The Language of Thorns Read online

  Instead she sat quietly, and when they had done with their wailing and warnings, she said, “You cannot stop me.”

  They could not. But they could refuse her gowns and human coin.

  “Walk naked amid the men of the shore and see what joy it brings you,” decreed her father.

  “Perhaps I will,” Ulla replied with more courage than she felt. Maybe she would find answers onshore, or a human lover, or nothing at all, but she would go.

  That night she swam to the wreck of the Djenaller, a ship brought low only months before, a warning to the men of the land to keep from these waters. She pulled scraps of cloth and pearl from the skeletons in its cabins, and over those ragged leavings she sang a song of making. She barely knew what mortal gowns should look like, but she drew seed pearl and lost silk together and made three dresses that pleased her, then sealed them dry in an enchanted trunk.

  “You cannot wear such dresses,” said Signy. “They will draw too much notice.” Ulla shrugged and pretended that she didn’t care. She could not tell Signy that her mother and father had refused to let her accompany the party, nor could she bear to tell her why. “Besides, three gowns will hardly get you through three months on land!”

  What could Ulla say? She had her voice. She had magic. It would have to be enough. “Signy,” she began carefully, phrasing a question that was also a warning, “you do know why he wants us there?”

  It was fine to talk of dresses and parties, but Signy’s eyes followed Roffe like a ship seeking a watch light on shore. Ulla could not bear to see her friend hurt. The truth was that Roffe had been drawn to them by the power they’d wielded the day they’d raised the garden. He was their friend, she knew that, but he was still the youngest son. Only magic might make him more.

  At the end of each summer on land, the sildroher would return to the sea, and all the princes would present their father, the king, with a gift. The gifts were called a gesture, a nothing, but the king had announced that this would be the last year of his reign, and so they all knew better. These gifts were meant to be an expression of each prince’s ingenuity, a show of feeling for his father and the kingdom. The first song of building had been such a gift, and it had raised the royal palace from the ocean bed. That had been nearly five hundred years ago, but it had made a third son a king. A sixth son would need greater magic than that.

  Signy touched her forehead to Ulla’s briefly. “I know,” she said. “But Roffe may go looking for one thing and find another. After all, I only wanted to survive a duet and instead I found you.”

  Ulla hugged her friend close and they sang together as they finished their packing. She knew she should caution Signy further, tell her that Roffe could not choose her, that though he was the youngest and barely a prince, he was still a prince.

  You are worth more than that, she wanted to say. You should not have to earn him. Instead she held her tongue and tried to hum away the worry in her heart. What harm can a little hope do? Ulla told herself.

  But hope rises like water trapped by a dam, higher and higher, in increments that mean nothing until you face the flood.

  They reached the surface before dawn, when the sky was still dark. Ulla had been above before, when she’d first learned storm magic, bobbing in the waves, the stars sparkling in the black sky above her like another great sea, the hulking shape of the coast lying like a monster’s tail across the horizon. She had stayed to watch the sun turn the water pink and gold, gilding the castle on the high cliffs, and then sought shelter below. But now Ulla and the others let the tide take them inland to a small cove, a grim slash of gray sand and black rock.

  They were greeted on the shore by the Hedjüt, the fisher-men of the north, with whom the sildroher kept an easy alliance. The sea folk held storms at bay for Hedjüt boats, kept their nets full of mussels and crab, and drove whales into their waters. In return, the fishermen kept sildroher secrets, provided them with horses, and fetched the trunks of human clothes ordered by noble sildroher families. It was from the Hedjüt that the sea folk had learned human language and custom, and it was before these silent fishermen that they now thrashed in the waves.

  There is no pain like the pain of transformation. A mermaid does not simply shed her skin and find a mortal body beneath. To walk on land is to have your body cleft in two, split into something other. On that beach, Ulla, Signy, Roffe, and the rest of the party drew the sacred sykurn blades, hewn from narwhal tusk and heavy with enchantments. They raised the song of transformation and plunged the knives into their own bodies.

  Many of the royal sons and nobles had been aided by court singers in the making of their knives, but not Ulla, who had crooned the notes that would bind power to her blade with infinite care. Still, no matter how well-crafted the knife, the song was the greater challenge. It was the deepest magic, music of rending and healing, the only song all royalty were trained in from birth. It was not complicated but required great will, and Ulla worried that Signy would not have the strength for it. But with eyes locked on Roffe, Signy raised her voice and made the cut. Only then did Ulla add her own voice to the song and drive her blade into her tail.

  The terror was worse than the pain, the surety that something had gone wrong and that she would be torn apart from head to fin. Blood spilled around her in torrents, staining the sea-foam pink before the tide brought another wave of salt to clean her wounds. And still she sang on, holding the notes steady, knowing that if she did not, she would never heal completely but simply lie there bleeding, a mess of scales and half-formed limbs.

  The pain eased. The last notes were sung. Ulla marveled at the strange curve of her hips, the dark thatch of hair between her legs, the odd, awkward knobs of her knees. And feet! Sad little flippers with their crenellated toes. She could hardly believe such things would support her, let alone propel her forward.

  The Hedjüt fishermen averted their eyes and hauled the sildroher from the sand, over the rocks, their new legs wriggling limply. The men were gentle enough, but still Ulla felt panic clawing at her heart. It was too strange—the fresh light of dawn all around her, the still solidity of the land, the air coursing raw through her lungs. She struggled to find calm, afraid she would embarrass herself.

  In the fishermen’s shacks, Ulla and the other sildroher dressed themselves, and shod their vulnerable and untried feet in shoes made special for the trip, cushioned with lamb’s wool and spells. They spent the better part of the day learning to walk, wobbling and laughing as they stumbled, grasped, felt the earth beneath them. Some had experience from summers past, but even for those who had never come to land, it was not so hard as it might be for a human child. They were a graceful people, strong from years keeping steady against the tides.

  Through all of it, the sildroher took great care with their knives. New cuts would be required in three months’ time, more blood magic to bind their legs and form their tails so they might go home again. The blades could touch nothing of the mortal world before then or they would lose the power to return the sea folk to their true forms, so the sildroher wrapped the sykurn knives in the skin and scales they had shed and stored them safely in their trunks.

  Ulla saw that Signy and Roffe were looking at her strangely, but there was little time to think on it, for the coaches had arrived, wrought in silver and gold, their doors bright with lacquer and emblazoned with the symbol of the sildroher royal family—though that emblem would mean nothing to the men of the shore. The horses, vast beasts of dappled gray with black eyes like seals, stamped their massive hooves as Signy and Ulla gasped and Roffe doubled over with laughter. None of these wonders were new to him.

  Soon they were thundering down the great road that ran along the edge of the coast to the city of Söndermane. They had all seen the city from afar, perched on the tip of the white cliffs they called the Severed Moon, the towers of the church where the great iron bells, enchanted by sildroher magic, were said to compel even the worst sinners to prayer. But Ulla could barely think for all the
sensations racing through her—the seat beneath her newly formed thighs, the brush of her skirts against her legs, the jouncing of the carriage. With every jolt the sildroher whooped or clutched their sides, wild with the strangeness of it all.

  Through the chaos and commerce of the lower town they rattled, over punishing cobblestones, then past the gates to the great palace. How it glittered, white and silver and surrounded by towering pines, as if hewn from pearl and possessed of its own magic. Its spires were so slender it seemed a breath might topple them, and each balcony, railing, and casement was worked in gauzy stonework so light it looked less like masonry and more like airy tongues of frost. Over all of it loomed the legendary Prophetic’s Tower, where scholars from every country came to study and debate their findings with the king’s chief advisers and seers. Ulla found it hard to believe mortal hands could have made such a place.

  “Many human nobles spend the warm days here,” said Roffe, nodding toward another cluster of carriages. “They think we’re from an estate far to the south.”

  When the footman opened their door, Kalle, the eldest of Roffe’s brothers, was waiting, mouth full of warnings.

  “Take your pleasures as you will,” he reminded them as they slowly ascended the wide sweep of the palace steps—still not entirely sure of just how their bodies should align in the act, testing the cold marble through their shoes. “But remember how fragile these creatures are. Spill not their blood. Draw not their notice.”

  His gaze lingered upon Ulla too.

  Through two high, narrow doors they passed, into a grand entry flanked by curving staircases that met in a broad landing above. Again they climbed, muscles trembling at the unfamiliar work of it, clutching the banister, surprised at the weight of their bodies, the drag of their clothes. Finally, they reached the top of the stairs and entered a long audience chamber, teeming with people.

  There were men and women of every country here, swathed in lace and rich silks, jewels at their cuffs, little gilded heels on their shoes. Ulla marveled at how different they were from the Hedjüt with their broad shoulders and bent backs, their thick knuckled hands and weather-ravaged faces. These were the soft, perfumed bodies of people who did not work.

  Silence fell as the sildroher passed, and Ulla found it hard not to laugh at the thought of Kalle’s warning. There was no way their party could avoid drawing notice. Despite their tentative steps, the sea folk moved as no human could, their lithe bodies drifting in a liquid sway, their limbs graceful as seagrass.

  As they’d been instructed, they made their bows and curtsies to the human king, who greeted the royal brothers warmly. And well he should. For though their clothes might be peculiar and their accents strange, each year the sildroher brought such treasures as the human king had never seen. Kalle gestured to his servants, who carried forward three chests of pearls. The first were white and luminous as snow, the next the silvery gray of storm clouds, and the third chest of pearls glittered blacker than a moonless night. There were chests of coin too, jeweled swords, heavy trenchers made of gold. Ulla watched the mortal king smile and preen and pour wine into a silver cup, little realizing that this treasure had come from wrecked ships, gifts from dead men, their bones rotting at the bottom of the sea. What did mortals care? Treasure was treasure.

  But as the eyes of the human court were focused on each new gem and bauble, Ulla saw that one young man did not gawk or marvel. He stood behind the king’s throne, beside a bearded man who wore the sash and smoky-blue sapphire of a seer. The boy’s clothes were black, his hair blacker still, and he was looking directly at Ulla, the weight of his stare heavy ballast. Ulla returned his gaze, expecting him to glance away. He did not, and though she knew it was impossible, she had the strange sensation that she’d met him before.

  The king clapped his hands. The doors to the feasting hall were thrown open, and the nobles moved forward in order of rank. But as Ulla drifted through the doors of the audience hall to the strange smells of human food beyond, she looked back and saw the boy in black still watching.

  They feasted. They danced. They lifted cups of wine to their lips for the first time. They laughed and stomped their feet as the mortals did, in time with fiddle and drum. The humans clustered around the sildroher, blood suffusing their warm cheeks, chests rising as if they couldn’t quite catch their breath, eyes moist and glittering with desire, and by evening’s end, Roffe had one mortal girl on his knee, another tucked close against him.

  Ulla could not see the pain in Signy’s face, but she saw the effort her friend took to hide it.

  “You knew why he wanted us here,” Ulla reminded her, as gently as she could.

  Not for love but for magic, for what they might help Roffe accomplish onshore.

  Signy shrugged one gleaming shoulder. She had drawn her hair back from her face with two sapphire combs and changed into a corseted blue gown that curled like a wave over her breasts and left her white shoulders bare. How many times had Ulla seen Signy’s shoulders? Why, now that they were framed by silk, did they seem like something entirely new?

  “He’s meant to have his fun,” Signy said with ease that did not ring true.

  “You should have some, too,” said Ulla, and took Signy’s hand, drew her back into the dance, let the heat of human bodies, the brief, wild flutter of mortal life surround them.

  Later, when the candles burned low, and Ulla toed her pinching slippers from her feet, when she’d bound her damp hair in a braid, marveling at the moisture that beaded at the nape of her neck, when the wine fizzed happily in her blood, and the shadowed corners were full of ardent gasps and low laughter, she leaned back against the wall, shoved another body away, and wondered why she did not feel the pull the others did.

  The sildroher went to shore to taste human language, to sample the decadence of their world, but also to sample them. It was a means of easing their longing, controlling their temptations. Always, the sea folk have been drawn to mortals, to their solid bodies and brief lives, the way they strive and toil and quiver with endeavor. So why did Ulla feel no desire? Why could she not be like Signy swaying slowly, clasped in mortal arms, or Roffe plucking kisses from each eager human mouth? Was she doomed to sit at the edge of the world here as she had below the waves?

  It was only then that she saw the black-clad boy crossing the room toward her. The shadows seemed to shift as he passed, pulled along by him like a tide. Ulla took in the familiar angles of his face, the slash of his dark brows, and felt fear coil in her stomach. She touched her tongue to her teeth, already imagining the song she would raise to defend herself. Such music would doom her—sildroher magic was not for mortal eyes. But the thought reassured her nonetheless.

  “I remember you,” he said when at last he reached her. His eyes were gray agate.

  That isn’t possible, she thought to say, but instead asked, “Who are you?”

  “The seer’s apprentice.”

  “And can he really tell the future?” she asked, her curiosity getting the best of her.

  “He can tell the king what he wants to hear, and that’s more important than knowing the future.”

  Ulla knew she should say her good nights, put distance between herself and this odd creature, but she’d had too much wine to heed caution. “Why do you say you remember me? And why do you watch me like a black-backed gull seeking prey?”

  He leaned forward slightly, and Ulla could not help drawing back.

  “Come to the Prophetic’s Tower tomorrow,” he said, voice cool as glass. “Come, and I’ll tell you all you wish to know.”

  “To the library?” She could not read. Only the sildroher royal family could, trained in the ways of diplomacy and treaties.

  “I do not expect you to read,” he said as he slipped past her without a sound. “Any more than you expect me to breathe underwater.”

  Ulla slept badly that night. When the sun had set, the cold had crept into her bones, and she shivered beneath the covers. She could not get warm or purg
e the scent of sweat and tallow and roasting meat from her nose. She couldn’t get used to the feeling of the bed beneath her, the sense that her heavy body might sink right through the sheets. Then there was the painful pressure that had pushed at her abdomen until at last she remembered the chamber pot and what she was meant to do with it. When at last she dozed, she dreamed of her parents, of her father’s cold eyes and her mother’s sorrowful hands tugging at her hair as if, were she only able to pull hard enough, she might change its color.

  Ulla woke early, filled the basin nearly to the brim, and plunged her face into the cold water, letting the silence fill her ears, trying to remember herself. Her few belongings had already been placed in her dressing room, and she quickly checked the contents of her locked trunk, making sure the sykurn blade was safely bundled in the folds of her scales.

  She could not quite settle. Her skin smelled sour, wrapped tight and stiff around her frame. Her stomach growled. She ran her hand over the bed’s embroidered coverlet, drew off her slippers, and felt the cool stone floors through the soles of her feet. She plunged her toes into the soft furs that had been laid before a vast hearth. Though the summer air was warm, the palace was all cold rock and high ceilings, and the remnants of a fire smoldered in the grate. She had been too tired to realize it was there the previous night. But now Ulla knelt before it, felt the heat radiating from it against her palms, and had to keep herself from reaching for those glowing embers. She had studied the songs and artifacts. She knew the idea of fire. She’d been taught about it, sung the word. But seeing it—so close and so alive … It was like having a little sun to keep all for herself.

  The chamber had tall, pointed windows that looked out over the royal gardens and the forest beyond, and on the table set before them was a gray glass ewer full of what Ulla thought might be roses, heavy-headed things, their smell sweet and strange, their pale, dawn-pink petals slightly darker at the center. She touched her fingers to the place on her neck where her gills had been before the song of transformation, then inhaled deeply, the scent of the flowers filling her nose and lungs and making her dizzy. She plucked a petal and laid it thoughtfully on her tongue. When she chewed, the taste was disappointingly bitter.