Fonda Lee - Jade War

“I’ll be sure to do that, Aido-jen,” Shae said.

Hilo finished draining his paper cup of water and tossed it into the trash bin. Wiping a towel over his neck, he glanced at Shae standing by the door, then turned away from her and leaned his hands heavily on the counter, a pall of gloom over him. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same.”

It had taken Hilo many long months to recover from his injuries last year, and despite all the urgent demands on the Pillar’s time and attention, he seemed obsessed with building himself back into fighting shape. Shae knew that he had at least two other coaches on retainer besides Master Aido. She suspected that her brother’s preoccupation with his martial fitness was a way for him to avoid the parts of the Pillar’s job that were uninteresting or difficult for him. His fighting prowess as a Green Bone— that was one thing he could understand and control.

“You don’t need to be the best talon knife fighter anymore,” she said. “You have men to fight for you.”

“Strong men don’t fight for weak men.” Hilo walked past her to the door. “Have you had breakfast?”

At the patio table, Kyanla brought them bowls of steamed eggs in broth and a plate of pastries. Shae told Hilo about her conversation with Ree Tura and Ayt’s proposal for a formal meeting. “They want to discuss the terms of a truce.”

“A truce .” Her brother made a face. “That bitch has got some nerve.”

Shae took a bread roll and broke it in half. She called to mind Maro’s words from last night, the confidence he’d tried to instill in her. You lead the clan as much as your brother does. You can make a difference. “I think we should agree,” she said.

To her surprise, Hilo did not react immediately. He chewed quietly for several seconds, then said, “Why?”

“I think you know why, Hilo. We’re at an impasse. Tar kicked off another bout of back-and-forth bloodshed, but it’s already petering out. The press coverage has been particularly harsh because everyone knows that by this point, the fighting is pointless. A year and half of open war has sapped both our clans; neither of us is strong enough to win.”

“Ayt tried her damnedest to finish us off last year and failed,” Hilo growled. “Now she comes crawling to us hoping for a truce? Why should we let up when we have the advantage?”

“We don’t have an advantage,” Shae said. “We don’t have the resources or manpower to control the entire city even if we did take down the Mountain. You said it yourself: This war is a boon for criminals and smugglers, and the situation will only get worse so long as the clans keep losing people on both sides. How much longer do you expect we can keep grinding it out for street territory?”

She’d made her point too argumentatively; Hilo gave her a dark look and said, “From what I hear, maybe longer than you can hold on to the office on Ship Street.” Shae grimaced but didn’t look away.

Hilo rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I’m not stupid, Shae,” he said less harshly. “I do look at those reports you put on my desk, once in a while. Jade mining’s halted, tourism’s down, our war expenses are high, people are upset—I get it. But do you believe for one second that Ayt’s suddenly become a different person, that she’s willing to live peacefully from now on?”

Shae wrapped her fingers around the warm bowl of broth. It wasn’t hard to recall the Mountain Pillar’s words to her last year, the utter certainty with which she promised the destruction of No Peak. “No,” Shae said. “Ayt’s staked everything on her vision of one-clan rule.”

“Then no truce will last,” Hilo said. “The Mountain will only use it as an opportunity to build up their strength, to hit us in a worse way later.”

Shae nodded slowly. “It goes both ways, Hilo,” she said. “We need to build up our own strength, to plan a longer game. We can negotiate now and not forget they’re the enemy.”

Hilo slumped back in his chair with a snort of disgust. “People have the brains of chickens. A year ago, the public was on our side, blaming the Mountain for hoarding jade and starting the war. Now they want to forget it all, give Ayt the keys to the KJA again, and have us hold hands nicely.”

“Most people aren’t Green Bones,” Shae reminded him. “It’s not personal for them. They’re worried about the slowing economy, about crime and smuggling, and especially about the separatist crisis in Oortoko turning into a war between the Espenians and the Ygutanians, right here in the East Amaric. We’re going to have the two largest military forces on the planet surrounding our small island, the world’s only source of jade.” Shae studied her brother’s glum expression and added, “ That’s why people don’t care about clan grievances anymore. They don’t just want us to stop fighting; they want us to cooperate to defend national interests. If we don’t, we may be dooming the clans and the country. That’s why we have to agree to meet with the Mountain.” In a quieter voice, “You know it’s what Lan would want us to do.”

“Lan wanted a lot of things that he didn’t get.” Hilo fell silent and stared out across the courtyard. The mornings were warm now, the springtime garden burgeoning with peonies and azaleas in pink and white. Shae waited; she and Hilo had sat out here many times over the past year—in discussion, fierce argument, or silence—and she’d come to recognize the particular feel of his jade aura when she’d finally said something to convince him. Pushing Hilo too hard with factual arguments would only make him irritable and defensive; he needed a genuine and personal reason to justify his choices.

“I have to discuss it with Kehn,” Hilo said at last. He ate the rest of his bread roll in two quick bites and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Tell Ree that we’ll talk. Set a time for after I get back from the Uwiwa Islands.”

Kaul Maik Wen rushed to find her husband in their bedroom, packing up a few belongings for his trip. “Hilo,” she gasped. She hadn’t meant to sound alarmed, but he must’ve Perceived her agitation because he dropped his wallet and talon knife on the bedspread and took her by the arms. “What’s wrong?” he demanded. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Wen said. To tell the truth, she felt exhausted most of the time and had barely kept her breakfast down this morning, but that wasn’t why she’d come running up the stairs. The square envelope and the papers clutched in her hand shook as she held them out to Hilo. “I found this among the papers that you asked me to box up from the study.”

Hilo and Shae had left Lan’s bedroom and his study untouched for so long that upon moving into the main house, Wen had taken it upon herself to deal with the situation. She’d liked Lan a great deal and mourned that she would never know him as a brother-in-law, but the dead no longer had any needs. Better to take care of those who were still living. Wen had moved the furniture out of the bedroom and repainted it; she planned to turn it into a nursery. As part of her encouragement that Hilo change the study to his liking, she’d placed Lan’s belongings and papers into boxes and moved them out. At first Hilo had resisted. “Just leave it; I’m not going to use that room anyway,” he told her. Eventually, he’d seen the necessity and, being more than happy to let her handle it, had asked her to at least sort through the boxes and hang on to anything important before storing or discarding the rest. This morning, she’d been doing just that when she’d found the unopened envelope.