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Fireheart Tiger
| Author: | Aliette de Bodard |
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Tor.com Publishing, 2021 |
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| Book Type: | Novella |
| Genre: | Fantasy |
| Sub-Genre Tags: | Historical Fantasy Fantasy of Manners Romantic Fantasy |
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Synopsis
Fire burns bright and has a long memory...
Quiet, thoughtful princess Thanh was sent away as a hostage to the powerful faraway country of Ephteria as a child. Now she's returned to her mother's imperial court, haunted not only by memories of her first romance, but by worrying magical echoes of a fire that devastated Ephteria's royal palace.
Thanh's new role as a diplomat places her once again in the path of her first love, the powerful and magnetic Eldris of Ephteria, who knows exactly what she wants: romance from Thanh and much more from Thanh's home. Eldris won't take no for an answer, on either front. But the fire that burned down one palace is tempting Thanh with the possibility of making her own dangerous decisions.
Can Thanh find the freedom to shape her country's fate - and her own?
Excerpt
They're coming.
It's early morning, the end of the Bi-Hour of the Cat--and Thanh has been awake for most of it, staring at the wall and trying to cobble together thoughts in the emptiness of her mind.
If she closes her eyes, she'll see Yosolis again, smell the snow and ashes on the night the palace burned--when everyone was too busy evacuating the real princesses to give much thought to the dark-skinned one in the attic room, the "guest" from the South who had been little more than a glorified hostage.
Thanh was sixteen then; she's eight years older now. It should mean eight years wiser, but instead she feels as hollow and as empty as she was at twelve, watching the shores of Ephteria loom into view for the first time, and thinking that alien and cold court would be her life, that the palace in the capital of Yosolis would be the gilded bars of her jail--and, worse, that Mother was the one who had made the choice for her, for the good of Bình H?i, her home country.
For her own good.
Thanh had returned to Bình H?i two years ago, a homecoming with fanfare and pomp that should have cemented her position near the apex of court. Instead... instead, she came back too soft, too pliant. Too thoughtful and discrete, Mother says.
A noise, as the door slides open. Ái Vân, her eldest handmaiden, her face carefully blank and composed. "Your highness? It's time."
Thanh throws one last look at the papers on the bedside table. Reports from spies and magicians, assessments from advisers in the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of War; everything chronicling the inexorable encroachment of Ephteria into their lives.
They're coming.
A trade delegation; a friendly visit from Ephterian delegates. They can all hear the words that aren't said, the truth of steel beneath the silver-tongued platitudes.
"I'm coming," Thanh says.
Ái Vân has the grace to believe her; to turn and wait for Thanh in the corridor when she composes herself.
Ancestors, watch over me.
As Thanh turns towards the door, something glimmers on the papers: something like a reflection of the sun, and then it stretches and grows, a long slow trail of orange light like a finger trailing across the topmost sheet--for a moment only, and she holds her breath until it burns in her throat. Not today. She can't afford to have anything mysteriously catching fire in the bedroom. She can't have to explain to Ái Vân why things keep turning to cinders around her, as if the fire that burnt Yosolis and still haunts her nightmares had chosen to follow her home, burning ridiculously small things--orchids in vases, the hairs of calligraphy brushes, the vermillion ink of seals, small scraps of paper on her desk, pinches of tea leaves, badges of rank on five-panel dresses...
No no no.
The light sinks to the slow, lazy glow of embers: it's just sunlight coming through the closed shutters. Thanh exhales, and leaves the room--though she already knows that the fire will come back.
It always does.
***
In the throne room, Mother is waiting for her. She sits cross-legged on the dais, watching row upon row of assembled mandarins on either side of a richly woven carpet. In front of her is a simple low table with a teapot and three cups of tea. The familiar smell of the tea--cut grass and algae overlaying a sharp bitterness--prickles the back of Thanh's throat as she moves, bowing to Mother and joining her on the dais, kneeling in front of the tea cups.
"Child," Mother says, inclining her head. "I hope you're ready."
Is she? Thanh tries to remember all she's read, the names of the major Ephterian traders, how many ships came and what they sold: what Ephterians value, what they want--everything she'd picked up in Yosolis without meaning to. "I don't know," she says, finally. Mother's glare stops her from elaborating. She knows what's at stake: Bình H?i's survival as a country. She knows, too, what Mother hopes: that her time in Ephteria helped her pick up insights and habits that will help build a rapport between the delegation and her.
But the only rapport Thanh built--the only insight she gained--is one of which Mother would not approve.
"They're here," Mother says.
Footsteps, from the small flight of stairs that lead up to the throne room. Shadows, crossing the threshold from the gardens into cool darkness. Mother's face is impassive.
They walk in three abreast, looking left and right at the sea of assembled officials and their square caps, at the carvings on the stone pillars, the dragons and the turtles fighting each other for swords and spears, the eunuchs bowing to them as they head up the dais, the lanterns hung in the rafters, the elaborate confections of carved wood and cloth dancing in the wind. They bow to Mother, but it is small and perfunctory. Thanh knows there was an entire negotiation involved in how deep that bow would be, that they utterly refused to prostrate themselves as any representative of a foreign state would, and that for a moment it looked as though Bình H?i would declare war on Ephteria then and there.
And behind them...
She walks tall and proud, unbowed, but her gaze is fixed straight ahead and doesn't waver. The sword at her side goes "tap, tap" against the rich weave of her trousers as her legs move. Thanh's hands itch, remembering how soft her skin was when she ran her fingers over her legs, when her lips grazed the pale skin of her neck, the same neck that's now hidden behind a high collar and a ruffle, the lips that are closed, the face bare of makeup, her fair skin glowing like white jade.
Eldris. Princess Eldris.
"Empress," Eldris says. She bows, a fraction longer, a fraction deeper than her escort. Her eyes--her wide, blue eyes--rest on Thanh, and she smiles. "Princess. It is good to meet you again."
Eldris. Of all people, she wasn't expecting Eldris. Thanh remembers her--the same age, distant and unattainable at first. She remembers the night of the fire, stumbling out of the burning palace with the serving girl Giang suddenly falling behind her as the entire court turned to look--and, in the centre of that press of princes, Eldris's gaze resting on her, light and curious. Remembers the knock on her door a few months later, and the seventeen-year-old Eldris holding out a single rose to her with a crooked smile. There's nothing left to her but the frantic beating of her heart--all words scoured clean by fire, by memory. "Princess," she says, finally, and then stops. "You honour us with your presence."
"Oh, it's nothing. It does me good to see the business of statehood," Eldris says, her tone carefully neutral.
"So good to see you children remember each other," Mother says, but her gaze is sharp. Thanh has never told her much about her time in Yosolis, but what has Mother worked out anyway? "Come, Princess, have some tea." Mother pours, effortlessly, as Eldris sits: her over-curious attendants have settled behind her, glowering. "I trust your journey was eventless?"
Eldris shrugs. "The sea was restless. Sailors speak of angry dragon spirits. I'm glad that we were able to rest in Hong Pho. Captain Pharanea--" she points to the eldest woman in the delegation--"fell badly sick on board and needed time to recuperate."
Captain Pharanea nods, gracefully. She looks unsettlingly pale, but the smile she flashes Thanh is pure predator. She is not on this delegation for show. "I'm all better now, your highnesses. And ready to get down to business." She opens her satchel, starts spreading papers on the table: an opening salvo done with as much care as the firing of weapons. "We have so much to talk about."
Thanh recognises most of the papers Pharanea has put in front of her: letters from Ephterian merchants in their characteristic script, magistrates' official reports from Bình H?i, with the vermillion seals at the bottom, and maps drawn by Ephterian cartographers with the cardinal directions reversed compared to Bình H?i.
She slowly, deliberately sips her tea, trying not to look at Eldris--not to think of Eldris and the way that her heart still misses a beat whenever Eldris's gaze rests on her. The liquor is green and luminous and faintly tastes of the sea. "I'm so glad you're recovered." She hasn't brought her own papers from her room: she could have gone for the cheap and theatrical gesture, but she doesn't need to. "I see you've brought us trading disputes."
Pharanea bristles. "Disputes? I should think this is more serious." She opens her mouth, but Thanh gets there first.
"You're right." She's glanced at the seals, had time to sort out which magistrates they belong to. The province of Ð?i ?nh, and what looks like all echelons of the judicial hierarchy from county to prefecture. Time for a leap of faith. "Murder is always serious, isn't it? The deliberate snuffing out of a life. Depriving a child of their mother, parents of their filial daughter--" she knows that last won't carry as much weight with the Ephterians, who think filial piety rank superstition, but she has to say it, nevertheless--"an empress of her most dutiful subject."
Mother's face is set, unmoving. She doesn't speak. Letting Thanh take the lead, or simply waiting for her to make a mistake she'll get to berate her for?
A silence. Eldris says, softly, when Pharanea doesn't speak, "It was a trading dispute. A feud between merchants which led to Master Caeth and her clerks killing their H?i trading partner. We wouldn't want the Great Empress of Bình H?i to have to embroil herself in such petty things. Let us deal with the offenders. We can assure you they won't get off lightly."
Thanh inclines her head. The demand is clear. "Extraterritoriality," she says. Might as well bring things into the open. "You want Ephterian merchants to be exempt from local laws."
Pharanea starts, and looks at her a little more closely, as if an insect had suddenly learnt to speak. Thanh has to grant her that: she recovers quickly. "Of course not," she says. "We would never make such a demand of our valued allies. Merely in this matter--"
And in the next, and in the next: precedent in Ephteria has force of law. But they've brought up something else, too: the alliance. The guns and silver Ephteria sends Mother in exchange for the presence of the Ephterian merchants in Bình H?i; the vital link that enables her to maintain her throne, to send Thanh's elder sister Linh to quell rebellion after rebellion. It's not subtle, or unexpected. "As allies, we naturally would want to find the best solution for this," Thanh says. "We know that the Ephterian merchants have been grateful for the protection afforded by the H?i imperial escorts--"
Pharanea smiles, and it's all sharp, bone-white teeth. "Oh, they are most grateful. But we do feel we have been imposing. It would be easier, surely, if our merchants were able to defend themselves against the rebels."
So that's what they want. Not just extraterritoriality, but armies and positions.
"They are allowed guns already," Mother says, sharply--as Thanh watches, horrified, because she can't stop Mother from walking straight into the trap of this conversation.
"Oh, we weren't thinking guns, of course not. Our merchants are looking to defend themselves, not go on the offensive. No: it would be easier for everyone, wouldn't it, if they could make their houses stronger? If they could build thicker walls and better defences--fortify against the rebels, and get a better quality of professionals manning these--"
Fortresses. Garrisons. Soldiers. That's what they want, what they've come here for. And they know--they've always known--that Bình H?i, propped up by Ephterian silver and guns, and beleaguered by internal and external enemies, can't really afford to refuse them. "That may not be expedient," Thanh says, more abruptly than she's meant to, and she sees Mother's sharp inhale of breath.
"Is it not?" Pharanea smiles again. Eldris is still, carefully expressionless. "That's such a shame. I was under the impression the alliance had been mutually beneficial so far."
The threat isn't even subtle anymore. What do they have against it? A threat of their own, of seeking patronage from another northern country? A call to Ephteria's religious beliefs, beseeching them to have mercy on fellow souls? Thanh's gaze wanders around the room as she thinks--and that's when she catches, again, a glimmer of light. At first she thinks it's from the lanterns in the rafters--the embers burning in the daytime--but then she blinks again and it's at the bottom of her teacup, in the bunched and soggy tea leaves, slowly lengthening and stretching.
No no no.
Thanh draws in a deep, shaky breath--and before it has time to reach her lungs the leaves catch fire.
It's warm and orange: the colour of the setting sun, of the flames of the burning palace; she remembers the air smelling faintly of charred wood and molten stone. Small and insignificant, and Mother has gotten up and is arguing with Pharanea, a conversation Thanh catches only hints of because she's sixteen again, and running through the palace, holding the hand of Giang, the H?i serving girl she found shivering in the attic next to her own bedroom, and they're running and running, and the fire is in every room and in every courtyard, driving them again and again until it seems their only choice is diving through the flames, until all Thanh can think of is that burning will at least set them free--will at least allow she and Giang to finally breathe...
"Your Highness? Your Highness!"
When she opens her eyes again, they're all staring at her. She's set the tea cup down. The leaves have stopped burning: the cup is filled with warm ash and the smell of the fire is spreading, filling her lungs and her mouth until everything tastes sharp and bitter. "I have to go," she says, forcing herself to speak through burning pain. "We can resume this conversation later."
And, slowly, deliberately, Thanh walks through the sea of assembled officials--waiting until no one can see her face anymore before she allows herself to finally relax.
***
Outside, on the stairs of the throne room, Thanh bites her lips until blood flows, but the taste of blood isn't sharp enough to wash away the ashes in her mouth. Below her, in the courtyard, H?i soldiers are exercising over the national insignia, the dragon wrapped around the pearl of the sea. The noise of their boots distantly drifts up to her.
It burnt. The tea burnt. Soggy tea leaves caught fire right in the throne room, in full view of everyone else. Not just in her nightmares or in her bedroom.
It's getting worse and her handmaidens won't be able to cover for her if it continues. Not in front of foreigners. What should she do? What can she do?
She can call in a priest--or a monk-exorcist. But if she does--if she does it now--the Ephterians will hear about it.
Worse, Mother will hear about it. Thanh is already such a disappointment in Mother's life: the princess sent away who came back, not brash and confident, but quiet and thoughtful. The princess who's not Linh with her martial prowess, or Hoàng, always ready with political advice. Thanh is only in charge of the negotiations because there's no better person; because Mother still has hopes that something can be salvaged of Thanh's childhood. To hear that Thanh has done nothing but bring nightmares and a curse of fire home... No, she can't afford to have that happen or she will be sent in disgrace to the Eastern provinces, given some plum but hollow appointment to save face.
She can do this. She can prove herself worthy. She can counter the Ephterian narratives so Bình H?i will survive. She can...
"Thanh!"
It's a voice she would know anywhere, one that reaches deep down into her belly and tightens a fist of ice around it. Princess Eldris has followed her onto the terraced area in front of the throne room. "Thanh!" she calls again.
What is she doing here? "Princess."
"Oh come, don't be so formal. Have you forgotten me already?"
Of all the things... Thanh takes a sharp, burning breath. "No," she says, finally--voices the fear she hasn't dared to give voice to. "I thought you had."
Eldris, after all, is the kind of princess who gets rescued. Who doesn't need to be rescued. The kind of princess who will become queen. And the kind of princess who, after the fire--months after she saw Thanh and Giang come out through those burning doors, months after they moved into a smaller palace in the city--turned up at the door of Thanh's bedroom with a single rose, wordlessly holding it out to her and smiling, the sparkle in her eyes suddenly making Thanh painfully aware of the emptiness in her chest.
"Oh, Thanh." Eldris smiles, throwing her head back in that achingly familiar way of hers. "Are you all right?"
Thanh's blood runs cold. "What do you mean?"
"You walked out rather abruptly. I understand Pharanea can be a bit unpleasant when she gets going, but I assure you she's not here as part of the war faction." Bitter laughter. "They were hard to keep from this delegation."
"War faction." Thanh keeps her voice flat. "Let me guess. People who just think Ephteria should take what it wants."
Eldris says, "We can't afford to conquer Bình H?i."
Yet. Thanh bites down on the word. Eldris goes on, "And we have no interest in doing so, in any case. Our merchants need customers to sell to, not terrorised or dead people." She almost said "natives"--Thanh can hear it in her voice--but she forced herself to stop in time. A visible effort, made for Thanh's sake. A peace offering. And she did ask. She could so easily have ignored Thanh's mood.
"I'm all right," Thanh says. "I just needed some air to think on what Pharanea said."
"Ah." Eldris smiles. She doesn't believe Thanh, but the lie wasn't meant to be believed. It was just social grease, intended to keep wheels turning. "Walk with me a while, will you?"
Thanh looks back at the throne room.
Eldris shakes her head. "They're going over documents. Pharanea isn't going to bring anything new to the table."
Thanh says, slowly and cautiously, "You could just be trying to trick me."
Eldris's gaze rests on her, blue and unreadable. "Yes. But why would I leave the room if my advisers were going to do anything significant?"
"Mother--"
Eldris laughs. "She's faced down the Qu?nh and the Ngân K?. Do you really think she needs a chaperone?"
She does, sometimes. She doesn't know everything. The thought is an unsettling stone in Thanh's belly. But Eldris's blue gaze draws her: the curve of her lips, the bare skin at the nape of her neck, the thought of running her hand over soft, translucent, yielding skin. "Let's go," Thanh says.
They walk along the edge of the raised platform, by the side of the pillars. Thanh doesn't know what to say: heart too large in chest, acutely aware of how everything about her feels sad and washed out. Eldris--who was never one for contemplative silence--breaks it without a trace of shame or regret. "How have you been?"
Thanh thinks of fire in her bedroom, of the long long nights remembering what it felt like to be left to burn in the palace in Yosolis. She's so desperately lonely, in what should be her home. Sometimes she wishes Giang had come back with her. Thanh hadn't known Giang, not exactly--they only met the night of the fire, running through burning corridors--but she'd have had someone with her who understood. But Giang smiled at her and squeezed her hand, and disappeared into the crowd the moment the royal family came for Thanh. Not altogether surprising: what servant girl wants to be noticed by her masters? Fame is a double-edged sword. "I've been all right, I suppose. Busy."
Eldris laughs. "I can see. Good. It's high time she finally recognised that you're of age."
And no longer young enough to be a hostage, Thanh supposes. Two years home, a princess in her own right, with responsibilities of her own. She shouldn't be so resentful: it's unfilial and improper and she knows Mother had no choice if she wanted Ephterian support to maintain her throne against the usurper dynasty and the hunger of neighbouring countries. She knows that Ephteria--of which Eldris is part--didn't give Mother a choice. Yet still... still, she feels like she's twelve again, watching the shores of Bình H?i recede, Mother standing expressionless on the quay, eyes shining with the reflection of the lanterns, watching her go and making no move to stop it, barely showing any sorrow or any other emotion. "How have you been?" she asks Eldris.
An expansive shrug. "Busy. The palace is still being rebuilt, but it'll take years, so in the meantime Mother has taken over Countess Sosheria's Winter Palace." She grimaces. "It's cramped and there's so little privacy I want to scream sometimes."
"I know the feeling," Thanh says, awkwardly. They're in the gardens behind the throne room now--a series of courtyards with flowers and ponds and carefully cultivated miniature landscapes from mountains to river shores. "It's the same here."
"Is it?" Eldris's voice is sharp. She looks around, a hand on her sword, casual and without a change of expression, but Thanh is sure that she's marking people, the guards behind the longevity walls, the ones monitoring the small solitary pavilions by lotus ponds. They've left behind their escorts and Thanh's handmaidens, but solitude is nothing but a carefully maintained facade. "Nothing changes, does it." She laughs, and it's utterly without joy.
Thanh's heart misses a beat. "You weren't so cynical."
"I suppose not," Eldris says. She looks at Thanh, cocking her head. "And you weren't this staidly formal. Is something the matter?"
Thanh thinks of Mother; of their beleaguered kingdom and negotiations from a position of absolute inferiority; of fire in tea cups and in her rooms, always laying low and waiting to take from her. She thinks of Eldris, who's now sitting on the opposite side of a negotiation table and with whom she shouldn't be fraternising. "You know," she says. "How everything has changed."
"Ah." They walk through courtyard after courtyard, going deeper into the garden. She stops at last, leaning against one of the pillars of a small pavilion, watching the pond: this one has an artificial island imitating a mountain, with a miniature temple clinging to its summit. Eldris looks around her, and finally shrugs, as if it's all out of her hands. "Thanh. Do you know why I'm here?"
"The Grand Tour," Thanh says, without thinking. Once, the Ephterians sent their golden youth to southern countries--to find sun-drenched ruins and dark-skinned, exotic locals to breathlessly write home about. Now the world has shrunk, and the far South--Bình H?i, Ngân K? and their neighbours--is the only adventure that will sate the depth of their thirst.
"That's what I need to do." Eldris laughs, sharply. "A chance to grow into the ruler of the country, for my advisers to meet your mother and bring their grievances to her." The hand on her sword has clenched, white-knuckled, over the hilt. "It's so nice to hide motivation in plain sight."
"I don't understand."
A sharp, wounding look from Eldris. "No, you don't, do you? Thanh, you're the reason I came here."
The reason.
Everything freezes. Thanh's heartbeat rising and rising, a panic in her throat, everything sharpening and narrowing to Eldris's face and Eldris's hands, now gently cupping her face--barely a pause to see if Thanh flinches, and then Eldris's lips are on hers, a cold shock that travels all the way into her chest. Thanh gasps, coming up for air. "You cannot possibly--" she starts, and has to stop, because Eldris kisses her again.
She tastes like snow--sharp and bracing, the cold giving way to a stinging sensation at the back of Thanh's throat--and Thanh is back, abruptly, in her bed in Yosolis, in the Winter Palace, Eldris's hands gently peeling off her dress and her undershirt, sliding it off her shoulders and then coming back to her shoulders and down again, stroking Thanh's skin again and again as if she could slide that off, too. Until desire rose warm and unbearable, as it is rising now, a warmth in her chest and between her legs that constricts all thought. "Eldris--"
"Sssh," Eldris says. She lays a finger on Thanh's lips, stilling them. Her smile is wide and infectious. "I've gone hungry for far too long, Thanh. And so have you. Haven't you?"
Something comes undone, then, within Thanh--a tight knot loosening at last, bonds slashed through, air into compressed lungs. She smiles, surprised to feel it doesn't hurt, and draws Eldris to her, feeling the weight of her on her arms, the reassuring solid presence--and every thought and worry melts into nothingness.
Copyright © 2021 by Aliette de Bodard
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