The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic

by Leigh Bardugo

Signy sighed and flopped back against the pillows, slender hands pressed to her brow, as if she suffered from headache. “It cannot all be real. He cannot possibly mean to make me his wife.” She bounced her dainty heels against the sheets, kicking the way humans did when they were trying not to drown. She had never been more beautiful. Ulla tasted poison in her mouth. “Do you think I might make a passable princess?” Signy asked.

  Charming Roffe. More clever than Ulla had ever imagined. If Ulla did as the prince asked, he would give Signy all she wanted, or at least the illusion of it. If Ulla did not, he would break Signy’s heart, and Ulla knew it would destroy her friend. It was one thing for Signy to have loved Roffe from afar, but how deeply had she let herself fall now that he’d given her permission to love him? The dam had broken. There was no calling back the water.

  So it was decided.

  “You would make a passable princess,” Ulla said. “But a far better queen.”

  Signy seized Ulla’s wrists. “You spoke to the apprentice? You’ve found a spell for the flame?”

  “A song,” Ulla said. “But it will be dangerous.”

  Signy pressed a kiss to her friend’s cheek. “There is nothing you cannot do.”

  And nothing I will not do to protect you, Ulla vowed. The bargain is made.

  Signy was all joy the next day, asking Ulla to sing her a dress for the ball, laughing that she cared for mortal clothes no longer.

  Ulla prayed Roffe would make Signy happy. Though he might not make a great king, he would at least be a cunning one. Besides, she would be there at his right hand to make sure he kept to their bargain. Now she knew she was not just sildroher but something else too. She had witch’s blood in her veins. Roffe would make Signy a queen and treat her as such, or Ulla would bring the roof of his palace down on his kingly head.

  Signy brought one of her mortal dresses to Ulla’s room. They threw open their trunks and chose the best pearls and beading from their wardrobes and sang them together into a gown of copper fire that made Signy look like a living conflagration. A good reminder for Roffe. When they were done, there was little left for Ulla, so she plucked a clutch of irises from the garden, and from them and a slender scrap of silk she sang a purple gown hemmed in gold.

  They ascended the great stairs and passed the landing where the clever mirror had been set to entertain the guests, who were already clowning before it. Their reflections waved to them, then preened in their fine clothes.

  Up to the grand ballroom Ulla and Signy climbed, and there they joined the celebration.

  Ulla danced with anyone who asked that night. She had not bothered with slippers, and her nimble feet peeked from beneath her skirts as she whirled and leapt on the marble floor. But she took no pleasure from the perspiration on her skin, the rapid keening of the fiddles. For all its wonders, she’d grown weary of the human world and the constant press of mortal desire. She longed for the sea, for the mother she knew, for the barely broken quiet.

  She would have been happy to return now, before midnight struck, but there was still work to be done on land—work that would secure all their fortunes.

  Ulla saw Roffe disappear from the crowd. She saw his brothers drinking and dancing on this the last night. And then the clock was striking the eleventh hour.

  She found Signy in the crowd and pressed her palm to the damp small of her back. “It’s time,” she said.

  Hand in hand they left the ball and went to meet Roffe outside Ulla’s chamber.

  When Ulla pushed open the door, she could already feel the wrongness that had settled there. The chamber had become familiar to her, dear to her in its own way despite her homesickness. She was used to its smells, stone and wax and the pines far below. But now there was something—someone in her bed.

  In the moonlight, she saw the body laid out upon the covers.

  “I do not wish to do this here.”

  “We’re out of time,” said Roffe.

  Ulla drew closer to the bed.

  “He’s young,” she said, a sickness growing in her gut. His hands and feet were bound. His chest rose and fell evenly, his mouth hanging open slightly.

  “He’s a murderer. Sentenced to hang. In a way, this is a kindness.”

  This death would be painless, private. No wait in a prison cell, no walk up the gallows steps or crowd to jeer him. Could that be called a kindness?

  “You drugged him?” Signy asked.

  “Yes, but he’ll wake eventually, and the hour of return comes on. Hurry.”

  Ulla had told him they would need a vessel of pure silver to capture the flame. From a case by the window, Roffe drew a square silver lantern. Into its side, the symbol of his family had been cut—a three-pronged triton. There was little other preparation to be made.

  Ulla had worked the spell again and again in her mind, practiced snippets of it separately before she would try to piece together the whole. And if she was honest, she’d had the sound of it with her since she’d first made the suggestion to Roffe in the garden. He had pushed her to this moment, but now that they were here, some shameful part of her thrilled to the challenge.

  She knelt to face the hearth and set down the silver lantern. Signy settled beside her, and Ulla lit the white birch branches that she’d lain in the grate. The night was far too hot for a fire, but the flame was required.

  “When do I—” said Roffe.

  Without turning, Ulla silenced him with a raised hand.

  “Watch me,” she said. “Await my signal.” He might be a prince, but tonight he would follow her orders.

  She kept her hand in the air, her eyes on the flames, and slowly, she began the melody.

  The song built in easy phrases, as if Ulla was stacking a different kind of kindling. The melody was something new, not quite a healing song, not quite a making song. She gestured to Signy to join. The sound of their twined voices was low and uneasy, the striking of flint, the hop and crackle of sparks.

  Then the song jumped like fire catching. Ulla could feel it now, a warm glow inside her, a flame she would breathe into the lantern and, in one bright moment, make a future for them all. The price was the boy on the bed. A stranger. Little more than a child. But weren’t they all children really? Ulla kept to the melody, pushed the thoughts from her head. The boy is a murderer, she reminded herself.

  Murderer. She kept that word in her head as the song rose higher, as the blaze in the hearth leapt wild and orange, as the discord sharpened and the heat in her belly grew. Murderer, she told herself again, but she did not know if she meant the boy or herself. Sweat broke over her brow. The song filled the room, so loud she worried they might draw someone’s attention, but all were below, dancing and feasting.

  The moment came, a high crescendo. Ulla dropped her hand like a flag of surrender. Even above the sound of their voices, she heard a horrible wet thunk, and the boy cried out, woken from his sleep by the blade piercing his chest. She heard muffled moaning and knew Roffe must have a hand on the boy’s mouth as he cut.

  Signy’s frightened gaze flicked to the bed. Ulla told herself not to look, but she couldn’t help it. She turned and saw Roffe’s back, hunched over his victim as he did his work—his shoulders too broad, his gray cloak like the pelt of a beast.

  Ulla turned her eyes back to the fire and sang, feeling tears slide down her cheeks, knowing they had crossed a border into lands from which they might never return. But there was nowhere else to look when Roffe knelt beside her and slipped two fresh, pink human lungs into the pyre.

  This was what the spell required. Breath. The fire demanded air just as humans did. It would need to breathe for itself beneath the sea.

  The flames closed over the wet tissue, fizzing and spitting. Ulla felt the magical heat within her bank, and for a moment she thought both fires would simply go out. Then, with a loud snap, the flames roared up in the grate as if they had a voice themselves.

  Ulla fell backward, fighting the urge to cry out as the blaze in her gut tore through h
er, up through her own lungs, her throat. Something was horribly wrong. Or was this the pain that creation required? Her eyes rolled back in her head and Signy reached for her, then cringed backward, as flames seemed to flicker beneath Ulla’s skin, traveling her arms, lighting her up like a paper lantern. Ulla smelled burning and knew her hair had caught fire.

  She released a wail and it became a part of the song as flames poured from her throat and into the silver vessel. Signy was weeping. Roffe had his bloody hands clenched before him.

  Ulla could not stop screaming. She could not stop the song. She seized Signy’s arm, pleading, and Signy reached forward to slam the silver lantern shut.

  Silence. Ulla crumpled to the floor.

  She heard Signy cry her name and tried to answer, but the pain was too great. Her lips were blistered; her throat still felt as if it was burning. Her whole body shook and convulsed.

  Roffe held the silver lantern in his hands, the shape of his family’s triton glowing with golden light.

  “Roffe,” said Signy. “Go to the ballroom. Get the others. We need to sing healing. My voice won’t be enough.”

  But the prince wasn’t listening. He walked to the dressing table and upended the basin, dousing the lantern. The flame did not even sputter.

  Ulla moaned.

  “Roffe!” Signy snapped, and some part of Ulla’s heart returned at the anger in her friend’s voice. “We need help.”

  The clock began to chime the half hour. Roffe seemed to return to himself.

  “It’s time to go home,” he said.

  “She’s too weak,” said Signy. “She won’t be able to sing the transformation.”

  “That’s true,” Roffe said slowly, and the regret in his words set Ulla alive with fear.

  “Roffe.” Ulla gasped his name. Her voice was a shattered thing, barely a rasp. What have I done? she thought wildly. What have I done?

  “I’m sorry,” he said. Are there any words so cursed? “The lantern must be my gift only.”

  Despite the pain, Ulla wanted to laugh. “No one … will believe … you worked … that song.”

  “Signy will be my witness.”

  “I will not,” Signy spat.

  “We will tell them you and I forged the song together. That the lantern is a sign of our love. That I am a worthy king and you are a worthy queen.”

  “You took a human life …” Ulla gasped. “You spilled human blood.”

  “Did I?” Roffe said, and from his cloak he drew Ulla’s sykurn knife. He’d wiped it mostly clean, but the wet remnants of blood still gleamed on its blade. “You took a boy’s life, an innocent page who caught you working blood magic.”

  Innocent. Ulla shook her head, and fresh pain flared in her throat. “No,” she moaned. “No.”

  “You said he was a criminal,” cried Signy. “A murderer!”

  “You knew,” said Roffe. “Both of you knew. You were as eager as I, as hungry. You just wouldn’t look your ambition in the eye.”

  Signy shook her head. But Ulla wondered. Had either of them bothered to look closely at the boy’s soft hands? At his clean face? Or had they simply wanted this enough that they’d been willing to leave the ugly work to Roffe?

  Roffe dropped the blade at Ulla’s feet. “She cannot return now. The blade is sacred. It can touch nothing human or be corrupted. It’s useless.”

  Signy was sobbing. “You cannot do this. You cannot do this, Roffe.”

  He knelt, and the flame of the lantern caught the gold of his hair, the deep ocean of his eyes. “Signy, it is done.”

  That was when Ulla understood. It was Signy who had asked her to unlock her chest to make her a gown.

  “Why?” she rasped. “Why?”

  “He said he needed the knife to secure your loyalty.” Signy wept. “In case you changed your mind about the spell.”

  Oh, Signy, Ulla thought as her eyes filled with fresh tears. My loyalty never wavered, and it was never his.

  “It is done,” Roffe repeated. “Stay with Ulla and live in exile, pay the price with her when the humans discover her crime. Or…”—he shrugged—“return to the sea as my bride. It is cruel. I know it is. But kings must sometimes be cruel. And to be my queen you must be cruel now too.”

  “Signy,” Ulla managed. Her name hurt more to speak than any other word. “Please.”

  Signy’s tears fell harder, splashed over the knife. She touched her fingers to its ruined blade.

  “Ulla,” she sobbed. “I cannot lose everything.”

  “Not everything. Not everything.”

  Signy shook her head. “I am not strong enough for this fight.”

  “You are,” Ulla rasped past the tortured flesh of her throat. “We are. Together. As we have always been.”

  Signy brushed her cool knuckles over Ulla’s cheek. “Ulla. My fierce Ulla. You know I was never strong.”

  My fierce Ulla. She saw then what she had been to Signy all along—a shelter, a defense. Ulla had been the only rock to cling to, so Signy had held on, but now the seas had calmed and she was slipping away to seek other shelter. She was letting go.

  Ulla found that she was tired. The pain had devoured her strength. Rest, said a voice inside her. Her mother? Or the witch mother she’d never known? The mother who had left her to the mercy of the waves. If Signy could leave her behind so easily too, maybe it was best not to try to hold on.

  Ulla had made a vow to protect Signy, and she’d done it. That had to mean something. She released her friend’s hand, a final kindness. After all, she was the strong one.

  “Leave the knife,” Ulla croaked in her broken speech, and prayed that death would close over her like water.

  But Signy did not pick up the knife. Instead she turned her eyes to Roffe—and in the end, this was the thing that doomed all of Söndermane. Ulla could forgive betrayal, another abandonment, even her own death. But not this moment, when after all her sacrifice, she begged for mercy and Signy sought a prince’s permission to grant it.

  Roffe nodded. “Let it be our gift to her.”

  Only then did Signy place the blade in Ulla’s hand.

  Roffe took up the lantern, and without another word, they were gone.

  Ulla lay in the dark, the sykurn knife clutched in her fingers. She felt the stillness of the room, the cold grate, the chill presence of the hollowed corpse on the bed. She could end her life now. Simply, cleanly. No one would ever know what had happened. She would be buried in the ground or burned. Whatever they did to criminals here. But bright behind her eyelids she saw Signy’s face as she turned to Roffe, seeking the approval of her prince. She could not stop seeing it. Ulla felt hate bloom in her heart.

  What gave her strength then? We cannot know for sure. That contrary thing inside her? The hard stone of rage that all lonely girls possess?

  She dragged herself across the room, heard the clock chime. She had only a quarter hour. Her voice was gone. Her knife was worthless, corrupted by mortal blood. And yet witch’s blood ran in Ulla’s veins, so why had the blade worked upon her in the first place? Because she had fashioned it? Because she had sung its enchantments? Perhaps, like her, it had been corrupted from the start. That meant the knife might work again. It didn’t matter. She had no voice. She could make the cuts, but without song they would only bleed her.

  Ulla hauled herself up by the edge of her dressing table and saw the horror she had become. Her lips were blistered, her hair burned away in places, showing pink scalp. Still, she saw the shadow of the girl who had looked into this mirror and seen beauty looking back at her. I was not made to please princes.

  But for what then? Ulla thought she knew. She might as well have taken her knife to that boy’s heart herself. Roffe had made her a murderer. Maybe she would prove to have a talent for the act.

  Ulla smiled and her burnt lips split; blood trickled down her chin. She slammed her hand into the mirror, felt the glass cut through her knuckles as it shattered. She took the largest piece, and then, with shaking
steps, clinging to the walls, she made her way down the stairs, down, down to the entry hall.

  It was empty now. The guests were all in the ballroom. She could hear the stomping of their feet, the distant swell of music. Far below, at the bottom of the steps, two guards leaned against the vast door frame, their backs to Ulla, looking out onto the torch-lined drive.

  She went to her knees, half crawling, and made her way to the clever mirror. Here in the gleaming light of the entry, she could see the damage she had done to herself more clearly. Ulla raised her hand to touch the glass, and the girl in the mirror did the same, tears filling her bloodshot eyes.

  “Oh,” Ulla said on a soft sob. “Oh no.”

  “No, no,” echoed the mirror girl mournfully, her voice faint and fractured.

  Ulla gathered her strength. Though it pained her to do it, to force vibration past the raw flesh of her throat, to hear the weak sound that emerged, she made herself part her lips and form a note. It wobbled but held, and the girl in the mirror sang too. Their voices were still weak, but stronger together. Ulla reached into the pocket of her skirts and pulled out the shard of glass from her dressing table.

  She held it up to the mirror, finding the right angle, finding herself in the reflection. There. The two mirrors reflected each other, infinite ruined girls in infinite empty hallways—and infinite voices that grew, one on top of the other, the note building and building. First a chorus, then a flood.

  As the song grew, Ulla saw the guards turn, saw the horror in their eyes. She didn’t care. She kept the mirror aloft and drew the sykurn knife with her other hand, lifted her fine iris skirts, and slashed across her thighs. The wound was different this time. She could tell. The knife was different and so was she.

  The guards rushed toward Ulla, but now all she knew was pain, and without hesitation, she changed the song, drawing her chorus of ruined girls with her, shifting from transformation to the music of the storm, her talent nimble as ever, even if her throat bled around the notes she demanded. Thunder cracked, shaking the palace walls, hard enough to drive the guards down the stairs.

  Storm magic. The first she had learned. The first they all learned, the easiest, though impossible to accomplish on your own. But Ulla was not alone; all these broken, betrayed girls were with her, and what a terrible sound they made.