with that knowledge, never seeking more, except that now it made her want to smash things. “I can’t let you.”

  Berith shrugged. “You’ve always known I could die.”

  “Not like this!” Françoise tried to gather thoughts that seemed to have fled. Every word felt like the wrong one. “Look, we can run. We can leave the city. We . . .”

  There was nothing beyond the city, beyond the suburbs. Devastated countryside, other cities in equally bad state. “You can’t,” Françoise said, stubbornly. “There has to be another way.”

  Berith rested her hand, for a moment, on Camille’s wrinkled face, gently rubbing the skin. The baby gazed back at her, brows furrowed as if in thought. “I’d have had a different answer a few months ago, but we have a child,” she said. “Please. Françoise.”

  “You could uproot,” Françoise said.

  “And leave you with a newborn and a Fallen so weak she can barely walk? The flat is all that sustains me. Beyond it, I’m useless.” Berith’s voice was ironic.

  “There’s still time.” Which they were wasting by arguing. Please, Berith. Please.

  Berith closed her eyes. The flat wavered, became bookshelves again for the briefest of moments. “It’s too late,” she said. “They’re in the street. You could—”

  “Sneak past them?” Françoise snorted. “As if that would work.”

  “So you’re going to fight them with Camille in your arms?” Berith’s voice was harsh. “Think for a minute, Françoise.” She moved from where she leaned on the table, bent toward Françoise, and kissed her, slowly, deeply. Magic welled up, twisting on shared breath, filling Françoise’s throat and lungs.

  The world wavered. Everything hung on a knife’s edge, the flat stilled for a moment. In Françoise’s arms, Camille gurgled, her face relaxing as though she were feeding.

  Berith withdrew. She was oddly blurred, as if seen through tears. “They won’t pay as much attention to you now. It’s not invisibility, but it’s close.”

  Françoise meant to protest, to say something, but Berith was already at the door.

  And, on the other side . . .

  They were waiting, as they’d waited on the bridge: rich brocade and cotton clothes, a vivid red, a gold so bright it shone in the gloom. Three of them: Nemnestra, the gaunt-faced human called Célestin, and another one, a beefy woman whom Françoise vaguely remembered.

  “Only three of you?” Berith asked.

  Nemnestra smiled. “For now.” She put both her hands in the space of the doorframe, probed as if at a wound. “Or perhaps forever. You’re weak now, aren’t you?”

  It wasn’t a question. Françoise breathed in magic. What would happen if she stood up? Her legs no longer shook, and Berith’s kiss had infused energy into her, but how far would that go?

  And how far was she willing to run?

  “Not so weak,” Berith said.

  Nemnestra pushed. Françoise saw Berith flinch, bit her lips not to cry out. “Oh, but you are. I warned you, old woman. Hawthorn’s time has passed. Asmodeus’s time has passed.”

  “Charming,” Berith said. She withdrew from the door, moved to lean against the table. Could the others see the tremors that went through her? “I was never Hawthorn, you know.” The flat wavered and buckled, and light streamed toward her, her pale skin becoming gorged, translucent. “Or cared much about it.” She made a short, stabbing gesture with a long glance at Françoise.

  Get down.

  Nemnestra pushed again; and again, and something gave way.

  Berith screamed, a sound that was almost a wail, tearing at Françoise’s entrails, and she was up from the chair, common sense be damned.

  She didn’t even take three paces before the door exploded.

  The frame collapsed. Splinters flew all around her, and a shock wave sent her sprawling to the ground—where was Camille?—she had to protect her; a newborn couldn’t possibly endure all of this—dust in her lungs and in her eyes, the world a blurred, painful aggregation of tears—and Camille screaming, a small, high-pitched sound that wouldn’t stop. “Ssh,” Françoise whispered. “Ssssshh. Everything—” She wanted to say everything was fine, but the knot in her throat wouldn’t let her. She found, by touch rather than by sight, Camille’s slight shape, tried to feel her head, her neck, her limbs. . . . “Ssshhhh.”

  Camille quieted, gradually. She was going to be fine. Françoise couldn’t feel anything wrong, couldn’t see any blood. Breathe. She needed to breathe.

  Berith.

  She looked up. The doorframe was a sharp, jagged blossom of splintered and warped wood. Beyond the threshold, on the murk of the staircase, lay the body of the third woman, her head at an impossible angle for anything living. Célestin was leaning against a wall, breathing heavily, one hand on his ribs. Blood mingled with the vivid red of his suit.

  In the flat, the explosion had broken the table, and thrown everything in the cupboard to the floor. The chessboard was facedown, the pieces of their game scattered over the broken parquet slats, and the bowls in the cupboard lay in shards—after all the trouble they’d gone to patch them. . . . No. Useless to think about. What mattered was surviving.

  Berith faced Nemnestra. The other Fallen barely seemed inconvenienced: a few drops of blood on her white gloves, and some dust on the sleeves of her dress. “Impressive,” Nemnestra said. “But not, I fear, sufficient. Where did your partner go?”

  Berith’s face didn’t move. “She ran away.”

  “Smart,” Nemnestra said. “One mortal in a sea of mortals . . .” She let the words trail away. “We might even have better uses of our time than run after her.”

  Françoise could feel it in her guts: the power flowing to Berith, the flat slowly bending out of shape, the ruined walls becoming bookcases, not grand or imposing, but battered, too, splintered and broken like the doorframe, with the shadow of torn pages fluttering in the air.

  She moved, slowly, agonizingly slowly. She was going to be spotted; they were going to call her out—but nothing happened. No one moved.

  Slowly, carefully, she unwound her scarf—wrapped it, time and time again, around Camille, securing the baby tight against her chest. Brown eyes looked up at her, gaze unfocused, before Camille settled back with a contented look on her face. She looked normal. Assuming that was what passed for normal with newborns. Françoise knew so little about them, in spite of all the toddlers she’d helped wrangle.

  Hold tight, child. We’re going on an adventure.

  “You will do as you please. And certainly not make me lose my temper.” Berith gestured, and Nemnestra stumbled, catching herself on the table, and then withdrawing as if it burned. On the wood of the table, the shape of a star shone for a brief moment, before fading into nothingness.

  Françoise had managed to kneel by the shards of the bowls, cradling Camille’s head with her hands. A quick glance upward: Célestin was still leaning against the wall, still trying to stand. Not the kind of wound that could be brushed off, then. Which suited her.

  Berith and Nemnestra were still locked in their odd battle of wills. Françoise felt magic ebb and flow above her, currents that pushed her left and right. Nemnestra was holding on to half the table, her fingers digging holes into the wood, her face twisted in pain. Berith leaned against the wall—a wall of ruined bookshelves and torn pages. Her face, limned in light, was elongated and skeletal, frighteningly alien.

  They’d had only one knife in the flat: a long, triangular blade that had gone dull with years of use. But a bowl had broken in two, leavi
ng the raised circle at the bottom almost intact. A raised ceramic edge. Françoise picked up the knife, and passed it several times in succession against that edge at a steady angle, hearing the faint sound of the blade sharpening.

  There.

  Then—Don’t look at Berith don’t look at Berith—she pushed herself upward, on shaking legs, and walked toward Célestin. It was impossible that he not see her. He had to look up; he had to hear her, had to—

  But he didn’t. Merely those same gasping, heaving breaths from him; the blood, dripping drop after drop onto the parquet floor. When Françoise was almost close enough to touch, he frowned, as if something was wrong.

  “Who . . . ?” he asked. He frowned. Magic—some artifact or charged mirror, emptied before the fight—rose within him, sharp, unexpected. Too much magic. She couldn’t hope to fight that.

  She stopped, heart in her throat.

  Who was she fooling, anyway? Weak and trembling, barely able to hold herself steady, a newborn at her chest, and a bone-deep weariness only thinly plastered over by Berith’s magic.

  Except no one else was coming. It was her and Berith and not much else, against the wrath of Astragale.

  She drew in a burning breath and—before she could change her mind or wonder anymore whether Célestin had seen her—drew the knife, swiftly, across his throat.

  It caught. It was too heavy, too blunt. He turned, the words of a spell rising to his mouth—but Françoise, with the strength of desperation, pulled the knife again, dragging it with everything she had until it hit the carotid artery.

  A spray of blood fountained up. Célestin stared at her, eyes focused on her. “You—” Lips shaping around a word, the spell dying, only a faint blast of heat on her hands. Ten, twenty, thirty agonizing seconds before he finally toppled, and she could breathe.

  Hands grabbed her, twisted her around. “Well, well, well. The little Annamite has claws.” A spell tore at her, undoing layer after layer of protection, until everything was sharp again, until there was nothing left to her or Camille. “Clever,” Nemnestra said. Her hands rested at Françoise’s throat, sharp fingernails prickling the skin.