The House of Binding Thorns

by Aliette de Bodard

  “Inconvenient times. You. You were going to kill me,” Thuan said. Still might, for all he knew; still might hound him all the way into the kingdom. “You . . .” He struggled for words. “You and your ritual and your conquest. Why did you even have to take an interest in us?”

  Asmodeus made a sound, low and rasping. It took Thuan a moment to realize that it was laughter, not cruel or malevolent but genuinely amused. “You have the sword,” he said.

  He did. He looked, again, at Asmodeus, felt Morningstar’s power surge through him, hungering to take, to cut, to hoard—anything to fill that gaping hurt, that unbearable loneliness. “You want me to take the House?”

  Again, that amused sound that sounded like lungs tearing up. “I’m . . . not . . . in a position . . . to stop you.”

  Weak, and struggling, and the House itself already in the grasp of Yen Oanh’s khi water—except that Yen Oanh was dead, or worse, and he could take it all for himself with little effort. If he killed Asmodeus, here, now, drawing on the magic of the sword, he would make Asmodeus’s spell work in reverse, claim the House for the dragon kingdom; would, in one fell swoop, make sure that they were safe, and inviolable, and taking their place in the order of things in the city—ruling in his own name, like the Fallen. . . .

  The sword was warm, in his hands, thirsting for blood, for power, for undisputed, unshared dominion.

  Like the Fallen.

  No worse, no better than them.

  Asmodeus’s eyes were on him, the only things that seemed to be alive in his face—the same gaze that had, dispassionately, considered whether maiming or imprisoning Thuan would be better than outright killing him—who would have strung Thuan up in these trees, to hang emptying himself of blood, feeding the power of the House.

  He knew then.

  “I’m not like you,” he said, slowly, savagely. “Never.”

  And, gathering to him all the khi water in the grove, he bent down, one arm scooping up Asmodeus from the ground—hardly any weight to him, bones as light as a bird’s—the other driving the sword, up to the hilt, into his chest.

  Asmodeus gasped, coughing up blood. But Thuan’s lips were already on his, catching warm, electrifying breath, the blade itself followed by a weaving of khi water, a surge of magic into Asmodeus’s heart that was both Fallen and dragon, keeping him alive even as the sword transfixed him.

  Reshaping the world. Thuan wasn’t good with Fallen magic, but he didn’t need to be, not with this amount coursing through him. He knew what he wanted—such a small thing, compared with what Asmodeus had had in mind, such a small, localized change—and he just needed to let his desire guide him.

  Not conquering, not killing, not taking over. Merging. Sharing.

  On all the trees in the grove, the frost melted, leaving only warm puddles at the feet of the trunks—swiftly absorbed, lapped up as eagerly as blood—and flowers, gray and green, the color of moldy algae, blossomed like a thousand hands opening. And, outside, on the quays, the Seine growled and shifted, while water seeped out of the earth to drown the lawns and pathways of the gardens, and the fountains filled up with oily, dark brine.

  Asmodeus’s lips moved, trying to shape themselves around a word, which Thuan caught, swallowing it like live fire. And, slowly, gradually, as the power within the sword drained away, sinking to impalpable embers—as the khi water he held sank down to bare, thin threads—something rose, within his mind. It was . . . Asmodeus’s amused, distant cruelty—and, beyond, deaths in the grove and in the gardens, each of them an open wound—and a dozen—a hundred—lights lined up like lanterns at the Midautumn Festival, which he had only to touch to reach, and snuff out: the dependents of the House, so many frozen, so many hovering on the verge of death. . . .

  No.

  The power spread, encompassed the House, pushed, again and again, against the cracked wall, melting frost like wildfire. Lights shivered and wobbled in Thuan’s mind: a dozen—a hundred—emergencies as dependents, freed from the frost, fell shivering and gasping and dying to the ground, wave after wave of imperious desperation. He had to do something for them; he had to do it now.

  Thuan withdrew the blade, dropped it. It was dark now, all its magic spent. The network of khi water hung together for a moment longer, knitting together the flesh of Asmodeus’s wounds, until he lay, dangling like a rag doll, in Thuan’s arms, pale and light and brittle. He hissed, gaze lifeless and unfocused. “Consort,” he whispered, and then his eyes rolled up, and he fell silent.

  Consort. Thuan knelt, laying Asmodeus down on the ground—brushing, gently, the hair back from his face. He looked at the hawthorn trees all around him, feeling their roots, and the wards they kept together, the drowned gardens near the Seine, the remnants of the wall that would have to be torn down piece by piece.

  Consort. Head of the House. Joint heads, to a House that was now Hawthorn, and a part of the dragon kingdom, neither and both of these, new and raw and frightening.

  I’m not like you. Never.

  Unwise.

  “I know,” he said, aloud. “I never said I was wise.” And, rising, and brushing his bloodied hands against the jacket of his suit, he went to see what could be done, for the House that now half belonged to him.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Open Paths

  PHILIPPE came back to find his flat largely untouched, and unclaimed—through fear of Olympe’s wrath, combined with disinclination to touch the bloodied patterns brimming with magic that he’d left on the floor.

  Olympe, flanked by a couple of dockworkers, walked them to the door. She said nothing, watched Philippe find a rag and start cleaning the patterns in silence. “Under your protection,” she said.

  Philippe shrugged. “I just said that to get her to stop.”

  Olympe said a word, finally: tien, the Viet one for “Immortal.”

  “Not any longer,” Philippe said, softly. “As I said, don’t feel beholden to me.”

  “I don’t.” Olympe’s voice was sharp. “But word gets around. They might even build you a temple.”

  Philippe shivered. “Not if you disapprove.”

  “Perhaps I don’t.”

  He looked up, found her face unreadable. He was older than her, he suddenly realized, and she feared that he would take her place, effortlessly pushing her into the background. “I just wanted to help,” he started, but she cut him off.

  “I’m not a queen in my own country, Philippe. I just look out for people, because that’s what I’ve done all my life. Because someone should care. Because someone should speak up.”

  “I—” He swallowed. “I can’t do that. That’s your dominion, not mine.”

  “I know,” Olympe said. “But you did stand up.”

  And he wanted to tell her he regretted it, but he wasn’t even sure he could do that, and not have it feel like a lie. There was no way he could have walked away from the shed, and the massacre or enslavement of the others.

  No, not of others. Of his countrymen.

  “I was a messenger,” he said, finally. “A minor Immortal in the court of the Jade Emperor. Not the kind who sends blessings, or rain. And that was before they cast me out.”

  Olympe’s face didn’t move.

  “I can keep an eye out. I can do some magic, but nothing loud or obvious, or the Houses will come looking for us again.”

  At length, Olympe shook her head. “Be a doctor, Philippe. Be here. That’s all that can be asked, really.”

  He’d already done that, he wanted to say, and then saw the patterns on the floor, and the blood—alien and meaningless now, things he had once known intimately but that no longer made sense. “I can try,” he said.

  “Good.” She smiled, sweetly. “It will be New Year soon. You and your friend can come help with the rice cakes.”

  Because, whatever happened, Olympe was Olympe, and he would never, ev
er change her. He smiled, in spite of himself. “Perhaps.”

  “You’d better.”

  After she left, he stared, for a while, at the floor, trying to regain a long-lost sense of balance.

  Isabelle, sitting on his desk, watched him. “Do you have a broom?” she asked. And, when he didn’t answer, went foraging into the broken cupboard. “Mmm. I see you don’t.”

  “I had one,” Philippe said, wiping the last of the patterns away. His hands ached, but it was distant pain that barely touched him. “Probably stolen.”

  Isabelle snorted. “I’m not clearing the debris by hand.”

  “I’m not asking you to clear anything.”

  “I know.” She shrugged. “Though you might get the other Annamites to do it for you.”

  Philippe shuddered. “I hope not. You heard Olympe.” He got up, stared at her for a while. “Isabelle?”

  “Mmm.”

  “How much—how much do you remember?”

  Isabelle cocked her head, in a heartbreakingly familiar gesture. “I remember Silverspires. I remember being dead.”

  Not the wheel of rebirth, or her apparitions as a ghost, but then, he hadn’t thought she would. “You’re mortal now.”

  “Yes.” She bit her lips. “I don’t know why. The ritual, probably.”

  Probably not. He knew, already, why.

  Your desire shakes the foundations of the earth.

  It was the magic that had torn them apart in the first place: her status as a Fallen, and her growing allegiance to House Silverspires, her arrogance and lack of compassion, making her into a mirror of the tormentors who had dragged him to France and forced him to fight in their war.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He wanted to say it was his fault, but he would lose her if he did.

  Isabelle shrugged. “Don’t be. Most people don’t get reborn. Thank you.”

  Some did—Morningstar, other Fallen. He didn’t know the rules, didn’t know anything, in spite of Berith’s promises. Because of what he desired, she’d been reborn powerless and weak, in a world that respected only power. As surely as if he had killed her, he had doomed her to be part of the poor, the Houseless. They were choices he had made for himself, and now would be hers.

  “I’ll take care of you,” he said, slowly, carefully. He was going to say, “I promise,” but he’d made her so many promises, and kept so few of them. “We’ll work something out.” With Olympe, and with the other Annamites.

  Isabelle watched him, for a while. “The two of us?” She smiled, and it was like the sun, rising, filling the entire flat. “Oh, Philippe. It’ll be fine. Honestly.”

  “It will be fine,” he repeated.

  And, for a long, slow, treacherous moment—watching her balancing on his desk, smiling and hopeful, and exactly as he remembered her before things had gone sour in Silverspires—he allowed himself to believe it.

  * * *

  FRANÇOISE sat by Berith’s side, watching her sleep.

  They’d walked from the gardens into the House, finding it in utter disarray, and were triaged into the hospital wing, where Berith was given drugs by a rather disgruntled doctor, and sharply told to rest. Françoise wasn’t given anything, except food and water, and a look that could have seared flesh. She sat in a chair, winded, feeling Camille suckle at her breast, the baby unaware that anything had gone wrong with the world.

  The hawthorn tree had gone, but Françoise knew it was still there, part of Berith’s new dominion. Part of the House, the new boundaries they had imposed on themselves. Because she’d asked her to, because she’d led them to Hawthorn.

  A price. There was always a price.

  A knock at the door. Françoise turned, half expecting Asmodeus, but it was another Annamite instead, his hair styled in a topknot, wearing a suit in the colors of the House. They stared at each other, for a while. “I’m sorry,” the Annamite said, in fluent Viet. “I had no idea. . . .” He used an odd pronoun to refer to himself, not “child,” which she would have expected given his youth, but an archaic one that she didn’t know.

  Comprehension dawned. “Oh. You’re here for Berith. I’m Françoise. This is Camille.”

  “My name is Thuan. I’m . . . the head of the House.”

  “Asmodeus?”

  “Also the head of the House.” He frowned. “But unlikely to get up from his bed anytime soon.” He stared at her, at the baby. “I’ve come to tell you that you have the shelter of the House. And its protection.”

  “As your dependents?”

  “As whatever makes you comfortable. It would make my work easier if you were dependents, insofar as protection goes.” Thuan raised a hand, cutting off whatever she might have said. “You don’t have to decide now.”

  He was so young, barely in his twenties, and yet he projected a confidence that was beyond his years, the quiet ease of someone taught to wield power. Where had he come from? She wasn’t sure, couldn’t be sure; and then he shifted, and the shadow of antlers grew from his head, and a faint scattering of scales came into focus on his skin.

  “Rong,” she whispered, and he smiled. “That’s unusual.”

  Thuan was silent for a while. “For a House? Things . . . will change, here. They’ll have to. And you and Berith will be part of it.”

  “Things will change.” Françoise shook her head.

  Thuan smiled. “Fear begets fear, and nothing changed in the twenty years since he took the House.”

  Françoise said, “House Astragale thought they could change things, too.” And had been, in the end, no better than the other Houses. “Sorry.”

  Thuan shrugged. “House Astragale is going to be in disarray for a while. Licking their wounds, you might say. As to changes . . . we all do what we can with the power we have, and are held responsible for it. It’s only fair.”

  The power that raised them up, that corrupted them. Françoise said nothing.

  “Anyway, I’ll be back. When things have cooled down. But I wanted you to know”—he gestured to her, Berith, and Camille—“that you have shelter here.”

  “I see,” Françoise said, slowly. “Thank you.”

  If he’d been Asmodeus, he would have smiled and said something sarcastic; but instead, Thuan merely bowed, in an old-fashioned Annamite gesture of respect. “Blood stands by blood.”

  After he was gone, Françoise sat, watching Berith sleep, thinking of the hawthorn tree in the garden, now sunk back into invisibility, a dominion only waiting to be called back. Hearts’ desires, and granted wishes, and bittersweet endings, and the House that she was going to tie herself to for a lifetime, for Berith’s sake. For Camille’s sake.

  A future. Any future that doesn’t involve death.

  There’s nothing here that will ever shake the foundations of the world. Nothing large or earth-shattering.

  But nothing here shallow, or meaningless, either.

  The world was blurred, and a little painful. She stroked Camille’s small head, not sure whether she should weep or laugh or both.

  “We can’t have everything we want,” she whispered, into the silence of the room. So seldom did, in fact. But there would be food, and warmth, and a childhood that wasn’t teetering on the edge of poverty and starvation. And, perhaps, in time, a form of happiness; or at any rate of peace with the choices they’d made. “But it will have to do.”

  * * *

  THUAN hardly felt the days go by. Dependents—those who had survived—were slowly, painstakingly taking apart the wall, with the help of some rather bemused dragons. He’d sent a message to Second Aunt, and received an amused answer with her personal seal, congratulating him on his new position and wishing him luck.

  Which was, truth be told, a weight off his chest. He’d been half-afraid she would carve chunks out of his own hide.

  They counted the dead, too, and buried
them—distant acquaintances, and utter strangers; and friends and fellow students, too. Sare, caught in the gardens, freezing to death before he had ever been able to dispel the frost.

  His mind was numb, filled only with thoughts of the House. From time to time, he would realize the enormity of what had happened, of what he’d gained, of what he’d lost, and then balk again, and find refuge in the work that needed to be done.

  And, as part of that work, he called Nadine into Asmodeus’s rooms. He’d drawn the frayed curtains on the large four-poster bed, leaving Asmodeus sleeping deeply on blood- and sweat-drenched sheets—and sat in the chair that Asmodeus had once occupied, a quiet statement of the new order of things in the House.

  Nadine wore a simple gray dress, with barely any hint of the colors of Hawthorn. She stood, her whole body taut with fear, knuckles white, hands shaking. She’d taken sides against Asmodeus, broken the vow of loyalty she’d sworn to him. She knew that her offense was grave and unforgivable. “Thuan,” she said.

  Thuan nodded. “I think,” he said, gently, slowly, “that it would be best if you left the House.”

  Nadine’s head jerked up. “You’re showing me mercy? He wouldn’t approve.”

  “This isn’t about him,” Thuan said. “And”—he smiled, dark and unamused—“ask me again about mercy when you’ve lived among the Houseless for a while.”

  “There are worse things.” Nadine shook her head. A pause, then: “You—you don’t even want to know who else was involved?”

  “I already know,” Thuan said. It hadn’t been hard. There’d been plenty of eyewitnesses, even in the confusion of the attack on the House, and even before. Not that many people, considering. Two of the nurses in the infirmary, and a handful of students who might not even have understood the consequences of what they were doing.

  “I see,” Nadine said. “Sparing me from bloody purges, to salve your conscience.”

  “Bloody, probably not. But there will be gestures made. Statements.” He could ill afford to do anything else, not when it would be construed as a weakness.