Fonda Lee - Jade War

The phone rang. Expecting it to be Anden, Hilo handed the toddler to Kyanla and picked up the receiver in the kitchen. Juen said, “Hilo-jen, there are some… rumors going on.”

Even after more than a year, there were times when Hilo heard Juen’s voice on the phone and wondered, for a second, why Kehn had sent his First Fist instead of phoning himself. It never failed to give him painful pause. Hilo said, “Rumors are as common as rats; what’s so special about these ones?”

“Ven Sandolan, the big businessman, the one who owns the shipping company—he’s dead. Executed by the Mountain for treason. Apparently, he tried to organize a coup against Ayt Mada but his plans were discovered. People are shocked; he was one of their top Lantern Men.”

Hilo muted the television. “What about his sons?”

“Dead as well, along with a number of other conspirators. They say Nau Suen and his men caught Ven Haku and some other Fists plotting at the Sin 8 nightclub and slit their throats.”

“Ayt wiped out the wealthiest Green Bone bloodline in her clan? And none of the other families in the Mountain are rioting?” Hilo demanded in disbelief.

“Ayt’s taken Koben Ato as her ward,” Juen said. “From now on, she’ll be paying for his studies at Wie Lon, training him privately at the Ayt mansion, bringing him under her wing. She isn’t officially calling the kid her heir, but it’s a big enough change that she’s bought the support of the Kobens and everyone who’s on their side.”

“And the Iwe family?”

“Quiet. The word is that Ayt handed them a huge share of K-Star Freight.”

“Godsdamnit,” Hilo snarled under his breath, taken aback and furious at how suddenly it had happened, how quickly his designs had unraveled. Nonetheless, he was unable to contain a grudging admiration. Ayt had played her hand beautifully; after the destruction of the Ven family, no one else in the Mountain would dare to oppose her. Or the newly elevated Koben family. Hilo’s meetings with Ven Sando, the behind-the-scenes payments and secret assurances, his calculated stoking of the internal divisions in the Mountain with provocations and violence, all of it building his hope for the past three years that the Mountain clan would take down No Peak’s longtime enemy on its own and tear itself to pieces—all for nothing. “Why the fuck is that bitch so hard to kill ?”

“Uncle,” Niko said, tugging on Hilo’s shirt sleeve.

“Not now, Niko.”

“Uncle.” This time it was not the boy’s voice or the renewed tugging on his arm that made Hilo turn to look down at his nephew, but the strong surge of confusion and fear that Hilo Perceived in the boy—his little heart was beating like a drum. Niko was not a temperamental child, not the sort to get upset easily or be fearful of harmless things, but his eyes were wide with distress.

Hilo instructed Juen to learn what else he could and report back once he had more information. He hung up and said, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Ru… he… he… we were playing, and he… he ate them!”

“Ate what?” Hilo said. “Where is he?” He followed Niko to the study and as soon as he entered the room, Hilo understood. A terrible dread dropped his heart into his stomach. A small cloth bag of jade buttons, long ago confiscated from the shipment of garments on the MV Amaric Pride , was lying open on the coffee table. Several small jade pieces were lying scattered or stacked on the glass surface; the boys had obviously found them in Hilo’s unlocked desk drawer and had been playing with them. Ru was sitting curled on the ground in the corner behind the sofa, holding a throw pillow to his chest and face, as if, by hiding behind it, he could avoid his father’s anger.

Hilo strode over and pulled the pillow away. He crouched down, gripping his son by the arms. “What happened?” he demanded, hoping the boys would grin, that it would be a joke they were playing to scare him, though he knew as soon as he saw Ru’s tear-stained face that it wasn’t.

Niko was the one who answered. “He swallowed them.”

“I didn’t mean to!” Ru blurted, his cheeks reddening. He shot his cousin a baleful glare of betrayal. “It was your fault! I was going to spit them out, but you had your hand over my mouth!”

“ Why would you do that?” Hilo shouted at both of them. They had been taught that jade was to be worn and handled by adults, that it was not for playing with. They ought to have known better.

“We were just pretending.” Niko was on the verge of tears himself.

Hilo’s desire to give them both a beating was blotted out by fury with himself—he hadn’t thought the boys would play in the study, he should’ve locked the jade in the drawer, why had he left it out so carelessly?—and a more urgent, intense fear. Jade inside a small child’s body was dangerous. It could cause fever, erratic heartbeat, seizures, collapse, and death.

Hilo scooped his son up in his arms. He shouted for Kyanla to take care of Jaya and Niko as he grabbed the keys to the Duchesse and ran for the door. Niko, crying now, ran after him. “I’m coming too.” He clung to Hilo’s waist. “Don’t leave me.”

Hilo threw open the back door of the Duchesse Signa and piled both children onto the seat. Ru stared at his father with wide, frightened eyes. “Am I going to die?”

“No,” Hilo said. He got in and started the car.

At Janloon General Hospital, the emergency room staff hurried Ru into an examination room. An X-ray revealed two button-sized jade stones, which thankfully had not lodged in the boy’s esophagus on the way down but were now trapped inside his stomach. Ru was hooked up to machines to monitor his heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature. A white-haired doctor came in and explained that he believed the stones could be removed without surgery. Ru would be sedated and a flexible grasping tool inserted down his throat to try and extract the pieces of jade. Hilo sat next to the bed holding his son’s small, sweaty hand in his own while the boy was put under anesthesia.

“Are you mad at me?” Ru asked, his voice turning groggy.

“No.” He was too afraid to be angry. “I love you.” He smoothed Ru’s hair. The boy’s forehead felt warm and damp; Hilo wasn’t sure if it was a jade-induced fever or merely exertion from crying.

“I want Ma,” Ru whimpered.

“You’ll see her when you wake up,” Hilo promised. Uncontrollably, his mind flashed to the worst possible outcome he could imagine: having to call his wife while she was thousands of kilometers away on a business trip to tell her that their son had died of jade poisoning while under his watch. He felt ill at the thought and told himself that would not happen.

A nurse had brought in a small stack of board books and a toy truck for Niko to play with, but after a cursory look, the boy ignored them. He sat on a chair next to Hilo with his knees drawn up to his chest, hugging his legs. After the initial bout of tears in the car, his eyes were dry. He stared around at everything with interest and faint hostility, but he had not spoken since they got to the hospital.

Hilo looked at his wristwatch. It was past dinnertime; they’d been in the emergency room for two hours already. It would be midmorning on the east coast of Espenia. By now, Anden was supposed to have phoned to confirm that Zapunyo had arrived in Port Massy and that all the arrangements were in place. Unable to reach Hilo at the house, he would’ve phoned the Weather Man’s office. Shae would be wondering where he was; perhaps she was trying to reach him now.

The doctors came in and wheeled Ru away. Hilo followed as far as they allowed, then watched his son disappear behind closed doors. The white-haired doctor assured Hilo that the procedure would not take long. “You’re not the first Green Bone family to have had this happen, Kaul-jen,” the doctor said. “As long we get the jade out quickly, there’s no permanent harm. SN1 isn’t recommended for children, but we can use small doses if it looks like that’ll be necessary.”