Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders Read online

  Van didn’t say anything. Thuan remembered how white she’d been, how much she’d shaken in his grip. “We’re not defined by what we fear,” he said.

  “But sometimes fear becomes all that we are.” Asmodeus moved away from Van, putting the sketch on the bedtime table. “A sign you should either stab the cause of such fears in the throat or run away and regroup.”

  “And stab it in the throat when you’re ready? That’s not a way to live.”

  “That’s mine.” Asmodeus’s voice was sharp. “I don’t complain too much about yours. It’d behoove you to do the same.”

  “You don’t care about me,” Van said, in the silence, to Asmodeus. “He said—”

  “Thuan?” Asmodeus smiled.

  Van swallowed. “No, that’s not what I wanted to say. Thuan said I’d understand you didn’t mean it. All of the… unpleasantness. But… you’d have killed me, earlier. For pleasure.”

  “Ah. I might have, but Thuan changed the terms by binding you to the House.” Asmodeus looked at her, for a while. He moved closer to her, his hand resting, lightly, on her pendant: the disk with the arms of House Hawthorn engraved on it, the hawthorn tree circled by a crown. “This,” he said, “is a promise. It means that you don’t feel terrified or unsafe. Your enemies do.”

  “Terrified. Of you.”

  “Of course. Do you see anyone getting terrified of Thuan?” His face became serious again. “You’re one of ours, now. I’ll let harm come to me before it comes to you. Do you believe that?”

  Van stared at him. Then—and it must have cost all she had—“You can’t be choosing me over your husband.”

  “Considering what Dang Quang will do if he gets hold of you? Yes. Thuan will be mildly uncomfortable—”

  “By such trivialities as my entire family exterminated?” It was the wrong thing to say, but Thuan couldn’t help himself anymore.

  A raised eyebrow. “Preventing this from happening is Hong Chi’s job, and she’s managed to dump it on you by appealing to your guilt. Don’t get sentimental.”

  How could he? “I’m not getting sentimental!”

  “True.” Asmodeus’s face didn’t move. “You’re getting annoyed. And still feeling guilty.” A sigh. He moved a fraction closer to Thuan. “Your cousin is playing you like a fiddle, and not a particularly good one. You’re not the one who got them into this bad situation, and you shouldn’t be the one getting them out of it, either. You could simply hand her everything you’ve found and walk away.”

  “I can’t,” Thuan said. “I have to see it through. That’d just be cowardice.”

  “Ah. Principles,” Asmodeus said, in the tone of someone who had very few. “Van?” He stopped, shook his head. “No, that’s unfair to ask you.”

  Van said, haltingly, “I just want him away from me. I—” she closed her fists. “I want to be safe, and I want my family to be safe as well. I want to live.”

  “See?” Asmodeus’s voice was curt. And, to Van, “There is absolutely no shame in doing whatever is necessary to survive. None. Do you understand?”

  Van swallowed. “Sometimes there is more honour in death—” she started, and Asmodeus laughed.

  “Hollowing yourself out for the sake of those who’d use your death for their own gain? No. That’s just making it easier for them to win.”

  Van stared at him. “That’s not—”

  “What you’ve been taught?” Asmodeus came to stand by her, eyes into hers. “You have to understand the game is rigged. That if you play by the rules, there will always be someone to bend them to their advantage, or set them aside.”

  “Asmodeus—”

  Asmodeus’s voice was bleak. “Rules aren’t going to help her, Thuan. Surely you must see that. Rules favour the established. That’s Dang Quang.”

  Van said, finally, “Please. I’ll do what it takes. Just keep me alive,” and something painful shifted in Thuan’s chest.

  “Of course we will,” Asmodeus said. His voice was matter of fact, but he hadn’t broken eye contact with her.

  Thuan started to say they could leave her with the delegation, and knew that wouldn’t solve anything. Neither could they send half their guard home with her. He said, finally, “If we solve this, Hong Chi will be in our debt. There’s nothing Dang Quang will be able to raise against Van.”

  “If.”

  “Please,” Thuan said. “Just a little longer. You may be able to live with the knowledge that your inaction brought wholesale destruction, but I can’t.”

  A silence. Asmodeus was by his side again, tipping his head to look into his eyes, his fingers’ warmth slowly spreading to Thuan’s whole face. “Sentimental,” he said, but his voice was softer. “And you’re being unfair. If I bring wholesale destruction, it will most definitely be deliberate.”

  “Of course. How else?” Thuan smiled. It felt a little less forced than it had, earlier.

  “Two days,” Asmodeus said.

  That wasn’t a lot. Thuan opened his mouth to protest, and then saw Van’s still-pale face when Asmodeus moved away. “Yes. Two days. And then you can march everyone, including me, back to Hawthorn, but you’re the one who’s going to have to come up with the diplomatic excuse.”

  “Oh, I have a store of them for such occasions, believe me.” Asmodeus smiled. “Then it’s agreed. Van?”

  “My lord?”

  “I asked you earlier whether you believed me when I said I would keep you from harm at all cost. Do you?” A pause, then, “You can say no, and we’ll do this another way.”

  “I—” Van frowned. She said, finally, “I think you mean it.”

  “Good,” Asmodeus said. “You’ll stay with me, then.”

  “Asmodeus,” Thuan said.

  A look that could have shrivelled stone. “You think you’re better placed to safeguard her?”

  “That’s not—”

  “That’s exactly the point,” Asmodeus said. “And you know it.”

  “Fine, then. Have it your way.”

  “Good.” Asmodeus didn’t make any kind of witty comeback, which Thuan was grateful for. “Now where to?”

  Thuan, exhausted from the argument and still not entirely sure he’d made the right decision, struggled to remember what had been going on. “Ministry of Personnel.”

  “I thought it was the Ministry of Rites?”

  “The postings, yes,” Thuan said. “The complete files are all going to be at the Ministry of Personnel, though, because they’re the ones who keep track of the careers of officials. Did you hear back from Madeleine on that powder?”

  “No,” Asmodeus said. “But Van and I are going to go and ask her. And possibly go check out tailors, if we can. Does that meet with your approval?” His voice was low and mocking.

  Thuan wasn’t sure, anymore, of what he should thinking or doing. “I guess it’ll have to do. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Thuan lost count of time at the Ministry of Personnel.

  It was perhaps not as vast a shambles as the Ministry of Rites, but it would be New Year’s soon, and everyone was trying to finish up on their work as early as they could.

  The Ministry was mostly underground, a vast network of caverns so deep no light penetrated. The rock walls had been scrubbed from algae and barnacles, and covered in a network of book alcoves from which what looked like an army of officials were withdrawing scrolls: people were so numerous and moving so much that even the usual shoals of fish of the citadel gave the place a wide berth. No one had time for anyone, and certainly not for an outsider like Thuan.

  It would have been restful if he had any idea where to start: the smell of old paper and brine, and the magic of preservation spells, reminded him of the library; of quiet and happy times when he’d been able to withdraw from the world.

  He missed that calm, that sense of hallowed purpose: that narrowness of the universe making sense.

  Finally, a crab-official took pity on him. “Your Highness.”

  “I have�
�� a particular problem, elder aunt,” Thuan said. He’d considered what to say on the way there. Kim Diep knew that he was investigating, so it wasn’t as though he’d be able to hide his inquiries from actual Harmony of Heaven members. What mattered was looking discreet enough that the official wouldn’t think anything was amiss. And there, not being of the court would help—to some extent, he could rely on his current reputation as an eccentric outsider (he’d have sent Asmodeus for that, except that Asmodeus’s formal Viet was limited, and that he’d certainly not had the patience to stand still for that long). “I went to pay my respects to my ancestors in the dynasty lineage temple. I gave some strings of cash to the official there, and I made a mistake and gave them a piece of jade that belonged to my mother mixed in with the cash. I went back to see if I could sort things out, but no one seems to have seen that official anymore.” He shaped his face into a grimace. “I was distracted at having to manage my husband and I really shouldn’t have made that mistake.”

  “Mmm.” She was middle-aged with steel-grey hair, and pincers that expertly plucked the paper from his grasp. He’d redrawn Van’s sketch with only the overall size, because a full body shape would have looked creepy. “That’s going to be difficult. What gender were they?”

  That was the part Thuan had been dreading. “It was dark,” he said, plaintively. “I was hoping you maybe would have a list of people missing from the court of imperial sacrifices at the moment, with pictures? I’m sorry, my memory is really, really bad. All I know is that they were a dragon.”

  “Mmmm.” As stories went, it was somewhere between indifferent and really transparently bad, but better than “we have a blood-soaked tunic and burnt bones”. “Wait here,” the official said.

  He sat there, watching people withdraw rolls from alcove and take it to tables, where they’d animatedly talk, stabbing the paper with clawed hands. Dragons and crabs and fishes, the familiar background noise of the waves—if he closed his eyes, it was easy to remember the library, the way the doors would open and shut, the particular set of shelves he’d crouched by, devouring stories of earlier dynasties like lotus seeds and trying to forget the knot in his belly that the real-life intrigues circling around him like sharks would end him. He had that same knot now: both Kim Diep and Dang Quang—assuming they weren’t working together—were adept at navigating the court in a way that he wasn’t. His only assets were a resourceful thief who wasn’t supposed to be his retainer, and a husband whose ideas of getting things done was finding someone to hurt. Neither Van nor Asmodeus would be able to sort out his particular tangle.

  Hong Chi could. He’d find enough evidence for her, and she’d make sure that Van was safe. She’d come through. She always had. He forced himself to breathe slowly, evenly.

  At length, the official came back with a list. “Here,” she said. Thuan’s heart sank, because it was pages long. “That’s everyone who left the Ministry of Rites, whether on short or long-term leave, or because they resigned. No pictures, but you’ll have date and place of birth.”

  “Thank you,” Thuan said. “Are they all dragons?” He scanned down the list. The names were certainly suggestive of dragon families.

  “I put a note next to those who weren’t,” the official said. A frown. “That particular Court is very… uniform.”

  A polite way to say that being a dragon was still the best way to get the good official postings in the civil service, and that as a crab she must have keenly felt that she was being passed over. “I know,” Thuan said. “Thank you. I’ll have a look.” He debated giving her money, but he didn’t want to contribute to what looked like enough corruption going around in the system. And, in any case, the currency she wanted likely wasn’t that. Respect, then. “I’m very grateful, elder aunt.”

  “Hmmm.” She looked at him, head cocked. “This is about something more than jade, isn’t it?”

  Thuan froze like a mouse caught in a cat’s gaze. “Elder aunt.”

  She hadn’t moved.

  When caught in a lie, throw in just enough of the truth to be believable. “It… concerns my husband.”

  “Ah.” Good, she’d heard of Asmodeus. Then again, news of him usually got around.

  “I’m worried he may have done something improper, and I need to track that person down urgently.”

  “Ah.” She stared at him for a while. His panic was genuine, and she had to see it. “I see. Well, whatever it is, I hope you can sort it out in time.”

  “Thank you. I’d… appreciate if you kept it to yourself,” Thuan said. He thought she would: she looked decent enough. And if she didn’t… well, Asmodeus’s reputation would suffer, but it wasn’t as if it could sink any lower in the kingdom anyway.

  “Of course.” She drew herself to her full height, which made her tower over him, pincers and all. “Ancestors watch over you, child.”

  Thuan reflected ruefully, as he left the ministry, that his ancestors must have been working overtime.

  * * *

  Thuan’s mild sense of progress being made lasted only until he got back to their courtyard of the citadel—and found his way barred by two guards. “Your highness.”

  “Oh, let him through,” an unfamiliar voice said.

  Inside, it was chaos. The courtyard was overrun by guards and officials, and their quarters were barricaded. The smell of blood hung in the air so thick Thuan’s stomach roiled. What had happened?

  Asmodeus. Sharp, stabbing fear in his chest. Surely he wouldn’t—

  “Your highness.” A forbidding looking official of the third rank with a topknot, and the glistening skin of a dolphin. “My name is Minh Linh. I’m captain of the palace guard,” she said. “Where is your husband?”

  Thuan looked down. On the threshold of their apartment was a body: Dang Quang’s, the official who’d been so keen on Van. His heart sank. “I don’t know,” he said. “I spent the afternoon at the Ministry of Rites. I haven’t seen him at all since then. Can I have a look?”

  The guard watching over the body looked unhappy, but Minh Linh gestured. “Go ahead.”

  Thuan knelt. Dang Quang’s face was frozen in a rictus. He’d been stabbed: a short, reflex thrust to the belly, followed by other shallower cuts on the chest—and a final one to the heart, with the knife that had done it planted all the way to the hilt. It was Asmodeus all over: the first cut had probably been self-defence, but the next few ones, the slow and shallow ones, had been to make the agony worse. And then the flourish at the end, when Asmodeus got bored or when Dang Quang slipped into shock.

  Great. There was no way Thuan could pass this off as Dang Quang’s fault, but he had to try. And where was Van? He assumed all of this had at least started to protect Van rather than on a whim—Asmodeus was angry and frustrated, but he was not that out of control.

  “Do you have any witnesses?” he asked.

  “Only from afar. They heard screams,” Minh Linh said, curtly, as Thuan got up and brushed off silt from his trousers. “And an argument between the murdered official and your husband.”

  “Screams? His?”

  “A woman’s to start with.” Minh Linh sighed. “Look, it’s New Year’s and I want to go home, your Highness. We know it was your husband, and right now his best outlook is to turn himself in. The courts will be lenient.”

  Or very harsh, to make it clear House Hawthorn didn’t have the right to interfere in the dragon kingdom’s affairs at all. “I don’t think that’s the case,” Thuan said, sharply. “And I can’t help you, I’m afraid. I don’t know where he is.”

  Minh Linh cocked her head, watching him with beady eyes. Her teeth were small, triangular and unpleasantly sharp. “No, you don’t, don’t you? But you’re still the person he’s most likely to contact.” She gestured towards the doors of his apartment. “You can stay inside, but right now you’re not to wander elsewhere in the citadel.”

  “Wait—” Thuan said. “Wait—”

  But she’d already wandered off, leaving him a prisoner in
his own quarters.

  * * *

  It wasn’t the first time Thuan was under house arrest. He wasn’t in danger personally this time: and it made paradoxically worse, because he wasn’t worrying on his own behalf, but on Asmodeus’s and Van’s.

  He’d tried Van’s tracking disk: what he’d got was a confused flurry of corridors somewhere in the imperial citadel, before Asmodeus’s characteristically forceful magic had cut it off. So not only on the run but unsure whether they could trust him at all.

  Great.

  His nascent headache was not getting any better. On the plus side, they were both alive—wanted for the murder of an official but alive.

  Not much comfort.

  He couldn’t blame them for wanting to remain out of reach: all of this had happened because he’d insisted on staying. Because he thought that he could help Hong Chi. No, not help, do her work. Asmodeus was right: it hadn’t been his prerogative in the first place, but now he couldn’t just leave things unfinished.

  He’d tried to reach Hong Chi, but the guards wouldn’t take his messages, even to another official: Minh Linh must have convinced them he’d do anything to save his husband. And in the meantime whatever the society had killed for was inexorably hurtling towards its conclusion: a large and disruptive incident that would be enough to convince officials to openly rebel against a dynasty that had lost the Mandate of Heaven. Kim Diep, even if she’d had no part in this, must have been laughing at him.

  He must have slept, at some point. Eaten food that he didn’t remember putting in his mouth—some kind of noodle soup swiftly whisked away by the guard. Minh Linh came in and checked in on him, satisfied he’d got nowhere. Thuan asked her about notifying someone, told her the dynasty was in danger: she got huffy and pointed out that the proper channels had been respected, which meant that the report on what he was doing was buried somewhere in paperwork somewhere in the Grand Secretariat, wending its way up to the Empress.

  He tried Van’s tracking disk again, got cut off again. This time the vibe was distinctly annoyed.

  Great. Just great.

  Well, if he was going to get bored, he might as well find something to keep busy. He grabbed the list he’d got from the Ministry of Rites, a spare paintbrush, and sat down to compare notes.