The Language of Thorns

by Leigh Bardugo

  She was grateful when a maid arrived bearing a tray of tea and salt fish, followed by servants carrying pails of steaming water. Though Ulla had been told about bathing, she’d never been properly dirty before, and she was shocked at the dust that washed from her body in a gritty cloud, the slip of sweet oils that coated her. But nothing was more startling than the sight of her funny little toes curled over the tub’s edge, the tender bones of her ankles, the smooth incrustations of her claws—nails. The water felt too slick on her skin, flat and saltless as the rivers she had explored with Signy and Roffe on cloudy afternoons.

  Once Ulla was clean and dry and patted with powder, the maid helped her into a gown and laced her tight, then vanished out the door with a nervous glance over her shoulder. Only then, in the silence of her room, did Ulla finally see herself in the mirror that hung above her dressing table. Only then did she realize why she’d drawn so many stares from the sildroher—and from the humans as well. Away from the blue depths of the sea, the sallow gray-green tinge of her skin was gone and she glowed burnished bronze as if she had tucked sunlight beneath her tongue. Her hair was black as it had always been, but here in the bright light of the human world, it shone like polished glass. Her eyes were still dark and strange, but dark like a midnight path that might lead somewhere wonderful, strange like the sound of a new language.

  She left her room, the palace silent around her, as servants went quietly about their business, careful not to wake the revelers who had stumbled to their beds only hours before. Ulla realized there were mirrors everywhere—as if humans were afraid they might forget what they looked like—and in them she saw her new self reflected, tall and lithe, floating in gray lace like sea foam, the pearls of her bodice gleaming softly, stars through fog.

  The apprentice was waiting at the base of the tower stairs.

  Without a word, they began to climb, Ulla clinging to the banister as they rose higher, the air thick with dust that glittered in beams of early morning sun.

  Books had a scent, she realized, as they passed level after level of libraries and laboratories, shelves lining their round walls, packed with brightly bound volumes in tight rows. The books meant nothing to her. The sildroher had no pen and paper; no parchment survived beneath the waves, and they had no need of it. Their histories and knowledge were held in song.

  At each level the apprentice named another subject: history, augury, geography, mathematics, alchemy. Ulla hoped they’d wind all the way to the top of the tower, where she knew they’d find the famous observatory. But instead, when there were still many floors above to discover, the apprentice led her from the spiral stairs to a dimly lit room set with long tables and tall glass cabinets. They were full of odd objects—a golden hoop spinning continuously on its axis, stuffed birds with scarlet feathers and glossy beaks, a harpoon made of what looked like volcanic glass. One entire shelf was taken up by hourglasses of different sizes and filled with varied colors of sand, another contained flats of insects pinned to boards, and still another was crowded with many-legged specimens floating in sealed jars of amber fluid.

  Ulla drew in a breath when she glimpsed a sykurn knife, wondering who it had belonged to and what possible reason its owner could have for relinquishing it. But she forced herself to move on, conscious of the apprentice’s observant gaze.

  They passed a vast mirror, and Ulla saw their shapes reflected in the gloom. The girl in the glass waved.

  Ulla leapt back and the apprentice laughed. His reflection joined him, though the pitch was not quite the same.

  “I can hear him,” Ulla said, clutching the edge of the table. It was as if the boy in the glass was simply another boy in another part of the room, as if the frame were an open doorway.

  “It’s an illusion, nothing more,” the apprentice said, and his reflection gave a dismissive wave of his hand.

  “A powerful one.”

  “A useless one. It’s a frivolous object. My master’s predecessor made it while attempting to find a way to place a soul in the mirror so that the old king might live forever once his body was gone. All he managed was this.”

  Ulla peered at her reflection, and the girl in the glass smiled. No wonder others shied away from her. There was something sly in the mirror girl’s expression, as if her lips might part and show an extra row of teeth.

  “It’s impressive nonetheless,” she managed.

  “It’s a waste. The reflection has no soul, no animating spirit. All it can do is echo. The new king brings it down for parties to charm the guests. You’ll see at the ball. They put it in the main hall as a diversion. You can even have a little conversation with yourself.”

  Ulla could not resist such a temptation.

  “Hello,” she said tentatively.

  “Hello,” the mirror girl answered.

  “Who are you?”

  “Who are you?” There was that smile again. Did Ulla imagine it or had the girl’s inflection changed?

  Ulla sang a soft note, not a spell, just a sound, and the girl opened her mouth, joining Ulla in harmony. Ulla couldn’t help the delighted laugh that sprang from her, but the mirror girl flushed when she saw the apprentice’s bemusement.

  “It seems I am as easily entertained as the king’s party guests,” said Ulla.

  His lips quirked. “We all love novelty.”

  The apprentice’s gaze slid to their reflection, and he squared his shoulders so that he and Ulla stood side by side, much the same height, their hair as black and gleaming as deepwater pearls.

  “Look at that,” he said, and his reflection lifted a brow. “We might almost be blood relations.”

  He was right, Ulla realized. It was not just the hair, or the slender-reed build that they shared. There was something in the shape of their faces, the sharp cut of their bones. She touched her fingers to her scalp as if she could still feel her mother’s hands tugging, tugging at her braids, hear her doleful song withering their garden and filling Ulla with regret. The apprentice was offering her an answer, an oyster pried open, a jewel upon a plate. She need only reach for it.

  She said nothing.

  “Why are you here in Söndermane?” he asked, and his reflection remained quiet as if waiting to hear the answer too.

  Ulla ran her thumb over the table. Her reflection blinked rapidly, looking far more flustered than she would have liked. “I came for the cool weather,” she said lightly. “You came here to study?”

  “No,” said the apprentice. The gray eyes of his reflection narrowed. His voice was like the cold pull of a glacier. “I came here to hunt.”

  Beneath the waves, small creatures survived by hiding when a predator was near, and everything in Ulla longed to cower, to tuck herself into some scrap of shadow and escape his gaze. But there was nowhere to hide here on land, and the sildroher did not shrink from humans. She had song and he was only a mortal.

  Ulla turned to the apprentice, made herself meet his gaze without flinching. “Then I wish you good fortune,” she said. “And easy prey.”

  He smiled, the same sly, dangerous smile she’d seen on her own face in the glass. Ulla had come for answers, but why should she believe this boy knew anything about her? For all she knew, his mysterious words had been nothing but an empty lure. Best to get away quickly. Besides, even in that long ago time, Ulla knew a bad bargain. Maybe this boy held secrets, but whatever knowledge he might possess would not be worth the price. She turned her back on him and forced herself not to run as she began the long, winding journey down the stairs.

  Despite the apprentice and his threat, for a time Ulla was happy. They all were in their own ways. Roffe took his pleasures; Signy suffered but drowned her longing in a tide of human lovers; and Ulla let herself be carried away too, far from the clutter of ardent hearts, into the wilds of the wood, where the pines made a green cathedral and the air was thick with the smell of sun-warmed sap. She watched for deer and beaver, stained her lips with berries, marked the sun on its path as it set beneath the horiz
on, then rose again to color the whole world.

  At night, she feasted with the others, watched Signy hope, and Roffe charm, and all his golden brothers hold court. The beauty that had revealed itself in Ulla when she came to land earned her gifts of jewels and poetry, posies left outside her door, even a proposal. Nothing could tempt her, and this only strengthened her allure. The steady beat of mortal fascination made her weary.

  She would sit for hours as the great hall emptied, listening to the human musicians, studying their fingers on the frets of an oud, giving herself over to the thump of the drum, the pull of the bow, until the last note was played. There were legends of instruments enchanted by sildroher and gifted to human favorites. Finger cymbals that made the dancer more graceful, harps that would play themselves when their strings were wetted with blood. But for Ulla there was only music.

  Some nights, when Signy had taken no lover, she would come to Ulla’s room and they would wriggle beneath the covers, feet tangled together, chafing each other’s hands, and laughing themselves warm. Those were the nights when Ulla did not dream of her mother or father, of the apprentice’s teeth, or the cold blue silence of the deep.

  But as the days passed, Roffe’s temper changed, and Ulla saw his brothers become watchful and secretive too. They dallied less with mortal girls and spent long hours in the Prophetic’s Tower. Ulla knew they were all searching the pages of human books for mortal magic, for a gift they might bring back to their father—the thing that might change their fortunes forever.

  As Roffe’s mood grew darker, Signy became restless and skittish too, endlessly twining her bright hair around her nervous fingers, her teeth worrying her lower lip until it bled in tiny garnet beads.

  “You must stop,” Ulla told her beneath the blankets, dabbing the blood away with the sleeve of her nightgown. “Your misery won’t fix this for him. He’ll find his way. There’s still time.”

  “When he does, he’ll seek you out.”

  “Both of us,” said Ulla.

  “But you are the composer,” Signy said, pressing her feverish forehead to Ulla’s. “You are the one he needs.”

  “He needs us both for any song of worth.”

  The tears came then and Signy’s voice broke. “When he truly understands your power, he will want you for his bride. You will leave me behind.”

  Ulla held her close, wishing she could shake Signy from these thoughts. Neither of them were fit to be a princess, no matter how powerful their song. “I will never leave you. I have no wish to be his bride.”

  Signy’s laugh was bitter in the dark. “He’s a prince, Ulla. He will have what he wants.”

  As if Signy’s own small hands had set a secret clock ticking, Roffe approached Ulla the next day. It was late afternoon, and a long, languorous meal of cold fowl and chestnuts with citron had been served on the terrace overlooking the gardens. Chilled bottles of yellow cherry wine had been emptied and now, as the servants cleared the table, humans and sildroher drowsed in leafy alcoves or chased one another through the turns of the hedge maze.

  Ulla stood at the terrace’s edge, looking down at the gardens, listening to the bees hum. Her mind had already begun to build a song that might transform a corner of the undersea garden she and Signy had raised for the royal family into a maze like this with a whirling pool at its center. It would be a trick of the eye, of course, a gesture toward human fountains, but she thought fish could be made to swim in a circle if she could simply build a strong enough pattern into the melody.

  “I need a gift like Rundstrom’s tiger,” said Roffe, coming up beside her and leaning on his elbows. “A horse. A great lizard if I could find one.”

  The tiger was a legendary gift, but it was no simple spell. The creature had to be enchanted to breathe underwater, to endure the cold, and then to obey its master. Rundstrom’s tiger had survived barely a year beneath the sea. Long enough to make a second son a king.

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” she murmured, the sun warm on her shoulders. “Or you’ll look no better than a cheap imitation.”

  “Kalle and Edvin have already found their gifts. Or so they say. But still I falter. An elixir of strength from the alchemist? A bird that sings beneath the waves?”

  Ulla huffed out a breath, a human gesture she’d learned to enjoy. “Why does it matter? Why do you even want to be king?”

  “I thought you of all people would understand.”

  Hungry Ulla. Maybe she did. A song had made two lonely girls friends. A prince’s favor had made them worthy of notice. What might a crown do for that prince?

  “You want to spend your days negotiating with the other sea folk?” she asked. “Your nights in endless ritual?” She bumped her shoulder against his. “Roffe, you can barely be counted upon to rise before noon.”

  “That’s what advisers are for.”

  “A king cannot simply rely on advisers.”

  “A king bows to no one,” Roffe said, his blue eyes trained on something Ulla could not see. “A king chooses his own path. His own wife.”

  Ulla shifted uneasily, wishing she could be weightless for just a moment, caught in the saltwater arms of the sea. Was Roffe making the very offer Signy had feared?

  “Roffe—” she began.

  But as if sensing her discomfort, Roffe continued, “A king chooses his own court. His own singers.”

  How easily princes played. How easily they spoke of dreams they had no business offering. But Ulla could not help the yearning she felt as Roffe bent his head as if to whisper endearments.

  “I would raise you so high, Ulla. No one would gossip about your birth or your wayward mother ever again.”

  Ulla flinched. It was one thing to know what others thought, another to hear it spoken. “They will always gossip.”

  Roffe smiled slightly. “Then they will do it far more quietly.”

  What might a crown do for a prince? What might a king do for a girl like her?

  Signy’s laughter floated up to them from the maze below. She was easy to spot, her hair burning like banked embers, a red banner of war streaming behind her as a mortal boy pursued her down the row. Ulla watched her let the boy catch her, spin her around.

  “You want to win the throne and impress your father?” she asked Roffe.

  “You know I do.”

  Signy tossed back her head and threw her arms wide, her face framed by curls like living flame.

  Ulla nodded. “Then bring him fire.”

  As soon as she said it, Ulla realized her foolishness, but from then on, the prince could think of nothing else. He left off chasing human girls entirely, cloistered himself in the Prophetic’s Tower, barely ate or drank.

  “He will drive himself mad,” said Signy as they shivered beneath the covers one night.

  “I doubt he has the focus for it.”

  “Don’t be unkind.”

  “I don’t mean to be,” said Ulla, and she thought that it was true.

  “Could the mirror be a gift for the king instead?” Signy asked. Ulla had told her of the strange mirror and the room full of odd objects in the tower.

  “He might be amused by it.” For a time.

  “Roffe thinks only of fire, day and night. Why did you put such a thought in his head?”

  Because he made me dream of things I cannot have, she thought, but said, “He asked and I answered. He should know better than to think it’s possible.” It was one thing to bring a creature of the land beneath the sea and make it live and breathe for a time. That was powerful magic, yes, but not so radically different from the enchantments that allowed the sildroher to walk on land. But to toy with the elements, to make a flame burn when it had no fuel to do so … It would require greater magic than the song that had created the nautilus hall. It could not be done. “He must turn his mind to something else.”

  “So I’ve told him,” Signy fretted. “But he will not listen.” She tugged gently at Ulla’s cuff. “Perhaps the king’s seer might help. Or the
seer’s apprentice. He’s been friendly to you. I’ve seen it.”

  Ulla shivered. The apprentice had left her in peace since that day in the tower. He seemed to have his own work to attend to, but she was aware of him always, sitting silent at table beside his master, walking the grounds, the spilled ink of his black clothes moving from shadow to shadow.

  “Talk to him,” insisted Signy. “Please, Ulla.” She took Ulla’s hands in hers. “For me. Won’t you at least speak to him? What harm could it do?”

  Quite a lot, Ulla suspected. “Perhaps.”

  “Ulla—”

  “Perhaps,” she said, and rolled over. She did not want to look at Signy anymore.

  But when her friend took up a dreaming song, low and sweet, Ulla could not help but join her. It wove a warm glow around them as it rose and fell.

  Ulla did not know which of them fell asleep first, only that she dreamed she stood at the center of the hedge maze wearing a mantle of fire, paralyzed, unable to do anything but burn. When she opened her mouth to cry out, no sound emerged, and in the distance she saw Signy, poised on the edge of the terrace as if to take flight, the flame of her hair hidden by a white bridal veil.

  The days crept by. Roffe grew more frantic. Signy’s gaze grew more accusatory. Ulla knew only fear was keeping her from the apprentice. She had not mistaken Roffe’s message. If the flame could be mastered and Roffe made king, he would choose Ulla as his court singer. She had to at least try to speak to the apprentice. He might be dangerous, but abandoning even a small chance to make her dream real seemed more dangerous still.

  Ulla found him in a reading room at the bottom of the Prophetic’s Tower, packing books into a simple satchel. One was bound in leather, its pages loose and covered in frenzied scrawl that differed from the orderly patterns she’d seen in other books, though it was equally meaningless to her. In one corner she spied what looked like the antlers of a stag. The apprentice snapped the satchel closed.