Next up for the Hugo Award finalists is Aliette de Bodard’s story of political intrigue, familial conflict, and reckless romance in a fantasy version of pre-colonial Vietnam.
Imperial Princess Thanh was sent to the country of Ephteria when she was still a child. Being a royal hostage was one of the only things she was useful for since she didn’t have any of the skills in battle or politics that her older sisters had, something which her the Empress never failed to tell her. A few years after surviving a mysterious fire that burned down the palace of Yosolis she returned home to Bình Hải, once again disappointing her mother by not having gotten any stronger or braver while she was away.
When the novella starts Thanh is facing the fact that she doesn’t have the respect of her mother, she’s living in her native country that no longer feels like home, and she’s been given the position of diplomat with no real power, and the task to advise and negotiate a new trade agreement with Ephteria, even though the Empress is probably not going to let her negotiate or listen to any advice she may give.
What Thanh does have is a dashing ex-girlfriend – the crown princess of Ephteria – who’s looking to restart their relationship and won’t take no for an answer. More worrying, Thanh also has a little problem where things around her tend to catch on fire.
…as if the fire that burnt Yosolis and still haunts her nightmares has chosen to follow her home…
The setting is a rich, lush version of imperial Vietnam with elements out of mythology thrown in for spice. But at times those elements seemed secondary to the real story of trying to claim an identity beyond the one that the people who are supposed to care have assigned: third-best, disappointment, useless.
Thanh is a resilient character who doesn’t have an illusions about her place in her mother’s court. She knows, knows, that being sent away to Ephteria was the right choice. It was a chance for her to learn everything that Bình Hải needs to know about their would-be colonizers. And Thanh knows it’s the duty of the Empress to find a use for everyone, even her third-born daughter.
That doesn’t stop her from hurting at the memory of her mother’s cold eyes watching her sail away from her home, possibly forever. And since the Empress doesn’t have much interest in what she has to say about Ephteria, well, the whole things seems kind of pointless.
Is it any wonder that Thanh falls into the arms of the first person in Ephteria who found her at all interesting? Someone who also happens to be the beautiful, sword-wielding, impossible to intimidate Princess Eldris, who’s invited herself into the trade negotiations and seems determined to pick up their romance where they left off. I loved the flashback image of the teenage Eldris showing up at Thanh’s door with a single rose and a crooked smile.
Eldris’s seduction is effortless and dashing, and Thanh is so lonely and unsure of herself. It all seems like such a mad, terrible, perfect idea, you can almost ignore the warning signs, the power imbalance, the fact that most – maybe all – abusive relationships start with a too-good-to-be-true romance that makes people ignore all the red flags.
The relationship between the nations of Bình Hải and Ephteria is fraught enough without mixing in an affair, and Thanh is always caught between trying to somehow earn love from her unloving mother, and wanting to run away and marry Eldris and live as a princess in Ephteria. The story might have gone a completely different direction except for the appearance of a young serving-girl, Giang, who disappeared after Thanh rescued her when escaping the burning palace of Yosolis, and who has inexplicably reappeared in Bình Hải. In the palace. In Thanh’s bedroom in the middle of the night. On fire.
The novella weaves together several threads of dangerous politics, even more dangerous romance, identify, and loyalty, and not everything gets wrapped up with a bow at the end. Don’t expect the Empress to suddenly regret ever being emotionally abusive to Thanh. There are however some very satisfying scenes that felt like daydreams, the ones where you have a loyal friend who’ll do anything to protect you, or where you suddenly have all the power that someone else has gotten used to holding over you.