CHAPTER
22
Honor, Life, and Jade
Once the door closed behind Shae, Lan said to Hilo, “Have someone you trust watch Doru. Someone with little enough jade that he won’t notice. You have a nose in the Weather Man’s office?” When Hilo nodded, Lan said, “I want to know if he’s had any contact with the Mountain. If he’s really a traitor.”
“Seems we could bring him in here and find out pretty quick right now.”
Lan shook his head. “What if we’re wrong? Then again, what if we’re right? Doru is like a brother to Grandda. He’s the only one Grandda has left from his glory days. You haven’t seen them together every morning, those two. I have; they still drink their tea and play circle chess under the cherry tree in the courtyard, like an old married couple. It would kill the old man to see Doru accused of treason.” Lan closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “No,” he said. “We have to know for sure, and if it’s true, we have to handle it quietly, so Grandda never knows.”
“Doru will suspect we’re on to him,” Hilo said, “and everyone else will ask questions. How are you going to explain the fact that we shut him out just now?”
“I’ll smooth it over,” Lan said. “I’ll say we were talking privately with Shae, brother to sister, trying to convince her to come back into the clan.”
Hilo sat down finally, in the seat Shae had vacated. Lan had to edge back in his own chair slightly. With new jade in his hand and in his pocket, Hilo’s
aura seemed too bright in his mind.
“What about Shae?” Hilo asked.
“What about her?”
“You told me not to push her. You said we’re to leave her alone and let her walk around embarrassing herself with no jade on, if that’s what she
wants to do.”
“That’s right,” said Lan.
“Then you send her to dig into clan business. You didn’t even tell me. If I’d known she was working for you, I would’ve been nicer to her.” Hilo tilted his head. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disagreeing. But which is it? You want her in or out?”
Lan exhaled slowly through his nose. “I wouldn’t have asked her to do anything for the clan, but I needed someone with a brain for numbers, someone not in Doru’s control, to follow my suspicions. Considering what she found, I don’t regret it, but it doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind.”
“You’re going to need a new Weather Man soon,” Hilo pointed out.
“No,” said Lan, sharply now. “If she decides she wants in, that’s one thing. I’m not going to guilt, order, or threaten her back into the clan. She especially doesn’t need any pressure from you. She gets enough from Grandda as it is. Shae has an Espenian education now—something neither of us has—so she has other options in life that we don’t. Janloon’s not just for Green Bones. You can choose to live without jade, an ordinary citizen with an ordinary life, like millions of other people.”
Hilo held his hands up. “All right.”
“You’re not kids anymore. The two of you can make your own choices. I don’t need to wipe bloody noses and tell you to show some respect to each other.”
“I said all right.” A moment of silence passed before Hilo said, “Lan. I didn’t notice until I was sitting closer to you, but your aura doesn’t seem right. It’s …” He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face aside, concentrating his Perception. “It’s flaring, pulsing, kind of. It feels off. Not like you.”
“It’s all the new jade,” Lan said. “It’s taking a little getting used to. You know how it is.” He was sitting still, but his heart was beating fast.
Hilo opened his eyes. “I don’t think you should wear it.”
“I won this jade.” Lan was startled by his sudden defensiveness. “It’s
mine by right. You wear all the jade you’ve won, don’t you?”
His brother shrugged. “Sure.”
“What did you take last night?”
Hilo leaned back and shifted his hip off the chair so he could reach into his pockets and pull out his spoils. “The rings, bracelet, and pendant. I’ll get them reset, obviously.” He held them out for Lan’s inspection. “The watch and these studs belong to the Maiks. There’s a belt in my car that’s theirs by right too.” He returned them to his pockets and sat back. “It’s not as much as Gam’s.”
“You still have more overall.” Lan blinked; had he just said that?
Hilo’s eyes widened, surprised as well. “Is that what this is about?” He ran his tongue over his lips. “I’m the Horn, brother. People don’t expect me to be smart. They do expect me to carry a shitload of jade. Everyone’s different.”
“Some people are better. Thicker-blooded.” Lan wondered what was wrong with him, that he was sounding so bitter and testy. The fatigue from staying up for more than thirty-six hours straight, the fight in front of the Factory, and now the jade—it was all getting to him. Too much, too quickly.
“It’s been years since I’ve dueled, Hilo,” he said. “Ayt killed her father’s own Horn, and two of his Fists. Today I had to fight in front of our men, and I had to win. Tomorrow people will be paying attention, to see if I’m wearing the proof that I’m thick-blooded enough for No Peak to stand up to the Mountain in a war. You know better than anyone that it’s true.”
Hilo’s gaze was straight. “You’re right. It’s true.” He glanced down at the carpet, lips pursed, then back up again. “You don’t have to do it right now, though. After what Gam hit you with? You’re hurt. Put it down, Lan. Give yourself a break.” He got up and held his hand out, offering to take it.
In a surge of possessiveness, Lan’s fist tightened around the jade. His jade; how dare his little brother think to take it from him? Hilo’s aura was too harsh and close, mentally blinding. He kept standing there, though, hand extended, and Lan Perceived no greed, only concern.
In a burst of clarity, he knew the jade was doing this: setting him on edge, skewing his emotions. He’d been taught the early warning signs of jade overexposure since he was a child—every Green Bone had. Severe mood swings, sensory distortion, shaking, sweating, fever, a racing heart, anxiety and paranoia. The appearance of symptoms could be sudden or gradual. They
might come and go for months or years, but were exacerbated by stress, poor health, or injury. If left unaddressed, they could progress into the Itches, which were almost always fatal.
Hilo was looking at him intently now. Lan forced himself to open his hand and set the jade studs on the side table. He removed the chokers from his breast pocket and pushed all of Gam’s jade away from himself.
A few seconds passed before the change kicked in, and then it was dramatic, as if a high fever had suddenly broken. His heart rate came down, the painful sharpness of the room receded. Hilo’s aura returned to its usual smooth hum. Lan took a slow, deep breath and let it out again, trying not to let his relief appear too palpable. “Better?”
Hilo nodded and sat back down, but there was an uncertainty in his eyes that Lan did not like. So even Hilo doubted his ability. Kaul Sen was a decrepit old man, Doru might be a traitor, and Shae refused to even wear jade. It was only him and Hilo now. What was happening to the great Kaul family?
“You should go, Hilo,” he said. “We both have things we need to do.”
His brother did not move from the chair. “I have something else to ask you,” he said. Lan had almost never seen his brother look nervous, but now Hilo rubbed his hands together and cleared his throat. “I want to marry Wen.”
Lan tried not to sigh out loud. “Do we have to talk about this right now?”
“Yes.” Hilo’s voice took on sudden urgency. “After last night, I don’t want to waste time, Lan. I don’t want to be lying on the pavement bleeding out the last seconds of my life thinking I didn’t do everything I meant to.
That I didn’t give her this one thing when I had the chance.”
Lan’s head ached and he felt dehydrated. The dramatic addition and then withdrawal of jade made him feel as if his skull had been pulled out too far and then squeezed back down too tightly. He rubbed his brow. “You really love her.”
To his surprise, Hilo looked insulted. “Why would I be asking otherwise?”
Lan felt like telling him that love wasn’t enough, not when it came to marriage. There was a time when he’d thought it would be enough. Eyni had thought so too. She’d known he would one day be Pillar; she’d assured him she understood what that meant, that everything would work out fine in the end because they loved each other. He’d convinced her, and himself, that
taking on the leadership of No Peak wouldn’t change him, wouldn’t change things between them. They’d been wrong, of course. Looking back, Lan could see now that there’d been cracks beforehand, but the demands of the clan had shaken those cracks into impassable fissures.
Warnings about the impermanence of love would not work on Hilo, though. He was not the sort of person who would ever view something so important to him in such an abstracted fashion. “You know how I feel about Wen,” Lan said. “She’s a lovely girl. She’s always been respectful to the clan, and I’d gladly treat her like my sister. But her family is beneath you.
Everyone knows the Maiks were disgraced. A lot of people in No Peak still think they can’t be trusted, and even if they don’t say it out loud, they assume Wen is illegitimate.”
Hilo’s neck flushed and his face grew stiff. “All that happened years ago.
You shouldn’t blame the Maiks for their parents. I made Kehn and Tar my First and Second Fists—I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t trust them with my life. And I don’t care who Wen’s father really is. She’s of the No Peak clan as far as anyone is concerned, and she’s a good person—caring and loyal.”
“I’m sure she is,” Lan said. “She’s also a stone-eye. There are always going to be people who see her as bad luck, or whisper she was born that way because she’s a bastard and a punishment to her parents. Don’t look so angry at me. I’m only telling you that the clan can have long and superstitious memories. You’re the Horn; you have to think about that.”
“I don’t care what anyone else in the clan thinks, it’s you I’m asking.”
Hilo sounded almost desperate. “You’re willing to forgive Shae completely and welcome her back, but you balk at accepting the Maiks?”
“That’s different,” Lan said. “Shae is a Kaul no matter what. You’re making the decision to bind our family to a disreputable name, and to father children with a stone-eye wife.”
Hilo’s aura roiled with tension. “What can I say to convince you?” His eyes fastened to Lan’s. “I swear I’ll never ask you for anything else.”
Sometimes it astounded Lan that his younger brother could be so different from him. Shortsighted, yes, but fully committed. Passionate in a way that left so little room for doubt. Lan said, “You’ve already made up your mind.
I’ve said my concerns, but it’s your decision, Hilo. You don’t need my permission.”
“Don’t say that,” Hilo snapped. “That’s a bullshit excuse.” He leaned so far forward in his chair that he half rose from it. “You’re my older brother.
You’re the Pillar! When Grandda was Pillar, he didn’t let a leaf drop in the courtyard without his permission. People came to him to approve their marriages, their new businesses, the names of their kids and dogs, the color of their fucking wallpaper for all I know. Give me your blessing, or condemn me, but don’t wash your hands of me. It wouldn’t mean anything for me to marry Wen without the approval of the Pillar. No one would take it seriously.”
On the other hand, if Lan endorsed the union, he would be publicly forgiving the Maik family. He would be sending the message that their past betrayal had been wiped clean. The Maiks would be elevated to the right hand of the Kauls. Other families would be jealous and angry. If he did not give his permission, however, he would hurt Hilo—and Hilo could be dramatically hurt. He would damage the relationship with his brother and his Horn at a time when the clan could not afford any further weakness in the family.
Lan’s arms and legs felt heavy enough to sink him straight through the cushioned chair. It seemed everything in the clan required a decision from him that would invariably hurt or offend others and cause further problems.
Looking at Hilo’s face, though, he realized he couldn’t find it in himself to refuse his brother’s request. Even if he’d known how things would turn out with Eyni, would he never have taken a gamble on overcoming the odds? He didn’t think he could say so. As for Hilo and Wen, all the objections Lan had voiced—past sins, clan politics, superstition—they didn’t touch those few seconds last night in the Lilac Divine when Maik Kehn had answered the Pillar’s unspoken panic with, “He’s alive. He’s fine,” and Lan had understood, as he gripped the door frame, that he wasn’t ready to be a wartime Pillar. He wasn’t equipped to handle that kind of violent loss in his own family.
“You’re right, Hilo. It’s better to think about today when tomorrow might not happen. I give you my blessing to marry Maik Wen,” Lan said. He did his best to sound as sincere and positive as such a statement warranted. “Set a date. As soon as you want.”
Hilo left the chair and knelt on the carpet. He raised clasped hands to his forehead. “The clan is my blood, and the Pillar is its master,” Hilo said,
reciting the ceremonial Green Bone clan oaths they’d both taken years ago.
“Should I ever be disloyal to my brother, may I die by the blade. Should I ever fail to come to the aid of my brother, may I die by the blade. Should I ever seek personal gain at the expense of my brother, may I die by the blade.”
He bowed low, touching his forehead to the carpet. “On my honor, my life, and my jade.”
Lan wanted to protest the overly dramatic display of gratitude, but when Hilo straightened up, he was smiling his open, easy smile—the one that suggested he was not worried, and no else need be either, and all was as it should be. He didn’t look like someone who’d been through the same day as Lan had.
Hilo got off the floor, gathered his weapons off the desk, and rested a hand on Lan’s shoulder as he left the room. He pointed at the pile of Gam’s jade. “Get some sleep before you try putting it back on.”