A fire born of exile, p.37
A Fire Born of Exile, page 37
‘The prefect – she’s getting away,’ Quỳnh said. ‘Please…’
Hoà’s grip on the gun didn’t falter. ‘No. This isn’t about the prefect.’
‘Then what is it about?’
‘This is about you. You didn’t come here for revenge.’ Hoà’s voice was quiet and filled with such raw sadness that it twisted in her. ‘You came here to die.’
No. That… That isn’t true.
‘I didn’t—’ Quỳnh started, and then Hoà’s finger was on her lips, gently pressing down like a prelude to a kiss.
‘No lies,’ she whispered.
It had never mattered if she survived. That was the bleak, honest truth, the one Hoà had seen, the one she’d told Nhăng: there was no future for her. Đức wouldn’t be dying to atone for the death of Dã Lan, but for stealing her future. She’d made life – let alone happiness – such an unthinkable, unattainable goal.
‘She stole my life,’ Quỳnh said. She tried to scream, but she was back in the vacuum of space and there was no one to help her – no ship, no last moment rescue, nothing.
‘Big sis.’ Hoà’s voice was insistent and urgent. ‘The censor has your case. Dã Lan’s case.’
Bitter laughter welled out of Quỳnh. Everything was fuzzing, growing more and more distant. She’d lost Đức again. Thrown away her chance of revenge.
‘You trust in fairness?’
Hoà said, ‘I trust in Thiên Hạnh’s choice to stand up for those who can’t. Will it work? Maybe not. But I trust more in the chance of a better future than in murder and lies. Did it make you happy – any of it, big sis?’
Quỳnh thought of Tuyết and Nhăng, and the cold, uncomfortable realisation that none of what had happened to Dã Lan had brought them contentment.
‘Of course not, but it wasn’t supposed to!’
Hoà still held her, her bots on Quỳnh’s wrist aiding her grip. Quỳnh could feel her heartbeat now, the constriction in her lungs slowly easing, leaving her wrung out and with nothing left but raw vulnerability. Quỳnh breathed, feeling only hollowness and pain in her chest. She’d let go of the gun.
‘Then why are you doing it?’ Hoà asked.
For my ghosts. Because I almost died. Because I don’t have a future.
‘Because I had nothing else left! Because…’
She stopped, then. Hoà was sitting cross-legged, supporting Quỳnh’s head in her lap, her bots in Quỳnh’s hair.
‘You have me,’ she said simply.
‘I sent you away.’
‘You did,’ Hoà said. ‘And I left, and that’s on me.’
‘I took away your choices. I lied to you.’
‘You did.’ Hoà was crying. ‘And I didn’t stand by you when I should have. I got scared and didn’t do the right thing. I’m here, big sis. I’m here now. I’m holding you. Will you trust me? Will you trust us?’
Trust.
No, not trust.
Hope.
I can’t. I don’t deserve it. Not any of it.
Quỳnh was falling away in the darkness. She was desperately fixing Guts of Sea, with only rage and bitterness to fuel her. She was learning about Thanh Khuê’s death, about Mother’s death, about the fall of The Azure Serpent, running to the edges of the Empire. She was holding Đình Sơn’s corpse. She was listening to Moon calling her Big Auntie and knowing that the only brightest future for her child lay in her not being part of it. She was holding Hoà’s face in her hands like the most fragile of celadon cups, breathing in a happiness she didn’t deserve and couldn’t hold on to. Again and again, she had lost everything and everyone, because that was the way the world worked.
She remembered Hoà – Hoà, who saw so clearly, asking her, How long are you going to keep hurting yourself?
Did it make you happy, any of it?
Of course not. Of course it hadn’t: it hadn’t been meant to. Of course things would never change.
And yet… She thought of Nhăng and her disillusioned, one-sided love, expecting something Tuyết wasn’t capable of giving her; of Minh, and how she’d tried to leave her mother’s orbit instead of shrivelling in the prefect’s wake; of Heart’s Sorrow, resigned to his fate but trying to build something that wouldn’t belong to his parents; of Hoà and Thiên Dung, making a new life in the shadow of Thanh Khuê’s death. Of being with Moon and Hoà and wishing things were different.
Wishes had never brought her anything – and the only differences she could control were the ones they made.
Trust.
Hope. A deep-seated desire for things to be different. An outstretched hand.
I trust more in the chance of a better future than in murder and lies.
She wanted to, so desperately.
‘I’m scared,’ she whispered.
‘I know.’ Hoà laughed, and Quỳnh felt the tremor of that laugh in her bones; felt the unsteadiness in Hoà’s entire body. ‘You want a secret? So am I.’
Quỳnh stared at the gun still clenched in her hands. It had stopped being a threat some time ago, but this hadn’t been about Đức for a while, either – but about whether she chose to live. To think of herself and Hoà, rather than of her ghosts. Quỳnh took a deep, shaking breath – forced herself to unclench her hand, finger by finger.
‘Together,’ she said, and she felt the small hitch of relief in Hoà’s breath.
‘Together.’
Trust. Hope. Fragile, intangible things that might break at any time. The gun had cut grooves in her palm. Quỳnh held out her hand to Hoà, and felt Hoà’s hand slip into hers as if it had always belonged there.
Chapter 24
Mother and Daughter
The corridors were deserted, but there was a rumbling in them – a distant howling of pain that shook the compound, once, and then nothing else but an uncomfortable silence spreading to cover it all.
‘Second Great-Aunt?’ Minh asked.
The ship didn’t answer her. Minh felt her, distant and focused on something entirely different.
Abruptly, she spoke. ‘Child, don’t—’
But it was too late, because Minh turned a corner of a corridor, and came face to face with Mother and Stepmother.
They were running – from what? And then Minh saw the other end of the corridor – what seemed like weird textures and shapes until she realised she’d seen them before. It was a fragment of a huge gash on a hull, a faded painting of apricot flowers, the sheen of metal in deep spaces – all preceded by a flood of bots, so numerous that they seemed a sea of shivering metal.
Flowers at the Gates.
‘Second Great-Aunt?’
‘Child. Leave, now.’
‘What are you doing here?’ Mother asked.
Mother looked… wrong, and Minh realised it was because her topknot was slightly less than impeccable, her make-up infinitesimally smudged.
‘Big sis!’ Vân, in Stepmother’s arms, bent towards Minh. ‘Look, Mama, Big sis is here.’
Stepmother looked less than thrilled, and no wonder.
‘Come,’ Mother said. ‘We’re leaving. You can explain yourself later.’
Minh stared at the mass of bots blocking the corridor. They weren’t moving, and she thought she knew why. Because she was there. Because Second Great-Aunt didn’t want to hurt her.
‘I want to know what’s going on,’ Minh said.
Mother grabbed her, gently and firmly.
‘This is no time for selfishness,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d have learned your lesson, child.’
Minh never seemed to learn that lesson.
Minh breathed in, trying to remember the cold certainty she’d felt when she’d resigned from the civil service. ‘What lesson was that? The value of family?’
‘Respect,’ Stepmother said sharply.
That was more than Minh could take.
‘Tell me about family,’ she said to Stepmother. ‘Tell me why you thought poisoning me, and poisoning the ship, was a good idea.’
Mother’s face turned, sharply, to Stepmother.
‘The girl said something similar,’ she said. Minh knew that face. It was the predator’s face, the one that sensed a weakness. ‘What is this about?’
‘Did you know Minh withdrew from the state examinations?’ Stepmother snapped.
‘So you poisoned her?’
Mother’s face was oddly still. Minh braced herself for something – unsure what – and realised it hadn’t come.
‘Move away, child,’ Flowers at the Gates said to Minh on a private channel. ‘It ends now. It has to end.’
‘What are you going to do?’
A silence.
Then, ‘You know.’
Blood for blood. A life for a life. Minh stared at Vân.
‘No. My sister is here.’
‘A sister your stepmother killed for.’
‘She’s a child,’ Minh said. ‘Your child. I get that you’re angry.’ She was buzzing with it herself – the rage she’d repressed for years and years, the one she could barely express in words. ‘Don’t do this. You can’t be the matriarch if you commit murder. Whether it’s Vân, or Mother.’
‘You’re trying to tell me what to do?’
Minh had forgotten how bad it was. How much hatred there was between Mother and Second Great-Aunt. That the person she remembered – the ship who’d laughed with her – was perhaps a lie, or in any case, since long gone.
‘No. I can only tell you what I think. You know I can’t prevent you from doing anything.’
She cut the comms, and came back to Mother and Stepmother arguing.
‘You should have told me!’ Mother said.
‘You were busy,’ Stepmother said. ‘And they were children. It was easy enough to stop them.’
Them. Heart’s Sorrow, Oanh’s children, Minh. Children.
Mother’s face still had that odd stillness about it.
‘You had no right,’ she said. ‘I don’t condone any of this, li’l sis. It is unacceptable. I’m a prefect of the Belt, and there can be no poisoners in this house.’
Minh slowly, cautiously opened a comms channel – not towards any of them or Flowers at the Gates – whose impatience she could feel mounting – but towards Vân.
‘Hey, li’l sis. Come down.’
Vân made a face. ‘Mama says it’s not safe.’
‘It’s safe here,’ Minh said. ‘Come on.’
Come on, come on.
Vân threw herself down, followed by her three bots – Stepmother tried to grab her, but Vân was too fast. Minh extended her arms… but Mother was the one who scooped her up instead.
No.
Minh bit her lip. Somehow she had managed to make the situation worse.
‘A creditable idea,’ Mother said. She was still looking at Stepmother.
‘Big sis,’ Stepmother said, ‘I did it for you.’ She was almost pleading. ‘Think of all you could have done, with the lineage. All you ever wanted. I love you.’
And maybe she did, but Mother… Mother didn’t really love. Minh looked at Mother, and at Vân who was trying to wriggle down, but Mother had her in an iron grip. She looked at Stepmother, and Minh could feel the fury rising in the air. Even weakened and diminished, and challenged by Second Great-Aunt, she could still make them all feel she was passing sentence.
‘There is no place in this family for poisoners.’
‘Big sis—’ Stepmother said.
‘You can throw yourself on the censor’s mercy when she finally musters the troops to pursue us. She may be generous than I am.’ Mother turned to look at Minh. ‘And you… weak and clumsy child. You know you’re ill suited to navigate the avenues of power. You know you need me.’
And it might have been true. No, it was true. Minh had withdrawn from the civil service, and she didn’t even have the skills to keep Second Great-Aunt at bay. She would never be as ruthless, as charming, as successful as Mother. Her little spate of rebellion had run its course – what was she thinking, imagining she could change something? As if she could change anything. Mother had shaped her and would continue to shape her.
Shaped. Her.
Not just her.
Minh looked at Stepmother… at Mother… at Second Great-Aunt. She laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing,’ Minh said. Laughter hurt. ‘It’s your house. Your compound. Your rules.’
‘I’m so glad to see you acknowledge this. We might finally make something of you.’
‘You made people small. Insignificant. Unworthy of being in your orbit. You made them crave recognition. Your recognition.’
Mother raised an eyebrow. ‘Of course.’
‘You taught us all.’ Minh raised her hands, and the data she’d found – the data Vĩnh Trinh and Mạt Lỵ had given her – shimmered into existence in overlay, a bare blink before Mother wrenched it from her. ‘You taught us that anything was worth doing for power. That bending the law didn’t matter if it got you noticed. You taught us to be cruel. You think Stepmother crossed the line, but you’re the one who made the line seem worthless. You’re the one who taught us that no matter what crimes we committed, what laws we bent, it was all worth it, for the family’s sake. For your sake.’
‘Child!’ Mother’s face was… annoyed.
Minh braced herself for anger, but then she saw it for what it was: Mother was badly rattled, and trying not to show it, and it felt as though the universe was shifting on a huge axis Minh didn’t even know it had.
‘We’re the house you built, and it’s rotten, Mother. There’s no justice in the Belt. There’s no justice in this family. And you think you can stop it short of murder? You’re the reason I was poisoned.’ Minh stared at the bots, at all of them, massed to take over. ‘And you… You’d harm a child just because you’re angry? You’d throw away your chance to be accepted as the matriarch of this family for that? Nothing in the teachings of Master Khồng or his successors makes that acceptable, and you know it.’
‘Filial piety…’ Flowers at the Gates whispered.
Minh was done with the lot of them. Filial piety was earned, not owed.
And, to Mother, ‘Put my little sister down. Now.’
Mother stared at her. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing, child.’
Her gaze was the one which made Minh feel small and unworthy – the one that made her back down, the way she’d backed down over the blue dress. And then she’d be forgiven, even though Mother knew she’d err again and again. Because Minh couldn’t take care of herself. Because she was weak.
Nothing about that was true, unless Minh believed it to be true.
‘Put her down,’ Minh said.
She didn’t move. Just crossed her arms over her chest and stared – and Mother stared back at her and something shifted in her gaze. She let go of Vân and stood up again, brushing dust from the bots on her arms.
‘I always knew you were going to fail.’ Mother’s voice was dripping with disappointment. ‘You’re going to be eaten alive by the censor. One day you’ll realise I was right about everything.’
Minh cringed, but Vân was already running towards her.
‘Big sis!’
Minh lifted her, hugging her, breathing in the warmth and solidity of her – no matter that her arms were shaking with weakness.
Bots flowed forward, encircling Mother and Stepmother; Second Great-Aunt’s anger trembled in the air. Mother lifted her chin, staring at them. She wasn’t going to give anyone the satisfaction of hearing her beg. Of course not.
Minh kneeled, putting Vân on the floor but not letting go of her.
‘Do you want to live in the house your niece has built?’ she said, to Flowers at the Gates. ‘The one built on cruelty and ruthlessness. The one where the only thing of worth is what you can grab for yourself? The one where you murder a child to get the power you think you deserve, and call it justice?’
The ship was all around them, her breath flowing in and out of the corridors, shaking the entire compound.
‘I’m not her. I’m not.’
A silence.
Minh hugged Vân, and – spent, exhausted – said nothing. She wasn’t in control of other people’s decisions. All she could do was take care of herself, and it was already hard enough.
‘Fine,’ Second Great-Aunt said. A spike of something like ill humour ran through the metal floor. The bots bristled, but didn’t move. ‘You’re not worth the effort, anyway.’
Minh let out the breath she’d been holding. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘Hmmf,’ Second Great-Aunt said.
Minh looked at Mother, and at Stepmother – the way Mother’s make-up had smudged, the way Stepmother shook. The disappointment in Mother’s face that should have hurt her like a stab to the heart – but it didn’t. It was just a sad and small thing, one last barb that didn’t have the power to wound any more.
I’m done, she thought, hugging Vân and focusing only on her slow, steady heartbeat – on herself: the deep-seated tiredness in her bones, the weary satisfaction as the adrenaline from the confrontation wore off.
It’s over.
I’m free.
Chapter 25
Hope
Hoà had expected the summons. Not just awaited it, but braced herself for it.
It was to the court room, not to the former prefect’s compound – which was still ruins from the party, after Flowers at the Gates’ takeover, and the combination of panicking guests and fleeing militia trampling through corridors.
She hadn’t expected it to be for both her and Quỳnh – and even less to be shown, when they arrived, into some kind of private office overlooking a garden overlay, where Tang Thuyền was having tea with an unfamiliar mindship.
‘Children,’ Tang Thuyền said.
The ship’s avatar – fist-sized, so small as to be almost invisible – shifted, and Hoà saw that it was Flowers at the Gates, a much smaller and less threatening version than the monstrous avatar that had loomed over the reception room.
‘Your Excellency. Elder aunt,’ Hoà said.
The censor was staring straight at her. Seeing her. Knowing who she was. Hoà lowered her gaze, unsure of the mass of feelings roiling within her.
