The House of Binding Thorns

by Aliette de Bodard

  Nadine looked up, shock-still. “Thuan?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. I take it that’s not normal?” The khi water around him was growing, every turn and eddy sharply limned, a wealth of familiar power that made him feel giddy.

  “I don’t know!” Nadine said. She’d dropped the keys, blowing on her hands to keep warm. Thuan, who was used to freezing temperatures below the Seine, merely gathered khi water to him, and waited. “I wasn’t taking notes the last time!”

  It was getting colder and colder. On the lower half of the wainscoting, frost crept like a hundred—a thousand—snakes slowly crawling across the wall, drawing spirals and circles, and complex patterns that almost felt like a hidden language. “It’s in the House, too.”

  “I—” Nadine shook her head. “I have to know what’s going on, Thuan. We’ll do this later.” She picked up the keys and was gone, running before he could stop her.

  Thuan walked to the nearest window. The sky was still that cold, unearthly blue; and he could guess at the presence of the wall beyond that, still blocking off the House from Paris and any help that might come. But the gardens, and the other buildings . . .

  Everything was covered in a thin, glistening layer of frost. It spread across trees and grass and windows—and caught people, too, stopping them in their tracks like statues, gently coiling over their skin, leaching the color from their eyes and skin and clothes.

  No, not frost. Khi water, honed to a killing edge.

  What in heaven was going on?

  Thuan looked down. The frost had spread across the dusty parquet, and was starting to root him to the floor. No. He drew on khi earth and laid it around his feet, a halo that choked the water as it tried to climb up his legs. It felt . . . familiar. Draconic. He hadn’t thought there was another dragon in the House, but of course the rebels were involved with the wall. One of them had to be causing this, somehow.

  Frost was going around him now, heading toward the doors, and shriveling back as if it’d met the edge of a knife. The wards on the doors, whatever they were, still held. Thuan walked to stand in front of the doors: the dark gray background, the two falling stars that wavered between silver and red. Gently, carefully, he laid his fingers, one by one, on one of the handles. Magic welled up, slowly, like blood from a wound, or heat from glowing embers. He’d expected some of the same familiar feeling he got from the drawers in Asmodeus’s office, but there was nothing, merely a slow, gentle warmth that reminded him of home, and being held in loving arms.

  Nadine hadn’t had time to open the door. And, ordinarily, it would have been a problem—except that, with the khi elements so strong, and particularly khi water, Thuan was no longer in a position of weakness.

  Water was stillness. Water was winter and the frost under his feet; but also the winter of life, and the slow creep of old age. The handle grew colder under his fingers, a cold that spread into the mechanism of the lock and into the wards surrounding it. A fine, gray dust spilled outward, and the door slowly, silently gave in, the warmth of magic fading to nothing on his skin.

  The office was one thing, this room another. Thuan understood now how Nadine had felt. As he entered the bedroom, the smell of bergamot and orange blossom wafted up, so strong he turned, for a moment, to check if Asmodeus was standing right by his side. But of course there was no one.

  Unwise.

  The kiss?

  The confidences. But thank you.

  The chair where Asmodeus had sat lay half in shadow. Thuan approached it, heart in his throat, expecting, at any time, power to seize him and hold him still, the touch of fingernails raking his cheeks. But it was empty, too. He breathed out, not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

  He turned, to check: the frost was creeping in behind him. He didn’t have much time.

  He stood in the center of the room, looking at the faint traceries of khi currents. They were weak; they had always been weak in this room that was saturated with Fallen magic. And what little there had been was being twisted out of shape by the approach of the cold. Not much time. No time, not even to save himself.

  Breathe. Breathe.

  Buddhist mantras, over and over, prayers to his ancestors, the sound of his breathing sinking away to nothingness, the quiet, black place where he meditated or prayed. He opened his eyes, and stared at the khi currents again. Faint, faded traceries on the oak wood parquet, but there was one place where they were fainter than they should have been.

  Not under the bed, or the chair, but by the desk, stacked with books and scattered papers. There was a space in the wainscoting that felt soft, and pliant under his fingers, that gave way as he pushed, revealing a long, wooden chest, so charged with power and wards that it glowed in his sight.

  Water. Water and stillness. Water and cold. Thuan laid both hands on the sides of the chest, and waited. Khi water spread from his fingers. Scales on his skin flashed in and out of existence, and he knew his antlers would be appearing and disappearing, too, and his teeth sharpened into the fangs of predators. Not that anyone, anymore, had any doubt that he was a dragon.

  It wasn’t like extinguishing khi fire: the Fallen magic refused to sink down and die. It kept pushing back, struggling to survive against the onslaught of the water in Thuan’s hands.

  He was going to run out of strength, or khi water, or both, in spite of the House overflowing with frost. His hands were shaking, his fingers sharpening into claws; he was losing control, and the Fallen magic kept pushing and pushing, trying to find a way in. He had to stop. He had to withdraw from the room, before . . .

  The chest opened, with a click that sounded like a gunshot. The Fallen magic fell away, leaving Thuan pushing against nothing. He stopped himself just in time, before he drowned whatever was inside with water.

  Inside, laid on velvet lining, was a sword.

  But not just any sword. Hawthorn was full of swords and knives, of old, prewar things hung above chimneys like trophies, their blades tinged with rust, their handles broken or so fragile they would never bear to be taken down. This was different.

  It was huge, and lethally simple: a large, two-handed weapon with a curved guard, and a grip engraved with a thin spiral—the only concession to elegance, for everything else about the weapon was straight, and brutal, a statement of strength and power rather than beauty. Faint letters shone on the blade, in an alphabet that was utterly unfamiliar to Thuan, and the whole thing radiated so much power it was like standing next to a furnace—no, not a furnace; there was something oddly attractive about it, something of a flame to a moth. He had only to reach out, and he couldn’t help himself, so he did—and the magic climbed through his hands, into his heart, a memory of tumbling down from Heaven; dreams of a distant city, bathed in golden light and the presence of God, to which he could never return, nostalgia and loss turning to sharp bitterness, the edge of a knife to cut himself and a hundred others; and then the magic withdrew, leaving behind a name that tasted like fire and brimstone on his tongue.

  Lucifer Morningstar.

  Thuan’s hand shook, wouldn’t go back to being human, his claws raking the hilt. No wonder it had been such a powerful feeling. No wonder Asmodeus had been so confident. What couldn’t one do, with all of this at one’s disposal?

  He lifted the sword out of the chest. It was heavy, and yet it didn’t feel it, more like it had always been meant for his hands.

  The room was now covered in frost, the sheets and curtains shimmering with the harsh light of ice, and the oak wood floor almost vanished beneath a thin layer of whiteness. But, around him, as he walked with the blade in his hand, the frost died in a circle, utterly obliterated by the magic saturating him.

  The House would be in sheer chaos. Any people who weren’t frozen would be too busy trying to save themselves. It was unlikely anyone would try to stop him, and if they
did, he could easily blast them unconscious.

  Thuan walked on, heading toward the gardens, and the distant safety of the dragon kingdom.

  * * *

  IN the ruined flat, Françoise knelt by Berith’s side, slowly searching for a pulse that seemed to elude her. She was alive. She had to be. It would just be so stupid of her, to come all this way and fail. . . .

  “Berith. Berith.”

  Camille was warm against her—snug and small, completely trusting in her mother to fix whatever was wrong. If only she knew.

  “Berith.”

  Berith’s eyes opened. Silver flecks shone for a moment, and faded again. “I’m—fine. I—” She took a deep, shuddering breath, her hands convulsively gripping Françoise’s. “You should have left.”

  “Not without you.” The same old, tired argument. “Did you—did you uproot?”

  “Not quite.” Berith pulled herself up to a standing position, pushing the armchair’s remnant out of the way. “But soon. I can’t sustain . . .” Her legs shook. Françoise fought not to cry.

  “Let’s go.”

  “They’ll come back.”

  “And find a ruined flat full of corpses and scorch marks. We can hide. You”—Françoise struggled to speak—“you don’t look like a Fallen anymore.” If she had ever looked like one. If she hadn’t been dying. The flat was a ruin, the cupboards splinters of wood, the wall blown open to snowflakes and cold wind, her ancestral altar askew, the offerings scattered, the small pictures of her grandparents overturned.

  “Of course not. I—” She shook her head. “There’s no safe place, Françoise.”

  Françoise tasted ashes, and dust, on her tongue, and the bitter taste of defeat. “There is. Hawthorn.”

  “Hawthorn is falling.”

  “Not yet.” Françoise stroked Camille’s head. She thought of Asmodeus’s smug, self-satisfied face as he calmly told her that she would find it no easy thing, to raise her child, Berith’s child. That their situation was untenable, and that their only safety lay in Hawthorn—even as he stole them away to force Berith to come to him. “They wouldn’t have come for you if they were sure of winning. It wouldn’t have mattered.” Every word felt dry, drained of substance, hard pebbles she couldn’t face swallowing. “You said it yourself. A lone Fallen can’t stand against a House. If they had Hawthorn, if they truly knew that they had wrested control of it from Asmodeus, they wouldn’t have cared a jot about you.”

  Berith’s face didn’t move. “A lone Fallen can’t stand against a House. I’m dying, Françoise. There’s so little that I can do.”

  “And you would rather die here than elsewhere?”

  “I would rather know you were safe!”

  “Safe, and starving in the streets?” The words were coming out fast now, all the things she’d left unsaid, all the wounds she’d never torn open, the resentment and the fears she faced at night, while Berith slept fitfully—the choices she’d made and was no longer sure she could live up to. “Tearing my fingers into pieces with sewing trying to earn just enough coin to live? Going hungry so that Camille can feed? Is that better?”

  It was unfair, every word hurting Berith like a hurled stone, when she was no longer in a state to parry anything, or offer any coherent response. But it was that or letting her die here. “I don’t know,” Berith said. Her face twisted into the heartbreaking expression of a hurt child. “What do you want?”

  A long, happy, prosperous future for the two—the three of them. A childhood of games and laughter and carelessness for Camille, all the things Françoise couldn’t provide, Berith couldn’t provide. “A future,” she whispered, finally. “Any future that isn’t death.”

  The wind was rising again, biting at her bare fingers, insinuating itself in the space between her clothes. It brought the smell of snow and rain.

  “A future.” Berith’s eyes were flecked with silver again, and the armchair was a sundered throne on a dais choked with ashes. Instead of a ruined wall, there was the shadow of bookshelves, and the faint smell of parchment and books—and a sound, almost on the cusp of hearing—voiceless, toneless, like a distant swarm of bees. Light streamed toward Berith, limned her in shades of gold and orange—erasing the bruised eyes, the raised shape of bones beneath translucent skin. “Come,” she whispered.

  Françoise climbed the three steps, stood by Berith’s side. She could almost see the flat if she squinted: an overlay of the dingy, ruined room against what remained of the dominion.

  “There’s so little left,” Berith said, her voice echoing in the emptiness. “Despair, and anger, and emptiness.”

  “I know,” Françoise said. The noise was growing, fragments of words and sentences in a language she couldn’t understand, like being thrown into deep waters, not knowing how to swim.

  A price, Berith had said. There was always a price, even for small, diminished wishes that weren’t heart’s desires.

  But they had so few choices.

  Berith kissed her, slowly, gently. No magic, nothing, just warm, supple lips on hers, arms wrapped around her, holding her safe for a single, suspended moment. “There’s nothing here that will ever shake the foundations of the world. Nothing large or earth-shattering.”

  “Ssh,” Françoise said, and kissed her back—and for a while there was nothing but the three of them, an illusion of a happy family, safe and sound and feeling nothing of cold, or hunger, or hopelessness. For a while, nothing but gentle warmth, suffusing her and Camille and Berith.

  But all things ended, in time.

  Berith laid her hand against Françoise’s forehead, gently tracing its outline. “I can’t give you your heart’s desire,” she whispered. “You know why.”

  Because there was a price. Because there would always be a price to pay, and she couldn’t afford to pay. Because she’d already been granted it, in some way. Berith and Camille were still alive, still with her. So many things. “I know,” Françoise said.

  Warmth rose, within her: the comforting presence of Berith’s magic, bathing her in its glow. “This is yours, for safekeeping,” Berith said. “What little there is, with my blessing. Because nothing here is shallow, or meaningless, either.”

  The dominion was fading again, but this time there weren’t even traceries left, and the flat itself was shaking. The floor shifted under Françoise’s feet, became covered with a thick layer of dust. The broken throne became the armchair again, wavering to the pale color of the sky, its flower patterns reabsorbed. And then it was gone, faded as though it had never been.

  Berith stumbled, caught herself with a grimace. She raised her hands again. Light flew to them, ten thousand flecks of silver rising from the floor, sinking beneath the skin of her arms, of her legs, briefly imprinting themselves on her face before being soaked up. Françoise reached out for her, but Berith pushed her away, shaking her head. Not now.

  The distant noise Françoise had been hearing grew and grew, became the rush of a wave—and then a sharp, wounding sound, like a huge stone table snapping in two. And then silence, and stillness, and a spreading sense that the world had just been hollowed out.

  There was something left, around them. It was as though it were the ghost of a flat: every piece of furniture was still there, all the broken walls still in place, but her gaze slid right off them, unable to focus on anything. Like a chameleon on a background, always fading away, never coming into focus. Her eyes watered, trying to keep up.

  Berith stood up, shakily. Her face was sunken, her movements tentative. Françoise reached out, again. With all the magic sloshing out of her, she could strengthen her; she could—

  Berith shook her head. “Don’t,” she said. “I can’t hold it. It would burn me alive.”

  “There has to be something.”

  “Not until I find another place to anchor myself.” She grimaced again, gripped Françoise’s hand ha
rd enough to bruise. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  PHILIPPE was lying on a cold surface, feeling currents of khi water swirl around him. He’d given up trying to pull himself upward—winded and drained, his hands aching with the wounds he’d received when breaking the cup.

  Noises of battle, screams, and the smell of blood. The khi currents around him became tinged with metal and water, the familiar pattern of approaching death.

  “Philippe. Philippe.” Someone raised his head on her lap. It was Isabelle, staring down at him.

  “You.” He swallowed, feeling only the dryness in his throat. “You’re alive.”

  Isabelle shook her head. “Later. You need to get up.”

  “Why—what’s happening?”

  She pulled him, centimeter by agonizing centimeter; left him, finally, standing—shaking—in the darkness of the shed.

  There were no guards left alive. And Annamites had fallen, too. He caught a glimpse of Jérôme, unseeing eyes staring upward. The remainder of them were gathered at the back of the shed, behind Olympe, who, quivering with anger, was facing down ten armed dragons and sea creatures.

  Their leader, a crab official Philippe didn’t recognize, held two swords, one in each hand. Her cheeks were the blue-gray, mottled color of a crustacean’s shell, cracked and broken in patches that even a thick layer of ceruse couldn’t disguise. “I may not have been clear,” she said. Khi water swirled around her, currents bound to her will. “You may stay here. Shelter and accommodation will be found, and I suppose we always have a use for servants. Or you can die. There is no going home.”

  Olympe’s face was set. “We’re not servants. And we didn’t ask to come here.” She turned, briefly, to the people cowering behind her. “Anyone who wants to take that offer is free to do so. But I’m not dying in the name of absurd secrecy. You’re the ones who took us from our homes!”

  “We didn’t,” the crab official said, pointedly. Her expression said, very clearly, that she got to clean up other people’s messes. “And it doesn’t matter.”